ABSTRACT
The decline of ideology controversy revolves around a number of issues, of which two are the most important: the meaning of "ideology" and the meaning of "decline." Roy Pierce undertakes a wide-ranging appraisal of the decline of ideology hypothesis with particular reference to the situation in France. The student movement to which Pierce refers in the closing paragraphs of his article becomes the focus of the essay by Michael Novak. Novak considers the students' denunciation of the ideological biases inherent in academic life and their attack upon the ties between the university on the one hand and industry, technology, government, and the military on the other. He is sharply critical of the "pragmatism" of the Old Left and characterizes its emphasis on "consensus" and "equilibrium" as a self-serving ideology of the status quo. Kenneth Keniston discusses the fragmentation of the New Left and faults the movement for its failure to provide a new ideology capable of uniting the various factions.
