Tuesday, October 29, 1968
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
7
SDS leader speaks of radicalism
By DIANE SAMMS Kansan Staff Member
He talks of "radical reformulation of the university" and of the imperative of the Church to live up to its heritage—both in the same breath.
He is Steve Watson, president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at California State College at Long Beach and member of the national general committee of the University Christian Movement (UCM).
"There is something the Christian heritage has to say about life-style, values, organization and being a community of people," Watson said, adding that the New Left Movement is struggling with the same models. "The Christian heritage, if it's reclaimed, is a radical perspective," he said, tossing his shoulder-length hair.
Watson stopped in Lawrence for a day to visit friends and to "rap" with students and campus ministers.
The key to sustaining any movement intent on changing existing structures, as Watson sees it, is in its members developing and sustaining a "celebrational style."
"We must be passionate, alive,
humorous, creative people . . .
able to capture the power of
each other," Watson said, his blue-grey eyes sparkling. "We
must be a people who can dance
together and struggle together.
Dance is part of the struggle."
This "loose seriousness," as he called it, is learning to play with the struggle of what it means to be a whole man.
Part of the struggle Watson sees is against the sexual repression that characterizes the culture. This repression of sensuality—"total, vital contact with all parts of ourselves and things outside ourselves"—must be confronted, the Californian said.
Graphic art work to be presented
A collection of original graphics will be presented by the London Graphic Arts from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday in the Kansas Union South Lounge.
The exhibition will include a collection of lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and silkscreens by both old and modern art masters.
"We talk about black and brown people being oppressed, but we know that all in this society are oppressed. Our liberation depends upon their liberation."
A full collection of contemporary graphics will also be presented.
"Confrontation is education," the visitor said in his characteristically-mild voice. He cited last spring's confrontations at Columbia University as a symbol of challenging students, faculty and administrators to re-evaluate the structure of the university.
Speaking informally last night to a group of eight campus ministers and several students, Watson said that criticisms some have of radical organizations like SDS are valid. "There is a demand to talk about a life-style, alternative structures," he said. "There's a lot the Left has to learn about trusting—about being a community of people."
It is at this point Watson pulls in the UCM and its organizational principle of reformulating the university to reformulate the society in the light of its Christian heritage. "We can no longer keep the university away from the community. We have to talk about the university being the community," he advised, "the Word the Christian heritage has to give is essential to this society."
Next semester, the force of the Movement in southern California will be toward a Global Village set up as a tent city on the campus of the Long Beach college. This manifestation of student power in the form of "counter-education" will last four weeks and is sponsored by the Los Angeles Student Coalition.
As classes continue at the college, the Global Village will lure
students with speakers, films, plays, tapes and art designed to confront students with what education might be, Watson said. Lecturers who have been invited to participate in the Global Village as "radicals in residence" include Jean-Paul Sartre, Erich Fromm, Carl Oglesby, Joan Baez, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Goodman.
The "soon to be 21" son of a Methodist minister left Lawrence to return to classes and to continue building the models for the Global Village. Stating that he is "engaged in education," Watson said he will never get a degree unless it happens by accident. He explained that he takes only classes that he feels are essential to his educational experience.
"My vocation will be a full-time organizer whatever that
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means," he said. "All I know is that I will be at Long Beach until June."
Watson appeared to embody the life-style of one of his literary heroes, Zorba the Greek, whom he sees as "a man who was able to dance upon the ashes of life."
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