[lit-ideas] Re: The Politician and the Panty Raid

>The thesis of the presentation was that activism in small colleges
was comparable in proportional numbers to activism at say Berkeley and 
UCSD, but was different in kind, more like a family fight than a political
confrontation. <

I'd be surprised if there were much activism at Willamette (Salem OR), Linfield
(McMinnville OR), or Lewis & Clark (on the fringe of Portland). I could be wrong
about Willamette.  

That the activism in small colleges was more like a family fight than a
political confrontation says it exactly; this was certainly true of Reed in
those days, as I tried to suggest. I'm not quite sure though how 'activism' is
quantified. Nobody used a bullhorn at Reed, probably on the grounds that
rational discourse shouldn't be mechanically enhanced. There were no marches or
chants. I'll see if any of my colleagues at PSU can remember the tent on
Broadway.

I've been in exactly one demonstration. At Cornell, I marched around the
quadrangle of the lower campus to support a ban on nuclear testing. The
philosophers were somehow at the front, and as we stood waiting for the starting
gun, a formidable looking woman at the head of the line (a veteran of the
strikes against GE at Schenectady?) turned to us and said, 'Come on, boys, let's
march for peace and freedom!' We marched as if we were part of a funeral
procession while the construction workers on one of the buildings jeered and
hooted.

Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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