Animal captivity is the confinement of domestic and wild animals. More specifically, animals that are held by humans and prevented from escaping are said to be in captivity.
The term animal captivity is usually applied to wild animals that are
held in confinement, but this term may also be used generally to
describe the keeping of domesticatedanimals such as livestock or pets. This may include, for example, animals in farms, private homes, zoos, and laboratories. Animal captivity may be categorized according to the particular motives, objectives, and conditions of the confinement.
History
All throughout history, domestic animals like pets and livestock were
kept in captivity and tended by humans. However, pets and livestock
were not the only animals to be put in captivity and receive human care
because wild animals had this as well. Despite the fact that wild
animals have been harbored by humans for thousands of years, this
captivity has not always come close to present zoos. Some were failed
domestication attempts. Furthermore, the wealthy, predominantly the aristocrats
and kings, collected wild animals for various reasons. The affluent
built the first zoos as personal collections to demonstrate their
dominance and wealth. These private collections of animals were known as
menageries. Contrary to domestication, the ferociousness and natural behaviour
of the wild animals were preserved and exhibited. Today, zoos claim to
have other reasons for keeping animals under human care: conservation, education and science.
Behavior of animals in captivity
Captive animals, especially those not domesticated, sometimes can develop abnormal behaviours.
One type of abnormal behaviour is stereotypical behaviors,
i.e. repetitive and apparently purposeless motor behaviors. Examples of
stereotypical behaviours include pacing, self-injury, route tracing and
excessive self-grooming. These behaviors are associated with stress and
lack of stimulation. Animals that exhibit this tend to suffer from zoochosis, as it is manifested in stereotypical behaviors.
Many who keep animals in captivity attempt to prevent or decrease
stereotypical behavior by introducing stimuli, a process known as environmental enrichment.
The goals of environmental enrichment are to make environments more
complex and fluid, offer more engaging and complex processes, and give
animals more chances to make decisions. Techniques that are commonly
used to provide environmental enrichment include social, occupation,
physical, sensory, and nutritional.
Another type of abnormal behavior shown in captive animals is
self-injurious behavior (SIB). Self-injurious behavior indicates any
activity that involves biting, scratching, hitting, hair plucking, or eye poke that may result in injuring oneself.
Although its reported incidence is low, self-injurious behavior is
observed across a range of primate species, especially when they
experience social isolation in infancy.
Self-bite involves biting one's own body—typically the arms, legs,
shoulders, or genitals. Threat bite involves biting one's own
body—typically the hand, wrist, or forearm—while staring at the
observer, conspecific, or mirror in a threatening manner. Self-hit
involves striking oneself on any part of the body. Eye poking is a
behavior (widely observed in primates) that presses the knuckle or finger into the orbital space above the eye socket. Hair plucking is a jerking motion applied to one's own hair with hands or teeth, thus resulting in its excessive removal.
The proximal causes of self-injurious behavior have been widely studied in captive primates;
either social or nonsocial factors can trigger this type of behavior.
Social factors include changes in group composition, stress, separation
from the group, approaches by or aggression from members of other
groups, conspecific male individuals nearby, separation from females, and removal from the group. Social isolation, particularly disruptions of early mother-rearing experiences, is an important risk factor. Studies have suggested that, although mother-reared rhesus macaques still exhibit some self-injurious behaviors, nursery-reared rhesus macaques are much more likely to self-abuse than mother-reared ones.
Nonsocial factors include the presence of a small cut, a wound or
irritant, cold weather, human contact, and frequent zoo visitors.
For example, a study has shown that zoo visitors density positively
correlates with the number of gorillas banging on the barrier, and that
low zoo visitors density caused gorillas to behave in a more relaxed
way. Captive animals often cannot escape the attention and disruption
caused by the general public, and the stress resulting from this lack of
environmental control may lead to an increased rate of self-injurious
behaviors.
There are studies that suggest the many abnormal captive behaviors, including self-injurious behavior,
can be successfully treated by pair housing. Pair housing provides a
previously single-housed animal with a same-sex social partner. This method is especially effective with primates, which are widely known to be social animals.
Social companionship provided by pair housing encourages social
interaction, thus reducing abnormal and anxiety-related behavior in
captive animals as well as increasing their locomotion.
Why animals are placed in captivity
Wild animals may be placed in captivity for conservation, studies, exotic pet trade, and farming. Places of captivity that are connected with the AZA, (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), may hold animals’ captive as a means to save them from extinction.
For example, the AZA SAFE, (Save Animals From Extinction), promotes
well-being and care of animals, conservation, and additional disciplines
in order to protect and aid the wildlife. The organization focuses on
creating recovery plans,
cooperation between AZA workers, and advancement of conservation.
Furthermore, the AZA and the zoos and aquariums accredited with the AZA
use the help of educators, veterinarians,
and people doing research. With their assistance, zoos and aquariums
are able to have the proper necessities needed in recovery programs to
prevent animals from going extinct.
