ABSTRACT
In retrospect, the incoherence of the New Left appears astounding. Every shade of political and moral conviction was united in single and multi-issue campaigns which brought to awareness the rent fabric in the American Joseph's coat. The "intellectual roots" of the New Left were largely a rejection of the traditional, rationalist views; they were part of a political practice, a social regrouping, and a personal will and moralism. The most pressing problem which emerges from the consideration of the New Left's vision is the changing role of the political. The practice of the New Left is consistent with Karl Marx's theoretical practice as ideology-critique: making the world speak the contradictory structures and imperatives which present themselves as fixed, permanent, and natural. The implications of the "revolutionary politics" for the New Left theory are first of all found in its critique of the "Old Left."
