Creating the Orthogonal University

( The author was a history major at M.I.T., class of 1969. While there he founded Thursday, which is now the Institute's largest student paper. Having left M.I.T. without a degree, he is now in New York starting a new morning newspaper there. )

AT M.I.T. there is a movement underway called "Orthogonal U." Behind it are frustrated radicals who sense that no meaningful change can be induced within the university and that the only hope for change lies in withdrawing from the university and starting a new one here in Cambridge.

One such radical. Johnny Kabat, was among the first to advocate such "orthogonal institutions," as he called them. Briefly, an orthogonal institution-be it a university or even a business-is one which exists side by side with established institutions, competing for popular approval. Within the orthogonal institution the radicals can work together. They can implement ideas rather than fight over them.

These new radicals say that violence and confrontation may have served a solid positive purpose in the late 1960's by educating and radicalizing the great middle population of the universities. At this point, however, that great middle has, by and large, been radicalized, and the battles are bringing little return in exchange for the jailings and injuries they incur. Burned banks and smashed windows-those are merely a new form of overhead to the super-cor-porations, overhead which pays for itself anyway in the form of new repressions and more Spiro Agnews.

The new strategy is to seize the prize and retreat. The movement has won over most of those who do not have a mental block toward change. The remaining masses, moreover, are not going to be convinced by continued confrontation with an alien ideology. Strategically, a quiet retreat by the radicals while they build "orthogonal institutions" (universities, news perpers, etc.) would have beneficial results.

FIRST, the conservatives would be confused. Eychalls would begin to appear over the tops of their shields as they search for an explanation.

Second, the radicals would no longer suffer the manpower drain that comes with injuries, legal proccedings and imprisonment. The establishment understands the threat posed by physical confrontation, and it reacts accordingly. It cannot as easily grasp and respond to simple withdrawal. The Chicago trial has spoken volumes about the nature of justice in this country. For this reason it was a "good" thing; but another trial will be less meaningful. We have come a long way when Jerry Rubin can get a sustained applause on a late-night talkshow. The people are behind the movement and are ready to mobilize more than their larynxes. Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 76, pleads with us: "I wish that instead of expressing themselves with superficial symbols, the whole youth of the world would come together and hammer out the constitution of the future world, which they can then implement...."

One sees the movement today-replete with its anti-authority impulses-still clinging to the existing institutions, kicking them and urging change. If indeed the movement does not believe in authority and "expertise" then why cling to Harvard or M.I.T. as the great hopes of man? Leave the places.

In Making Do. Paul Goodman said, "If there is no community for you, young man, make it yourself." Harvard and M.I.T. are not community for me. Nor is the New York Times. But I would be denying my own philosophy if I said that I had no where else to turn to. I can turn to myself and my cohorts, and to others alienated by our American gerontocracy. Together we are strong enough to form a university better than Harvard or M.I.T., we are able to start a newspaper better than the New York Times.

IF THE movement can turn, without vengence but with steadfast enthusiasm, to creating an orthogonal university, it will have established a beachhead which will serve it well in changing the remaining institutions, including the government. Such orthogonal institutions will be outstanding, because the people who will work for these institutions include many or most of the best minds in this country. Consistently I found at M.I.T. that the radicals were "A" students, primarily in the natural sciences, not humanities. As in the past, today's leading professors are also the more socially concerned. In the older generation, they were Einstein, Morrison, Oppenheimer, Zacharias, Today, also, they are famous names: Chomsky, Luria, Kampf, Spock, Lynd, Wald. It can be generalized that such persons are not always proud of their association with their respective institutions, but they welcome the security within hostile territory and see "no better place to go."

But there can be a better place to go. The collective brain-power which these persons represent could be a formidable basis for a third university in Cambridge and for new universities around the country. The student body which such a university would attract is equally impressive. The type of student who does not worry about professional accreditation is specifically the type that Orthogonal U. would welcome.

At this point. it need hardly be noted that by simple withdrawal the radicals would be striking a stronger blow to the existing institutions than they could by any direct confrontation. These institutions need the radical students and the radical professors for their academic talent. The reason these institutions have gotten their way in the past is that they have pulled the stronger bluff: they had convinced the students and professors that they had nowhere else to turn.

To me, the first qualification for entering Orthogonal University would be experience in a traditional university. I would propose that the new university be a three-year college with its freshman class drawn from the freshman classes of other universities. With this kind of policy, the tables will turn: Harvard and M.I.T. will have to implement large-scale change just to retain their smartest freshmen.

IN THIS whole proposals style is m?st important. The style of withdrawal must be different from the style of confrontation, or it is just another from of confromtation. A key clement to the success of such a university, as with the success of a newspaper, is that it not be outwardly threatening, but that it generate its own quiet appeal.

Each of us believes, after, all, that the radical analysis is not necessarily threatching to the conservatives. Deep down, the radicals share many long-standing ideals of the conservatives-ininimal governmental authority, even antiiniellectualism (read "anti-expertise"). The use of third-world rhetoric, obscenity and long hair only lends an easy out to the conservative who would like to dismiss radical ideas.

The primary way in which the movement can speak to the conservative person is in terms he already identifies: comfort and security for example. If the older generation, which cannot grasp the concepts of the radicals, can see in them an alternative life-style which is comfortable, happy and secure and non-threatening, then there is good chance that the older generation can be won over. But, at that point it becomes less impotant whether the older generation is won over, because the radicals have their own new institutions.

As Abbie Hoflman said, "When people say to me. 'America love it or leave it.' I just turn to them and say. I already left it." That's the approach I am talking about.

You probably ask where the money for such an undertaking would come from. But what do we need money for.? Marble pillars.? A boat-house? A spacious campus with a chapel? An electron accelerator? A computer for our political science mandarins? Secretaries to type endless manuscripts for non-teaching professors? Deleting these "extras, one could support a university solely on a tuition smaller than Harvard's or M.I.T.'s-and still give scholarships to needy students. Think about it.