Annually, it is subjected that thousands of wild animals end up in
captivity due to the wild animal trade. These animals can be held in
captivity because of the overabundance of their population in roadside
zoos. Additional reasons as to why animals may end up in captivity is
because animals are captured from their original habitat, come from animal breeders, or come from the black market. When wild animals are captured and held in captivity, then they may be sold in pet stores, auction sales, or the World Wide Web.
Zoos' impact on animal captivity
Zoos are known as a place where visitors come in to see wild animals.
This means zoos may keep animals in confinement. For example, zoos may
keep animals captive as a means to save them from going extinct. More
specifically, in 2020 the Science Advances
published a study where they concluded that the work and population of
human beings has affected the growth of animals going extinct around the
world. The uproar of animals going extinct has caused zoos to use their
captive breeding programs
on endangered animals in an effort to create a stronger population. It
is said that zoos are responsible for reducing the number of animals on
the endangered species list and from extinction.
Zoos could also be known as a place where animals are put into after they are taken out of their natural habitat.
When animals are pulled out from their native habitat and taken to a
location they are unfamiliar with, then it is said that animals may
experience shock and poor mental health. Furthermore, some wild animals
have died inside zoos due to the shock of being placed in an unknown
setting. To be more specific, this can also mean that taking animals
away from their native habitat can possibly disrupt their way of
living.
Before Present (BP) years, also known as "time before present" or "years before present (YBP)", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating
in the 1950s. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is
to use 1 January 1950 as the commencement date (epoch) of the age scale.
The abbreviation "BP" has been interpreted retrospectively as "Before
Physics", which refers to the time before nuclear weapons testing artificially altered the proportion of the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, which scientists must now account for.
In a convention that is not always observed, many sources
restrict the use of BP dates to those produced with radiocarbon dating;
the alternative notation RCYBP stands for the explicit "radio carbon years before present".
Usage
The BP scale is sometimes used for dates established by means other than radiocarbon dating, such as stratigraphy. This usage differs from the recommendation by van der Plicht & Hogg, followed by the Quaternary Science Review, both of which requested that publications should use the unit "a" (for "annum", Latin for "year") and reserve the term "BP" for radiocarbon estimations.
Some archaeologists use the lowercase letters bp, bc and ad as terminology for uncalibrated dates for these eras.
The Centre for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen instead uses the unambiguous "b2k", for "years before 2000 AD", not necessarily, however, often in combination with the GreenlandIce Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05) time scale.
Some authors who use the YBP dating format also use YAP (years after present) to denote years after 1950.
SI prefixes
SI prefix multipliers may be used to express larger periods of time, e.g. ka BP (thousand years BP), Ma BP (million years BP) and many others.
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating was first used in 1949. Beginning in 1954, metrologists established 1950 as the origin year for the BP scale for use with radiocarbon dating, using a 1950-based reference sample of oxalic acid. According to scientist A. Currie Lloyd:
The problem was tackled by the international radiocarbon community in the late 1950s, in cooperation with the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. A large quantity of contemporary oxalic aciddihydrate was prepared as NBS Standard Reference Material (SRM) 4990B. Its 14C
concentration was about 5% above what was believed to be the natural
level, so the standard for radiocarbon dating was defined as 0.95 times
the 14C concentration of this material, adjusted to a 13C
reference value of −19 per mil (PDB). This value is defined as "modern
carbon" referenced to AD 1950. Radiocarbon measurements are compared to
this modern carbon value, and expressed as "fraction of modern" (fM).
"Radiocarbon ages" are calculated from fM using the exponential decay
relation and the "Libby half-life" 5568 a. The ages are expressed in
years before present (BP) where "present" is defined as AD 1950.
The year 1950 was chosen because it was the standard astronomical epoch at that time. It also marked the publication of the first radiocarbon dates in December 1949, and 1950 also antedates large-scale atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, which altered the global ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12.
Dates determined using radiocarbon dating come as two kinds: uncalibrated (also called Libby or raw) and calibrated (also called Cambridge) dates. Uncalibrated
radiocarbon dates should be clearly noted as such by "uncalibrated
years BP", because they are not identical to calendar dates. This has to
do with the fact that the level of atmospheric radiocarbon (carbon-14 or 14C)
has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be
radiocarbon-dated. Uncalibrated radiocarbon ages can be converted to
calendar dates by calibration curves based on comparison of raw radiocarbon dates of samples independently dated by other methods, such as dendrochronology
(dating based on tree growth-rings) and stratigraphy (dating based on
sediment layers in mud or sedimentary rock). Such calibrated dates are
expressed as cal BP, where "cal" indicates "calibrated years", or
"calendar years", before 1950.
Many scholarly and scientific journals require that published
calibrated results be accompanied by the name (standard codes are used)
of the laboratory concerned, and other information such as confidence
levels, because of differences between the methods used by different
laboratories and changes in calibrating methods.
Conversion
Conversion from Gregorian calendar
years to Before Present years is by starting with the 1950-01-01 epoch
of the Gregorian calendar and increasing the BP year count with each
year into the past from that Gregorian date.
