Tom Wolfe speaking of the "absolute moral conviction" and "fervor" of the students of the sixties who demanded their dorms become coed:
Well-educated adults, in contrast, were at that moment suffering from a shortage of those two hormones, moral conviction and fervor. That very much included politicians, college presidents, and others in positions of authority.
They were becoming secularized. It had become unfashionable to thump your Bible, as Americans had always tended to do, and say, “It’s wrong! That’s why!” It made you look backward. So what was the basis for your authority, if it wasn’t religion? You had none! You tended to give way when you ran into youths with genuine moral conviction and fervor. Not agree, just yield. Did the students insist on having four courses per semester instead of five, so that they could devote more time to each course? They did, and it was done. Did they insist that they should be integrated, not segregated, by gender in the dormitories, because segregation was so hopelessly reactionary? They did, and it was done. It wasn’t a matter for debate. It was a simple matter of folding in the face of superior moral conviction and fervor.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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