Radical Premises in Collegiate Reform

Abstract

While some radicals remain in colleges intending to control them and dedicate them to the creation of a just society, others are more concerned with the new culture or New Age which is emerging, which requires a revolution in con sciousness and a redefinition of personhood and wealth and of the relation of humanity to nature. The very efforts to achieve justice by increasing economic opportunity through higher education for those heretofore denied access are con tributing to the deadly spiral of production and consumption which is endangering the planet and to the narrowly utilitarian and materialistic definition of self which limits human fulfill ment. The New Age discovers a benign abundance in natural process, human association, and the repressed or "unemployed" self. It fosters no-growth economics, decentralization, "soft" technology aimed at self-sufficiency, and ecological balance. Population growth and technological advance have made the goal of full employment unrealistic. Thus to educate people for survival, schools and colleges will have to relinquish their credentializing function and requirements, prepare people for a post-vocational world, and generate cooperative and self- actualizing ethics. It seems so unlikely that university struc tures could be adapted to these ends that many radicals who are very committed to education believe they can work only outside the academy, building a new culture rather than at tempting to convert or undermine existing institutions.