For example, 1000 BP corresponds to 950 AD, 1949 BP corresponds
to 1 AD, 1950 BP corresponds to 1 BC, 2000 BP corresponds to 51 BC.
A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/cute appearances, intelligence, and relatable personalities, but some pets may be taken in on an altruistic basis (such as a stray animal) and accepted by the owner regardless of these characteristics.
Pets provide their owners, or guardians, both physical and emotional benefits. Walking a dog can provide both the human and the dog with exercise, fresh air, and social interaction.
Pets can give companionship to people who are living alone or elderly
adults who do not have adequate social interaction with other people.
There is a medically approved class of therapy animals that are brought to visit confined humans, such as children in hospitals or elders in nursing homes.
Pet therapy utilizes trained animals and handlers to achieve specific
physical, social, cognitive, or emotional goals with patients.
People most commonly get pets for companionship, to protect a
home or property, or because of the perceived beauty or attractiveness
of the animals.
A 1994 Canadian study found that the most common reasons for not owning
a pet were lack of ability to care for the pet when traveling (34.6%),
lack of time (28.6%), and lack of suitable housing (28.3%), with dislike
of pets being less common (19.6%). Some scholars, ethicists, and animal rights organizations have raised concerns over keeping pets because of the lack of autonomy and the objectification of non-human animals.
Pet popularity
In China, spending on domestic animals has grown from an estimated
$3.12 billion in 2010 to $25 billion in 2018. The Chinese people own 51
million dogs and 41 million cats, with pet owners often preferring to
source pet food internationally. There are a total of 755 million pets, increased from 389 million in 2013.
According to a survey promoted by Italian family associations in
2009, it is estimated that there are approximately 45 million pets in
Italy. This includes 7 million dogs, 7.5 million cats, 16 million fish,
12 million birds, and 10 million snakes.
A 2007 survey by the University of Bristol
found that 26% of UK households owned cats and 31% owned dogs,
estimating total domestic populations of approximately 10.3 million cats
and 10.5 million dogs in 2006.
The survey also found that 47.2% of households with a cat had at least
one person educated to degree level, compared with 38.4% of homes with
dogs.
Sixty-eight percent of U.S. households, or about 85 million
families, own a pet, according to the 2017-2018 National Pet Owners
Survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA). This
is up from 56 percent of U.S. households in 1988, the first year the
survey was conducted. There are approximately 86.4 million pet cats and approximately 78.2 million pet dogs in the United States,
and a United States 2007–2008 survey showed that dog-owning households
outnumbered those owning cats, but that the total number of pet cats was
higher than that of dogs. The same was true for 2011. In 2013, pets outnumbered children four to one in the United States.
Most popular pets in the U.S. (millions)
Pet
Global population
U.S. population
U.S. inhabited households
U.S. average per inhabited household
Cat
202
93.6
38.2
2.45
Dog
171
77.5
45.6
1.70
Fish
N/A
171.7
13.3
12.86
Small mammals
N/A
15.9
5.3
3.00
Birds
N/A
15.0
6.0
2.50
Reptiles & amphibians
N/A
13.6
4.7
2.89
Equine
N/A
13.3
3.9
3.41
Effects on pets' health
Keeping animals as pets may be detrimental to their health if certain
requirements are not met. An important issue is inappropriate feeding,
which may produce clinical effects. The consumption of chocolate or grapes by dogs, for example, may prove fatal. Certain species of houseplants can also prove toxic if consumed by pets. Examples include philodendrons and Easter lilies, which can cause severe kidney damage to cats, and poinsettias, begonia, and aloe vera, which are mildly toxic to dogs.
For birds, chocolate can be deadly, and foods intended for human
consumption, such as bread, crackers, and dairy items, can potentially
cause health problems.
Housepets, particularly dogs and cats in industrialized societies, are highly susceptible to obesity.
Overweight pets have been shown to be at a higher risk of developing
diabetes, liver problems, joint pain, kidney failure, and cancer. Lack
of exercise and high-caloric diets are considered to be the primary
contributors to pet obesity.
Effects of pets on their caregivers' health
Health benefits
It is widely believed among the public, and among many scientists,
that pets probably bring mental and physical health benefits to their
owners; a 1987 NIH statement cautiously argued that existing data was "suggestive" of a significant benefit. A recent dissent comes from a 2017 RAND study, which found that at least in the case of children, having a pet per se
failed to improve physical or mental health by a statistically
significant amount; instead, the study found children who were already
prone to being healthy were more likely to get pets in the first place. Conducting long-term randomized trials to settle the issue would be costly or infeasible.
Observed correlations
Pets might have the ability to stimulate their caregivers, in
particular the elderly, giving people someone to take care of, someone
to exercise with, and someone to help them heal from a physically or
psychologically troubled past.
Animal company can also help people to preserve acceptable levels of
happiness despite the presence of mood symptoms like anxiety or
depression.
