… might also be what he said about campus protest culture in 1969. As Governor of California he wrote an essay titled “The Key is Understanding” for a collection titled Seeds of Anarchy: A Study of Campus Revolution, edited by Fritz Wilhelmsen. I can’t find this essay anywhere online, so I have typed up some key paragraphs here. It sounds like it could have been written today; I’ve highlighted a few such lines in bold:
…It may seem incomprehensible that a portion of our population... are attempting to overthrow our democratic way of life. It is equally incomprehensible in a democratic society -which is the pinnacle of man's dream for self-government and dignity- to find so many of its citizens standing mute and helpless while their basic values and fundamental processes are assaulted. Students of history and political philosophy should recognize a condition long anticipated: when the majority is confused, and does not function, society falls into the hands of the most cunning or most powerful.
For some time, the climate of our society has not been conducive to the most responsive and responsible citizenship. I need only cite the letdown which followed World War II, as such periods follow all wars - a sort of recess from social responsibility following a time of total commitment to a cause larger than ourselves. Affluence has played a part in diminishing concern, especially within the middle class- that group which historically has set our basic standards for behavior and a smaller chance of experiencing maturity and good judgment. It weakens pride in meeting challenges and lessens cooperation among individuals.
But the apathy generated by affluence is not the only reason for the uncertainty of the response to violence and insurrection. Popular psychology has had its effect too- the so-called 'progressive' attitude toward child rearing. It is widely supposed that to insist on decent behavior and decent standards is to be 'repressive.' Parents, who since the dawn of history have found in their hearts what is right and found in their heads what made sense, found themselves undercut by these facile but influential psychological theories. Their authority was diminished; they hesitated to exercise it. Among the young, moral uncertainty spread. And the malaise affected those in the society, and in positions of power in the universities, who bore the responsibility for maintaining order and freedom. They hesitated, when to hesitate was to risk being overwhelmed. Even common sense was thrown on the defensive before irrationality and the resolute use of force.
The very complexity of our modern life tends to have a vitiating effect upon the moral will. Within the last two generations we have witnessed a knowledge explosion which, while it has brought great benefits, has also involved hidden costs. There is too much to know; no individual can master more than a small part of it; and specialization is the inevitable result. Even intelligent people become less sure of their opinions on matters beyond the boundaries of their expertise. We have seen men of great intelligence and accomplishment on our campuses succumbing to claims and assertions whose lack of cogency was manifest, and submitting to arguments of a nature they would never approve within their own fields of specialization.In many areas of our national life the values that sustain civilization have been egregiously weakened. Obscenity and pornography have become widespread and increasingly blatant; and we have seen them consciously employed as weapons directed against the norms of our society. The churches themselves, traditionally a source of moral authority, have themselves become weakened. What can people think when a number of clergymen, perhaps seeking notoriety, proclaim a ‘new morality’ - which, in essence, is the old immorality?
Even our technological progress has played a role in creating our dilemma. Progress in agriculture, in business methods and in industry has led to the replacement of men by machines. The effect has been a diminishing of the individual’s sense of his own role and his own responsibility. In addition, this development has made it much more difficult for young people to find decent jobs and to discover the gratifications of real work with real purpose.
These are only a representative few of the changes that have operated to make people less sure of themselves, and which have tended to produce a weakening of our social fabric. Those who are unsure are inclined to withdraw, to leave the field to the noisy few. We have seen an increase in solipsism, a turning away from responsibility. The best, as Yeats wrote, lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity.But by its very nature democratic society, and its characteristic institutions, depend on an active, preponderant majority of civilized human beings, each of whom expresses in his own way the values of the culture. Upon such a civilized majority depend the rights and freedoms which traditionally have been central to our way of life - fair play and mutual obligation, freedom of speech, freedom to inquire and learn. The laws of such a democratic society are designed to protect individuals from those who are not bound by the cultural values of the society. But it is obvious -is it not?- that as an increasing number of individuals are not in fact bound by the norms and values of our society, and, on the other hand, as more and more citizens retreat into uncertainty and uninvolvement, that society will increasingly depend for its survival on laws and their enforcement. Public law will become a substitute for moral suasion and the habits of civility. Control from without will try to compensate for the loss of control from within…
This reminds me of Peter Lawler on America as a middle class nation, where no one's too good for work & no one's too bad for education--Reagan seems to be saying, it's gotten really bad on both fronts. Man's mind & body both seem to be threatened with obsolescence, isolation, or mutilation.