The Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, "a living document" authored by Tom Hayden and other members of the SDS and approved at their national meeting near Port Huron, Michigan, on June 11-15, 1962, remains relevant to a large degree in 2007. Port Huron is located about sixty miles from Detroit via I-94; from there, one can easily cross into Canada by bridge. There are several campgrounds in the area, convenient meeting places for various activities.
The entire Port Huron Statement is far too long to include here. The following is an excerpt, broken into digestible bits. How much has changed in the world since 1962? A lot, surely, but not everything:
Feeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the thought that at any moment things might thrust out of control.
We regard men [i.e., people, human beings] as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love.
In affirming these principles we are aware of countering perhaps the dominant conceptions of man in the twentieth century: that he is a thing to be manipulated, and that he is inherently incapable of directing his own affairs.
We oppose the depersonalization that reduces human beings to the status of things -- if anything, the brutalities of the twentieth century teach that means and ends are intimately related, that vague appeals to "posterity" cannot justify the mutilations of the present.
Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the human potentiality for violence, unreason, and submission to authority.
The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern not with image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic: a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness, nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values, nor one which represses all threats to its habits, but one which has full, spontaneous access to present and past experiences, one which easily unites the fragmented parts of personal history, one which openly faces problems which are troubling and unresolved: one with an intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active sense of curiosity, an ability and willingness to learn [-- one sentence!].
Good thoughts, but I wish more people would go by the Gettysburg Address rule: wrap it up quickly and move on.
Today's Rune: Defense.
Today's birthdays include those of Mozart and Lewis Carroll.
Through the Looking Glass, Ciao!
4 comments:
There are alot of simularities between the 60's and the world of today. A controvercial war overseas, racism, poverty, violence in our cities, etc. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Well, I hadn't heard of the Port Huron statement, but yes: wrapping things up and moving on to a next stage sounds promising....
I consider Gitlin's book to be one of the most important things I've ever read. I'd first heard of him when I read "Uptown," about his work organizing in a poor Chicago neighborhood that was, in the sixties, populated mostly by transplanted Appalachians (i.e. hillbillies)
It's interesting, his reflection on how sexist the New Left guys were in retrospective.
Have you read his "Twilight of Common Dreams?"
Thanks, y'all, for the comments --
Laura, right on (as the saying used to go ;) Whatever happened to The Great Society, anyway?
Dannny, Amen.
Johnny, for me, too. Great book, from the Diggers to pop music and everything else. Very true about male sexism in the New Left. I forgot to bring up Jane Fonda and Tom H. -- Jane's out there protesting Iraq now, I think she said first time she's protested since Vietnam. I'll have to check out "Twilight of Common Dreams."
Cheers all!
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