Having a pet may also help people achieve health goals, such as lowered
blood pressure, or mental goals, such as decreased stress. There is evidence that having a pet can help a person lead a longer,
healthier life. In a 1986 study of 92 people hospitalized for coronary
ailments, within a year, 11 of the 29 patients without pets had died,
compared to only 3 of the 52 patients who had pets. Having pet(s) was shown to significantly reduce triglycerides, and thus heart disease risk, in the elderly.
A study by the National Institute of Health found that people who owned
dogs were less likely to die as a result of a heart attack than those
who did not own one. There is some evidence that pets may have a therapeutic effect in dementia cases. Other studies have shown that for the elderly, good health may be a requirement for having a pet, and not a result. Dogs trained to be guide dogs can help people with vision impairment. Dogs trained in the field of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) can also benefit people with other disabilities.
Pets in long-term care institutions
People residing in a long-term care facility, such as a hospice or
nursing home, may experience health benefits from pets. Pets help them
to cope with the emotional issues related to their illness. They also
offer physical contact with another living creature, something that is
often missing in an elder's life.Pets for nursing homes are chosen based on the size of the pet, the
amount of care that the breed needs, and the population and size of the
care institution. Appropriate pets go through a screening process and, if it is a dog, additional training programs to become a therapy dog.
There are three types of therapy dogs: facility therapy dogs,
animal-assisted therapy dogs, and therapeutic visitation dogs. The most
common therapy dogs are therapeutic visitation dogs. These dogs are
household pets whose handlers take time to visit hospitals, nursing
homes, detention facilities, and rehabilitation facilities.
Different pets require varying amounts of attention and care; for
example, cats may have lower maintenance requirements than dogs.
Connection with community
In addition to providing health benefits for their owners, pets also
impact the social lives of their owners and their connection to their
community. There is some evidence that pets can facilitate social
interaction.
Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at
Boulder, Leslie Irvine has focused her attention on pets of the homeless
population. Her studies of pet ownership among the homeless
found that many modify their life activities for fear of losing their
pets. Pet ownership prompts them to act responsibly, with many making a
deliberate choice not to drink or use drugs, and to avoid contact with
substance abusers or those involved in any criminal activity for fear of
being separated from their pet. Additionally, many refuse to house in
shelters if their pet is not allowed to stay with them.
Health risks
Health risks that are associated with pets include:
Falling injuries.
Tripping over pets, especially dogs causes more than 86,000 falls
serious enough to prompt a trip to the emergency room each year in the
United States. Among elderly and disabled people, these falls have resulted in life-threatening injuries and broken bones.
Injury, mauling, and sometimes death caused by pet bites and attacks
Disease or parasites due to animal hygiene problems, lack of appropriate treatment, and undisciplined behavior (feces and urine)
Stress caused by the behavior of animals
Anxiety over who will care for the animal should the owner no longer be able to do so
The European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals is a 1987 treaty of the Council of Europe
– but accession to the treaty is open to all states in the world – to
promote the welfare of pet animals and ensure minimum standards for
their treatment and protection. It went into effect on 1 May 1992, and
as of June 2020, it has been ratified by 24 states.
States, cities, and towns in Western countries
commonly enact local ordinances to limit the number or kind of pets a
person may keep personally or for business purposes. Prohibited pets may
be specific to certain breeds such as pit bulls or Rottweilers, they may apply to general categories of animals (such as livestock, exotic animals, wild animals, and canid or felid
hybrids), or they may simply be based on the animal's size. Additional
or different maintenance rules and regulations may also apply. Condominium associations and owners of rental properties also commonly limit or forbid tenants' keeping of pets.
In Belgium and the Netherlands, the government publishes white lists and black lists
(called 'positive' and 'negative lists') with animal species that are
designated to be appropriate to be kept as pets (positive) or not
(negative). The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy originally established its first positive list (positieflijst) per 1 February 2015 for a set of 100 mammals (including cats, dogs and production animals) deemed appropriate as pets on the recommendations of Wageningen University.
Parliamentary debates about such a pet list date back to the 1980s,
with continuous disagreements about which species should be included and
how the law should be enforced.
In January 2017, the white list was expanded to 123 species, while the
black list that had been set up was expanded (with animals like the brown bear and two great kangaroo species) to contain 153 species unfit for petting, such as the armadillo, the sloth, the European hare, and the wild boar.
In January 2011, the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain
stated that people are not allowed to kill random cats walking in their
garden, but "nowhere in the law does it say that you can't eat your
cat, dog, rabbit, fish or whatever. You just have to kill them in an
animal-friendly way."
Since 1 July 2014, it is illegal in the Netherlands for owners to kill
their own cats and dogs kept as pets. Parakeets, guinea pigs, hamsters
and other animals may still be killed by their owners, but nonetheless
when owners mistreat their companion animals (for example, in the
process of killing them), the owners can still be prosecuted under Dutch
law.
