Word: sds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hard life being an SDSer those days and I gave up after a precious few of them. For one thing, I made the startling discovery that SDS meetings were a drag and tended to consume whole evenings at a gulp. For another. I drifted into alternative extracurricular pursuits where people seemed to get on a lot easier with each other and where it was possible to meet a considerably wider assortment. Still, I continued to assume, come the revolution, that I would leap forth-with into the ranks of Harvard's insurgents, whoever they might be. And I continued...
...optation is not in itself evil. But the SDS demands can be met, SDS is exerting pressure for concrete achievements. "Stop squeezing the life out of me" is unanswerable, and its effect ends when the excitement ends. This type of romanticism provides no plateaus where we can stop and rest. If it does not succeed entirely, it will have entirely failed; and the irate alumni will be right-we will have disrupted a great university to lengthen our spring vacation...
True, the SDS politicos had no sense of humor. And, true, it was only when you explained the situation to yourself, not when you listened to their speeches, that their demands sounded proportional to the means they used. But the cops would probably come, so the situation would cease to be humorous, and your means would be dwarfed by the enemy's means. Besides, the demands were just-I was convinced even then that they were just-and since the occupation would take place in any case, why not support it while using it for your own purposes...
During April, all that changed-at least on the surface. SDS members pushed a set of demands to "Stop Harvard Expansion which-although they made good reading for Marxist Leninists-probably wouldn't have helped the housing situation all that much. More than two thousand "moderate" students. in the course of a mass meeting at Soldier's Field passed a different set of demands: for construction of low-income housing in the City and then went back to their rooms little if any wiser about Cambridge than when they had come...
...then that you discover how few are the opportunities Harvard offers. While academically Harvard encourages a healthy dilletantism, extra-curricularly it delights in a frightening professionalism. The Loeb, the CRIMSON, even SDS, demand a commitment that few are willing to give...