The particular forms of violence that flourished in the 1960s seem now to be on the decline: ghetto riots have been tapering off, and the crest of violence touched off by campus protest may have been reached in the years 1967–70. Black militancy is certain to be with us for an indefinite future, and it is a sobering thought that the one major breakdown of the American political system came in association with an unresolved problem of race; but black agitation tends to grow more selective about methods and goals, and it is by no means clear that it must involve large-scale violence or mass casualties. Student activism too seems likely to outlast an American withdrawal from Vietnam, since it rests on a profound cultural malaise that goes beyond any political issue, but it may work at a lower level of emotional intensity. An end to the war would bring about a political and economic climate in which the effort to relieve urban blight and poverty and to come to terms with the demand for racial justice can be resumed under far more favorable conditions than those of the past five or six years. It is a rare thing in our experience to be centrally preoccupied with the same problem for two successive decades, and it is quite conceivable that even a persisting and relatively high level of violence in the 1970s will come to be regarded as a marginal rather than a central problem. At some time in the near future the destruction of the environment, and the problems attendant upon pollution and overpopulation, are likely to take the center of the historical stage and to have such a commanding urgency that all other issues will be dwarfed. . . .
When one considers American history as a whole, it is hard to think of any very long period in which it could be said that the country has been consistently well governed. And yet its political system is, on the whole, a resilient and well-seasoned one, and on the strength of its history one must assume that it can summon enough talent and good will to cope with its afflictions. To cope with them—but not, I think, to master them in any thoroughly decisive or admirable fashion. The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.