Environmental impact
Pets have a considerable environmental impact, especially in
countries where they are common or held in high densities. For instance,
the 163 million dogs and cats kept in the United States consume about
20% of the amount of dietary energy that humans do and an estimated 33%
of the animal-derived energy. They produce about 30% ± 13%, by mass, as much feces as Americans, and through their diet, constitute about 25–30% of the environmental impacts from animal production
in terms of the use of land, water, fossil fuel, phosphate, and
biocides. Dog and cat animal product consumption is responsible for the
release of up to 64 ± 16 million tons CO2-equivalent methane and nitrous oxide, two powerful greenhouse gasses. Americans are the largest pet owners in the world, but pet ownership in the US has considerable environmental costs.
Types
While many people have kept many different species of animals in
captivity over the course of human history, only a relative few have
been kept long enough to be considered domesticated. Other types of animal, notably monkeys,
have never been domesticated but are still sold and kept as pets. Some
wild animals are kept as pets, such as tigers, even though this is
illegal. There is a market for illegal pets.
Domesticated
Domesticated pets are most common. A domesticated animal is a species that has been made fit for a human environment, by being consistently kept in captivity and selectively bred
over a long enough period of time that it exhibits marked differences
in behavior and appearance from its wild relatives. Domestication
contrasts with taming, which is simply when an un-domesticated, wild animal has become tolerant of human presence, and perhaps even enjoys it.
Wild animals are kept as pets. The term wild in this context
specifically applies to any species of animal which has not undergone a
fundamental change in behavior to facilitate a close co-existence with
humans. Some species may have been bred in captivity for a considerable
length of time, but are still not recognized as domesticated.
Generally, wild animals are recognized as not suitable to keep as
pets, and this practice is completely banned in many places. In other
areas, certain species are allowed to be kept, and it is usually
required for the owner to obtain a permit. It is considered animal cruelty
by some, as most often, wild animals require precise and constant care
that is very difficult to meet in captive conditions. Many large and
instinctively aggressive animals are extremely dangerous, and numerous
times have they killed their handlers.
History
Prehistory
Archaeology suggests that human ownership of dogs as pets may date back to at least 12,000 years ago.
Ancient history
Ancient Greeks and Romans would openly grieve for the loss of a dog, evidenced by inscriptions left on tombstones commemorating their loss.
The surviving epitaphs dedicated to horses are more likely to reference
a gratitude for the companionship that had come from war horses rather
than race horses. The latter may have chiefly been commemorated as a way
to further the owner's fame and glory. In Ancient Egypt,
dogs and baboons were kept as pets and buried with their owners. Dogs
were given names, which is significant as Egyptians considered names to
have magical properties.
Victorian era: the rise of modern pet keeping
Throughout the 17th and 18th-century pet keeping in the modern sense gradually became accepted throughout Britain.
Initially, aristocrats kept dogs for both companionship and hunting.
Thus, pet keeping was a sign of elitism within society. By the 19th
century, the rise of the middle class stimulated the development of pet
keeping and it became inscribed within the bourgeois culture.
Economy
As the popularity of pet-keeping in the modern sense rose during the Victorian era, animals became a fixture within urban culture as commodities and decorative objects.
Pet keeping generated a commercial opportunity for entrepreneurs. By
the mid-19th century, nearly twenty thousand street vendors in London
dealt with live animals.
The popularity of animals also developed a demand for animal goods such
as accessories and guides for pet keeping. Pet care developed into a
big business by the end of the nineteenth century.
Profiteers also sought out pet stealing as a means for economic
gain. Utilizing the affection that owners had for their pets,
professional dog stealers would capture animals and hold them for
ransom.
The development of dog stealing reflects the increased value of pets.
Pets gradually became defined as the property of their owners. Laws were
created that punished offenders for their burglary.
Social
Pets and animals also had social and cultural implications throughout
the nineteenth century. The categorization of dogs by their breeds
reflected the hierarchical, social order of the Victorian era. The pedigree of a dog represented the high status and lineage of their owners and reinforced social stratification.
Middle-class owners valued the ability to associate with the
upper-class through ownership of their pets. The ability to care for a
pet signified respectability and the capability to be self-sufficient.
According to Harriet Ritvo, the identification of "elite animal and
elite owner was not a confirmation of the owner's status but a way of
redefining it."
Entertainment
The popularity of dog and pet keeping generated animal fancy. Dog fanciers showed enthusiasm for owning pets, breeding dogs, and showing dogs in various shows. The first dog show took place on 28 June 1859 in Newcastle and focused mostly on sporting and hunting dogs. However, pet owners produced an eagerness to demonstrate their pets as well as have an outlet to compete.
Thus, pet animals gradually were included within dog shows. The first
large show, which would host one thousand entries, took place in Chelsea
in 1863. The Kennel Club was created in 1873 to ensure fairness and organization within dog shows. The development of the Stud Book
by the Kennel Club defined policies, presented a national registry
system of purebred dogs, and essentially institutionalized dog shows.
Pet ownership by non-humans
Pet ownership by animals in the wild, as an analogue to the human
phenomenon, has not been observed and is likely non-existent in nature. One group of capuchin monkeys was observed appearing to care for a marmoset, a fellow New World monkey species, however observations of chimpanzees apparently "playing" with small animals like hyraxes have ended with the chimpanzees killing the animals and tossing the corpses around.
