The Radical Consciousness of Dr. Spock The Baby Doctor Is Still Counselling Dissent

THREE YEARS ago, Dr. Benjamin Spock was a defendant in the first conspiracy trial involving protesters against the war. Today he remains gleefully absorbed in urging political dissent.

Interviewed in Boston on April 15, Spock is currently stumping American colleges and universities on behalf of the Civil Liberties Legal Defense Fund (no relation to the Civil Liberties Union).

This is his third year working for the Fund, which has aided draft resisters, GI's, "conspirators," and Black Panthers. "The relatively radical causes of relatively radical people," according to Spock.

"I like to think I'm influencing middle-of-the road students," he says, "but if I'm not doing that, at least I'm raising good money."

He attributes the crowds he draws to "the simple fact that I've been indicted and convicted," referring to the "artificial success conferred on me by the federal government." Originally found guilty in the 1968. Boston Five conspiracy trial, Spock was later acquitted on appeal.

This time around, he is concentrating on the theme of dissent, he said. "The war in Vietnam was my excuse for dissent," he says, but he stresses the importance of action on many issues. "The first Harvard and Columbia strikes are good examples of how a very small minority can swing a majority to their support.... What is this law and order that the authorities are pulling to their support-what do they mean, telling black people they can't riot?" he asks indignantly.

He sticks to this point. "What you have to say to people-and it's more effective to say it to young people-is that justice is the most important thing. People have to help the law catch up with justice." His examples from history include the women's suffrage movement. "For heaven's sake, nothing was accomplished until women started smashing windows-society matrons, knocking the heads off statues."

Speck described a "profound change" of mood on university campuses in the last two years. "Two years ago in a community college, I would get a smattering of hand claps, then a deluge of hostile questions. Now it's hard to get anyone to even present the opposite point of view." Rarely invited to a Southern school two years ago, he has now spoken in every state in the South where even his expressions of support for the Panthers are applauded.

Spock is clearly applause-conscious, mentioning the audiences' response several times in the interview. "These standing ovations," he admits frankly, "I just love it."

ALTHOUGH an avowed admirer of young people, "especially idealistic young people," Spock confessed that he was disappointed at how easily some of them give up. "They're much quicker to arrive at a radical analysis of things but then they shrug their shoulders and say 'oh I tried that and it didn't work,' " he said. "It drives me absolutely frantic," he added.

He does not think the antiwar movement has lost its momentum, but simply that "you can't keep up a fiercely visible resistance 100 per cent of the time."

Spock is optimistic about the Left's ability to expand its traditional class base. Opposition to the war, he said, has been "definitely a class phenomenon," but remarked that now community colleges and high schools, "even in working class neighborhoods," are being politicized.

With regard to the relationship of the white left to the black movement, Spock said, "I think blacks who have become politically aware just can't stand white people. I don't blame them, but from a realistic point of view, I hope we can work together. Obviously, black people aren't going to get justice unless they become more radical and when they do that, they're eradicated. I think the lesser evil is to keep up the pressure."

As to his own political stance, Spock classifies himself as "somewhere between liberal and radical-in this stage of American history, militant and an activist." He is opposed to violence in most circumstances on the grounds that it "wins damn few people to your side."

He hastened-characteristically-to qualify this judgment, however. "I don't want to imply that I'm morally superior to the Weathermen-I'm certainly not as courageous and maybe not as sincere. But that doesn't make them right, necessarily."

Spock identified an imperialist foreign policy as the main target of dissent. Although acutely aware of "industrial, military, political and psychological" control exercised over U. S. citizens, he does not base his opinions on a class or even a political analysis, but rather on a sense of moral outrage.

His major political concern at the moment is the New Party, an infant third party of which he and Gore Vidal are honorary co-chairmen. "We have to have an anti-imperialist foreign policy and for this, we need a new political party." But working for a third party is "very discouraging." he said, but added. "I don't think anything is impossible."

SPOCK is philosophical about the contempt in which he is held by the more radical elements of the "movement." Though he has criticisms of this part of the Left, he is clearly sympathetic. "I've never thought I was ahead of radicals-on the other hand, they're ahead of me. I can only influence the more cautions. My effectiveness is due to my being a respectable professional man. Very few older Americans have any idea that this is an imperialist nation. There's a big education job to be done."

His strongest criticism of the Left is of "those who try to define the 'right' cause narrowly and condemn others a little to the right and a little to the left of them." Spock's basic approach, is summed up in the statement "Everything that works against the evils of society is good. Do anything, but do something ."

He had some strong words about "old liberal types" as well. "I want to make sure I'm not damning liberals," he said, but went on to describe a hypothetical situation. "The [places which] will pay $1000 to hear me are universities and temples. So when they tell me, 'this is the most liberal temple in the Los Angeles area,' I'm terribly disappointed in how small a response I get. There they are, obviously wanting to be on my side, and the second I'm through, they come up with thousands of arguments against me." He called this an example of "overly intellectualized, ambivalent liberals who find it impossible to take a flatfooted stand."

If Spock has swung to the left on many issues, his sexual politics remain fundamentally unchanged. The growth of communal living and the women's liberation movement have not shaken his earlier views on the role of the mother in child care. According to Spock, "Here you'll find me a traditionalist. I'm sure the structure of the family is going to change some more; I know all the weaknesses of family living; I know we don't have a society we can be proud of. But I think up to the age of three a young child needs continuous care by one person, clearly the mother, even if work is shared."

Spock thinks communes should be experimented with, because "we've gone too far in the other direction-isolating the mother and child from other women and children." Although he approves of community day care for older children, he said of child care in the USSR and Israel, "To me, a skeptic, they haven't proved they can produce superior children. They've proved you can bring up average children that way, but I'm an elitist when it comes to raising children."

WOMEN'S liberation has forced some change in Spock's views, however. "Men have to try to understand-I say this autobiographically-try to empathize. Women have to get more justice out of the system." As the interview ended, he suggested that I read the paperback version-just out-of Decent and Indecent, since the hard cover edition "still has the old reactionary stuff."

"I admit I was tactless," he added, apparently chastened after pointed questioning on April 14th at the Law School, where he addressed a course taught by Leonard B. Boudin, visiting professor of Law, a noted constitutional lawyer and Spock's attorney in the Boston conspiracy trial.

It's difficult to simply pigeonhole Spock as a "liberal." He's contradictory but conscious of some-though not all or even most-of his own contradictions. His political effectiveness is limited by his sketchy, occasionally naive, analysis-and to some extent, he knows it. But he can take a "flat-footed stand" without being immobilized by doubt.

"The Left has always gotten more radical, always gone forging ahead," he said. "After the radicals, the cutting edge, have gone on, there's a gap between the movement and the rest of the country. Then people like me go in and try to bridge it."