Student Unrest in the United States

Abstract

Student movements in the United States, since the year 1905, have shown roughly phases of activity for ten years alternating with phases of calmness. The decline in student activism has been marked by the tragic suicides of several of its leaders. These have reflected the alienation and bitter factionalism engendered among student activists within their movement itself. The last half of the sixties also saw the coalescence of student activism with the use of hal lucinogenic drugs; this has been the most distinctive charac teristic of the new revolutionary consciousness. By the seventies, however, the New Left activists began to lose their moral authority over students generally. Their insistence on generational rebellion as the primary aim, their emphasis on "barbarism" and violence, and their repudiation of honesty led students to reject their leadership. A legacy of regressive anti-intellectualism still persists in communes and campuses. The events of the last seven years have basically confirmed the predictions as to the development of student activism made in accordance with the theory of generational conflict.