A 2010 study states that human relationships with animals have an
exclusive human cognitive component and that pet-keeping is a
fundamental and ancient attribute of the human species. Anthropomorphism,
or the projection of human feelings, thoughts and attributes on to
animals, is a defining feature of human pet-keeping. The study
identifies it as the same trait in evolution responsible for domestication and concern for animal welfare. It is estimated to have arisen at least 100,000 years before present (ybp) in Homo sapiens.
It is debated whether this redirection of human nurturing behaviour towards non-human animals, in the form of pet-keeping, was maladaptive, due to being biologically costly, or whether it was positively selected for.
Two studies suggest that the human ability to domesticate and keep pets
came from the same fundamental evolutionary trait and that this trait
provided a material benefit in the form of domestication that was
sufficiently adaptive to be positively selected for. A 2011 study suggests that the practical functions that some pets provide, such as assisting hunting or removing pests,
could have resulted in enough evolutionary advantage to allow for the
persistence of this behaviour in humans and outweigh the economic burden
held by pets kept as playthings for immediate emotional rewards.
Two other studies suggest that the behaviour constitutes an error, side
effect or misapplication of the evolved mechanisms responsible for
human empathy and theory of mind to cover non-human animals which has not sufficiently impacted its evolutionary advantage in the long run.
Animals in captivity, with the help of caretakers, have been considered to have owned "pets". Examples of this include Koko the gorilla who had several pet cats, Tonda the orangutan and a pet cat and Tarra the elephant and a dog named Bella.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left.
Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and
parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a
broad exercise in "participatory democracy".
From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the course of the tumultuous
decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded
nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization
splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to
impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary"
positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power.
A new national network for left-wing student organizing, also calling itself Students for a Democratic Society, was founded in 2006.
The Port Huron Statement
decried what it described as "disturbing paradoxes": that the world's
"wealthiest and strongest country" should "tolerate anarchy as a major
principle of international conduct"; that it should allow "the
declaration 'all men are created equal...'"
to ring "hollow before the facts of Negro life"; that, even as
technology creates "new forms of social organization", it should
continue to impose "meaningless work and idleness"; and with two-thirds
of mankind undernourished that its "upper classes" should "revel amidst
superfluous abundance".
In searching for "the spark and engine of change" the authors
disclaimed any "formulas" or "closed theories". Instead, "matured" by
"the horrors of a century" in which "to be idealistic is to be
considered apocalyptic", Students for a Democratic Society would seek a
"new left ... committed to deliberativeness, honesty [and] reflection."
The Statement proposed the university, with its "accessibility to
knowledge" and an "internal openness", as a "base" from which students
would "look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for
justice." "The bridge to political power" would be "built through
genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a
new left of young people and an awakening community of allies." It was
to "stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and
program in campus and community across the country" that the SDS were
committed.
For the sponsoring League for Industrial Democracy there was an
immediate issue. The Statement omitted the LID's standard denunciation
of communism: the regret it expressed at the "perversion of the older
left by Stalinism" was too discriminating, and its references to Cold
War tensions too even handed. Hayden, who had succeeded Haber as SDS
president, was called to a meeting where, refusing any further
concession, he clashed with Michael Harrington (as he later would with Irving Howe).
As security against "a united-front style takeover of its youth
arm" the LID had inserted a communist-exclusion clause in the SDS
constitution. When in 1965 those who considered this too obvious a
concession to the Cold-War doctrines of the right succeeded in removing
the language, there was a final parting of the ways. The students' tie
to their parent organization was severed by mutual agreement.
In drafting the Port Huron Statement, Hayden acknowledged the influence of a Bowdoin-College
German-exchange student, Michael Vester. He encouraged Hayden to be
more explicit about the contradictions "between political democracy and
economic concentration of power", and to take a more international
perspective. Vester was to be the first of a number of close connections between the American SDS and the West German SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund), a student movement that was to follow a similar trajectory.
1962–1964: Organize your own
In the academic year 1962–1963, the President was Hayden, the Vice President was Paul Booth,
and the National Secretary was Jim Monsonis. There were nine chapters
with, at most, about 1000 members. The National Office (NO) in New York City
consisted of a few desks, some broken chairs, a couple of file cabinets
and a few typewriters. As a student group with a strong belief in
decentralization and a distrust for most organizations, the SDS had not
developed, and was never to develop, a strong central directorate.
National Office staffers worked long hours for little pay to service the
local chapters, and to help establish new ones. Following the lead of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), most activity was oriented toward the civil rights struggle.
By the end of the academic year, there were over 200 delegates at the annual convention at Pine Hill, New York,
from 32 different colleges and universities. The convention chose a
confederal structure. Policy and direction would be discussed in a
quarterly conclave of chapter delegates, the National Council. National
officers, in the spirit of "participatory democracy", would be selected
annually by consensus. Lee Webb of Boston University was chosen as National Secretary, and Todd Gitlin of Harvard University was made president.
