The Worldwide Revolt of the Young

Lowenthal: We face here a worldwide problem, an apparent breakdown of communication between the generations. A significant part of the younger generation seems not to accept the beliefs, values, and institutions that have been handed down to them. This degree of secession of the young is, of course, a familiar phenomenon in pre-revolutionary situations. We have had revolutionary student movements in various countries, in Russia in the nineteenth century, the fascist student movements in our time, and the revolutionary nationalist movements of the Third World —all preceding a political and social upheaval. The difference in this present student secession is that it takes place in apparently functioning societies, societies with full employment and steady economic growth, without stagnation or obvious political repression, not suffering from alien rule, etc. So we have a quasi-revolutionary attitude of the young in a situation that is not thought of as revolutionary by society as a whole.

I would look for the explanation on four different planes, two of which are political and two not. To begin with, this is the second generation of the Cold War. By that I mean that these young people have not lived through the formative crises that created the present division of the world into antagonistic blocs. They have not seen Stalin bestriding Europe; they have not seen the Berlin blockade. These are things they read about in books—books they doubt. They do not believe tha...