THE AGE OF CONTENTION

THE U.S. was deeply preoccupied with politics and with social ferment at home. Yet the events in France, with the sudden tottering of that tall, human statue, brought a sense of shock and unease. Admittedly, Charles de Gaulle has done his best to harass and embarrass the U.S. in the world. Yet no French leader of this century could have risen to the time as he did. He was a hero because he seemed to outstare history, reversing trends and forces that had seemed irrevocable. In the decade since the general swept into power, France has been transformed from the sick man of Europe into a nation of rekindled purpose, seemingly strong, ambitious, cohesive.

De Gaulle's troubles distress the U.S. not only because they presage a France weak and divided as of old (see THE WORLD). In a less concrete sense, it is disconcerting because what is happening in France can be seen as a harsh paradigm of events the world over. In many places, the familiar leaders seem challenged, the apparently certain is in doubt. What one revolutionary era called "the people," and another referred to as "the masses," are being heard from emphatically and violently.

"This quite remarkable spring," says John Kenneth Galbraith, "will possibly go down as the most contentious since 1848. We are watching a worldwide revolutionary movement." Indeed, the seeds of dissent seem to be sprouting everywhere and almost simultaneously. West German students riot against a democratic coalition government while their Spanish counterparts make Francisco Franco's twilight years uneasy. Harold Wilson's government bobs precariously in a sea of discontent, while in parts of Africa the old tribalism engulfs the new nationalism. In Czechoslovakia, having overturned one of the most obdurate Stalinist regimes to survive in Eastern Europe, libertarian pressure refuses to subside.

Lyndon Johnson's retirement was also a direct, if more gradual, reaction to popular unrest. The anti-establishment forces at work in the U.S. today-black militance, the poor people's crusade, the antiwar movement, student riots and demonstrations over these and other issues--are comparable in causation if not degree to the upheaval in France. In both countries, and many others, the malaise reflects the resentment of those who feel that they have been neglected, ignored or oppressed by outdated, inflexible political and bureaucratic systems.

Irrational Nodules. With walk-out and sit-in, march and riot, the no longer meek can be counted on to continue to demand their social and economic inheritance now. Negro parents of limited education demand a say in the running of ghetto schools. Articulate undergraduates--and not a few faculty members--insist on a meaningful vote in the governance of their own institutions. The poor who march on Washington have a more basic desire: the means for a decent existence. Traditionally passive public servants no longer have qualms about shutting down school or sanitation or transportation systems. Agricultural laborers agitate for the union rights and reasonable wages won long ago by other workers. The antidraft movement has already prompted serious proposals for a more equitable Selective Service process. And in every layer of society are irrational nodules of protest that oppose no crying injustice, espouse no central cause but the assertion of individuality--even if that means anarchy.

The majority of Americans, who know that Lyndon Johnson speaks the truth when he tells them they never had it so good, often find the tumult incomprehensible. Congress senses the mood and refuses to be rushed; it figures that most elections are still decided, as one political analyst put it, by "the un-poor, the un-black and the un-young."

Anarchy v. Authority. It is both easy and valid to argue that many dissenters ignore history; that if they only understood how much conditions have improved since the Great Depression, they would be less dyspeptic today; that if they could feel the reality of the cold war of a decade ago, they would be less prone to pacifism; that if they would acknowledge the rule of law's value in nurturing progress, they might be less hostile to traditional forms; that anarchy can be a harsher master than authority.

Such arguments are frequently irrelevant to the dissenter. He answers that law does not always provide justice; that there are good and bad laws, and that the governed sometimes detect the difference before their governors. Before his unhappy resignation as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, John Gardner observed: "Once the grip of tradition or apathy or oppression has been broken and people can hope for a better life, their aspirations soar. But the institutions that must satisfy these aspirations change at the same old glacial speed."

Burke's Lesson. Luckily for the U.S., some of its institutions have changed with quickening pace. Therein lies one major difference between the U.S. and France in this age of contention. In the U.S., where power is widely diffused, serious dissatisfaction with policies, politicians or institutions can be resolved or at least ameliorated by democratic processes--despite the extremist assertion that "the system" is hopeless. Unlike French workers and students, most Americans with a cause can lodge their protest with the hope of inducing reasonable change by their numbers and their voices rather than by entirely rebuilding society or bringing down an elected government between elections.

"A state without the means of some change," Edmund Burke warned, "is without the means of its own conservation." It is a lesson that Charles de Gaulle largely ignored. Public men today cannot learn it too well; for if one thing is certain, it is that the demands for new solutions and systems are going to grow in number, voracity and volume, and no society on earth will be spared the threat of the angry alternative.

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