Victor Davis Hanson
Oddly, I was not quite the final one to leave the amphitheater.
The speaker herself also had strangely lingered to the last. So, by accident, I met a complete stranger, but apparently a well-known campus radical, at the very moment I reached the main exit aisle. We were the last two there.
She sort of startled me and asked, “How did I do?”
Teens are more blunt than polite, so I said, “You know, I couldn’t hear you very well.”
She scoffed, “Sh*tty sound systems!”
I found that stage amplification incompetence odd, since each weekend in the dorms, the loudest music I had ever heard boomed out from six or seven rooms.
As we walked out toward the road, we passed a new, elegant, black Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon—what passed as a chauffeured limo in those days.
I half thought she would confront the “pig” corporate driver for some such ad hoc protest. After all, from the few words I saw on the ad posters, she must have yelled a lot about “criminals” and “pigs.”
But then a strange thing followed. I stopped to hear her talk to the driver of the specially delivered limousine.
He got out wearing a nice black suit, a Hispanic man in his 60s or later. He recognized her! And he said, “I’m here Ms. —–. I hope I’m not late, but I got lost up here in all these trees and dead-end roads.” She looked around embarrassed, as if to ensure few witnesses, and then politely said to him, “No problem,” and quickly jumped in the back seat. I watched the entire transaction. So off they drove.
So much for my first and only SDS rally.
I had thought from her looks on stage that she was destitute, on welfare, or some sort of campus hobo who drifted onto campus.
Only later, as I walked away, did I conclude that she had waited like me until everyone had left, but for a different reason that no one would then see her, meet her chauffeur, who on that Friday afternoon, was dispatched to drive her home.
A few days later, I remarked to the dorm busybody resident assistant about her A-1 skedaddle. And, I remember over half a century later, he said something to the effect, “Where have you been?”
Then he laughed and told me, she was the scion of a corporate dynasty, and each weekend met her driver to go back home—to Montecito by the sea.
In those days, I was clueless, naïve, but not yet so cynical.
So, I asked the RA know-it-all, “But she’s rich? Why does she want to destroy capitalism?”
“She doesn’t.”
He laughed and then said, “Maybe because she’s rich!” And since when is capitalism the same as your family’s millions? Check with her in a few years to see if the SDS thing is still real. Oh, by the way, did you see her designer luggage?”
I hadn’t.
I liked this guy. His elegant voice resembled a famous Hollywood actor, Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck. He was a senior whom I had assumed was something of a radical himself.
Not!
In fact, I learned he was a cynic, a jester, who claimed that he had dated her and was treated royally at the family digs for a few weekends.
The RA was the first to teach me about another invaluable stereotype—that the greatest campus radicals were usually the most spoiled, affluent, and privileged. They always in the end flew back to the nest that fed them.
What I’ve seen in the 55 years since on campus has more or less proved that sarcasm accurate…
To be continued.
Discussion (9)
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Animal Farm!!!??? An 80 year old story - Is it real? Can this be real? Professor Hanson, Thank You for the true life story that lays bare your personal experience with a truth of a "so called radical" People who shame regular grifters, yet who seem to feel "HOLY" in the doing. Baron, Joseph and Alex, Thank you for your comments. Now I'm impelled to read my dog-eared copy to my grandsons
Thanks for bringing up bad memories. As a baby boomer born in 1951, I have watched the progressive religion make significant changes to our culture. The more they have changed the culture, the angrier the leftists of my generation become. Tyler Robinson is a victim of the culture my generation created. Today, he can live with and love an effeminate boy. The criticism he will receive is minor compared to my youth. Yet, he and his lover are angry people. The progress African Americans have made in society is justified and significant compared to my youth. However, their anger about racism seems to have increased. The more the leftists have successfully changed our culture, the angrier they have become. What is clear to me is that they despise this country and no amount of change will reduce this hatred. They have sold this hatred to younger generations, who seem much unhappier than the kids of the 1950s. Around 1990, my late sister, who was highly involved in her book club, sent me the book Generations: The History of America’s Future 1584 to 2069 by William Strauss and Neil Howe. I have referred to this book to understand the past and see how their predictions were consistent with current events. I am amazed how well it predicted the future, although its predictions are a little vague. For example, it predicted that about now we’d be in the middle of a crisis, which they defined as a war, economic collapse, civil war, or likely a cultural war. Like every generation we all th
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What happened to your podcast?
"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Dr. Hanson, we are about the same age but, truth to tell, I'd forgotten about the SDS until reading this. It brought back a memory of my time at URI. A friend of mine, someone I knew from high school and the brother of a short-lived girlfriend joined the SDS. Since I knew him, I asked "why"? "That's where the girls are" was his answer. He dropped out and, unable to find a job he felt suited him, joined the army. He retired after 20 years...
I attended San Francisco State in 1968 when the Black Student Union/Anti War riot broke out. After about a week and some broken windows, the chancellor, S I Hawakwa just closed the campus down. Bad scene. A group of us migrated to the Northern California woods to start a commune. No body wanted to work so after a few months we all bailed. I went to Mexico and traveled for a year, enjoying the kind hospitality of Mexican people. I clearly remember not seeing a single hippie except for around the University campus in Mexico City. Everyone else was too occupied with the pursuit of just getting by. It took the leisure class to produce a radical.
Same whore. New dress.
"Meet the new boss Same as the old boss."