However, within the Congress of Racial Equality, and within the SNCC (particularly after the 1964 Freedom Summer), there was the suggestion that white activists might better advance the cause of civil rights by organising "their own". At the same time, for many, 1963–64 was the academic year in which white poverty was discovered. Michael Harrington's The Other America "was the rage".
Conceived in part as a response to the gathering danger of a "white backlash," and with $5,000 from United Automobile Workers, Tom Hayden promoted an Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). SDS community organizers would help draw neighbourhoods, both black and white, into an "interracial movement of the poor". By the end of 1964 ERAP had ten inner-city projects engaging 125 student volunteers.
Ralph Helstein, president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, arranged for Hayden and Gitlin to meet with Saul Alinsky
who, with twenty-five years experience in Chicago and across the
country, was the acknowledged father of community organizing. To
Helstein's dismay Alinsky dismissed the SDSers' venture into the field
as naive and doomed to failure. Their view of the poor and of what could
be achieved by consensus was absurdly romantic. Placing a premium on
strong local leadership, structure and accountability, Alinsky's
"citizen participation" was something "fundamentally different" from the
"participatory democracy" envisaged by Hayden and Gitlin.
With the election of new leadership at the July 1964 national SDS
convention there was already dissension. With the "whole balance of
the organisation shifted to ERAP headquarters in Ann Arbor", the new National Secretary, C. Clark Kissinger
cautioned against "the temptation to 'take one generation of campus
leadership and run!' We must instead look toward building the campus
base as the wellspring of our student movement."
Gitlin's successor as president, Paul Potter, was blunter. The emphasis
on "the problems of the dispossessed" had been misplaced: "It is
through the experience of the middle class and the anesthetic of
bureaucracy and mass society that the vision and program of
participatory democracy will come—if it is to come."
Hayden, who committed himself to community organizing in Newark (there to witness the "race riots" in 1967)
later suggested that if ERAP failed to build to greater success it was
because of the escalating U.S. commitment in Vietnam: "Once again the
government met an internal crisis by starting an external crisis." Yet
there were ERAP volunteers more than ready to leave their storefront
offices and heed the anti-war call to return to campus. Tending to the
"less exotic struggles" of the urban poor had been a dispiriting
experience.
However much the volunteers might talk at night about
"transforming the system", "building alternative institutions," and
"revolutionary potential", credibility on the doorstep rested on their
ability to secure concessions from, and thus to develop relations with,
the local power structures. Regardless of the agenda (welfare checks,
rent, day-care, police harassment, garbage pick-up) the daytime reality
was of delivery built "around all the shoddy instruments of the state."
ERAP had seemed to trap the SDSers in "a politics of adjustment".
Lyndon B. Johnson's
landslide in the November 1964 presidential election swamped
considerations of Democratic-primary, or independent candidature,
interventions—a path that had been tentatively explored in a Political
Education Project. Local chapters expanded activity across a range of
projects, including University reform, community-university relations,
and were beginning to focus on the issue of the draft and Vietnam War. They did so within the confines of university bans on on-campus political organization and activity.
While students at Kent State, Ohio, had been protesting for the
right to organize politically on campus a full year before, it is the
televised birth of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley that is generally recognized as the first major challenge to campus governance.
On October 1, 1964, crowds of upwards of three thousand students
surrounded a police cruiser holding a student arrested for setting up an
informational card table for the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE). The sit-down prevented the car from moving for 32 hours. By the
end of the year, demonstrations, meetings and strikes all but shut the
university down. Hundreds of students were arrested.
1965–1966: Free Universities, and the Draft
In February 1965, President Johnson dramatically escalated the war in Vietnam. He ordered the bombing of North Vietnam (Operation Flaming Dart) and committed ground troops to fight the Viet Cong
in the South. Campus chapters of SDS all over the country started to
lead small, localized demonstrations against the war. On April 17 the
National Office coordinated a march in Washington. Co-sponsored by Women Strike for Peace, and with endorsements from nearly all of the other peace groups, 25,000 attended. The first teach-in against the war was held in the University of Michigan,
followed by hundreds more across the country. The SDS became recognized
nationally as the leading student group against the war.
The National Convention in Akron (which FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported was attended by "practically every subversive organization in the United States") selected as President Carl Oglesby
(Antioch College). He had come to SDSers' attention with an article
against the war, written while he had been working for a defense
contractor. The Vice President was Jeff Shero from the increasingly
influential University of Texas chapter in Austin. Consensus, however, was not reached on a national program.
At the September National Council meeting "an entire cacophony of
strategies was put forward" on what had clearly become the central
issue, Vietnam. Some urged negotiation, others immediate U.S.
withdrawal, still others Viet-Cong victory. "Some wanted to emphasize
the moral horror of the war, others concentrated on its illegality, a
number argued that it took funds away from domestic needs, and a few
even then saw it as an example of 'American imperialism'.
This was Oglesby's developing position. Thereafter, on November 27, at
an anti-war demonstration in Washington, when Oglesby suggested that
U.S. policy in Vietnam was essentially imperialist, and then called for
an immediate ceasefire, he was wildly applauded and nationally reported.
