52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
drugs and mysticism and co-operative life. There is a desire among the youth to shut out the secular reality altogether. The women's liberation movement is among the few organized forces which undertake political action. Besides the causes we have discussed, the lack of a significant militancy elsewhere has also undoubtedly contributed to the decline of student dissent. Thus it was suggested earlier that a good deal of student activism was in the nature of a declaration of solidarity with militant minority groups. Containment of these groups was therefore helpful in tranquillizing the students. There is a want of movements in the country which can influence and teach the students on a continuing basis. The American workmg class and its institutions are by and large notoriously conservative. Among the Y intellectuals, the commitment to humanism and radical scholarship is weak or absent so that the education of students on the nature of the society tends to be bland. The eviction of 'subversive9 elements from the academic ranks during the McCarthy era in the early fifties is partly responsible for this state of affairs. Many of the reasons for the student militancy of the last decade still persist, but as a rule the solutions are no longer sought in vigorous social and politial terms.
(I am grateful to George Stern for several discussions and suggestions. The criticisms of Don Salisbury and Cassio Sigaud have also been very valuable).