The new, more radical, and uncompromising anti-war profile this
suggested, appeared to drive the growth in membership. The influx
discomfited older members like Todd Gitlin who, as he later conceded,
simply had no "feel" for an anti-war movement.
No consensus was reached as to what role the SDS should play in
stopping the war. A final attempt by the old guard at a "rethinking
conference" to establish a coherent new direction for the organization
failed. The conference, held on the University of Illinois campus at
Champaign-Urbana over Christmas vacation, 1965, was attended by about
360 people from 66 chapters, many of whom were new to SDS. Despite a
great deal of discussion, no substantial decisions were made.
SDS chapters continued to use the draft as a rallying issue. Over
the rest of the academic year, with the universities supplying the
Selective Service Boards with class ranking, SDS began to attack
university complicity in the war. The University of Chicago's
administration building was taken over in a three-day sit-in in May.
"Rank protests" and sit-ins spread to many other universities. The war,
however, was not the only issue driving the newfound militancy. There
were new and growing calls to seriously question a college experience
that the Port Huron Statement had described as "hardly distinguishable
from that of any other communications channel—say, a television set."
Students were to start taking responsibility for their own education.
By the fall of 1965, largely under SDS impetus, there were
several "free universities" in operation: in Berkeley, SDS reopened the
New School offering "'Marx and Freud,' 'A Radical Approach to Science,' 'Agencies of Social
Change and the New Movements'; in Gainesville, a Free University of Florida
was established, and even incorporated; in New York, a Free University
was begun in Greenwich Village, offering no fewer than forty-four
courses ('Marxist Approaches to the Avant-garde Arts', 'Ethics and
Revolution', 'Life in Mainland China Today'); and in Chicago, something
called simply The School began with ten courses ('Neighborhood
Organization and Nonviolence', 'Purposes of Revolution'). By the end of
1966 there were perhaps fifteen. Universities understood the challenge,
and soon began to offer seminars run on similar student-responsive
lines, beginning what SDSers saw as a "liberal swallow-up".
The summer convention of 1966 was moved farther west, to Clear Lake, Iowa. Nick Egleson was chosen as president, and Carl Davidson
was elected vice president. Jane Adams, former Mississippi Freedom
Summer volunteer and SDS campus traveler in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and
Missouri, was elected Interim National Secretary. That fall, her
companion Greg Calvert, recently a History Instructor at Iowa State University, became National Secretary.
The convention marked a further turn towards organization around campus
issues by local chapters, with the National Office cast in a strictly
supporting role. Campus issues ranged from bad food, powerless student
"governments", various in loco parentis manifestations, on-campus recruiting for the military and, again, ranking for the draft.
Despite the absence of a politically effective campus SDS
chapter, Berkeley again became a center of particularly dramatic radical
upheaval over the university's repressive anti-free-speech actions. One
description of the convening of an enthusiastically supported student
strike suggests the distance travelled from both the Left, and the civil
rights, roots of earlier activism. Over "a sea of cheering bodies"
before the Union building a twenty-foot banner proclaimed "Happiness Is
Student Power". A booming address announced:
We're giving notice today, all of us, that we reject the
notion that we should be patient and work for gradual change. That's the
old way. We don't need the Old Left. We don't need their ideology or
the working class, those mythical masses who are supposed to rise up and
break their chains. The working class in this country is moving to the
right. Students are going to be the revolutionary force in this country.
Students are going to make the revolution because we have the will.
After a three-hour open mike meeting in the Life Sciences building,
instead of closing with the civil-rights anthem "We Shall Overcome", the
crowd "grabbed hands and sang the chorus to 'Yellow Submarine'".
SDSers understanding of their "own" was increasingly colored by the country's exploding countercultural
scene. There were explorations—some earnest, some playful—of the
anarchist or libertarian implications of the commitment to participatory
democracy. At the large and active University of Texas chapter in
Austin, The Rag, an underground newspaper founded by SDS leaders Thorne Dreyer
and Carol Neiman has been described as the first underground paper in
the country to incorporate the "participatory democracy, community
organizing and synthesis of politics and culture that the New Left of
the midsixties was trying to develop."
Inspired by a leaflet distributed by some poets in San Francisco,
and organized by the Rag and the SDS in the belief that "there is
nothing wrong with fun", a "Gentle Thursday" event in the fall of 1966
drew hundreds of area residents, bringing kids, dogs, balloons, picnics
and music, to the UT West Mall. A summary ban by the UT administration
ensured an even bigger, more enthusiastic, turnout for the second Gentle
Thursday in the spring of 1967. Part of "Flipped Out Week", organized
in coordination with a national mobilization against the war, it was a
more defiant and overtly political affair. It included appearances by
Stokley Carmichael, beat-poet Allen Ginsberg, and anti-war protests at the Texas State Capitol during a visit by Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. The example set a precedent for campus events across the country.
1967–1968: Stop the War
The winter and spring of 1967 saw an escalation in the militancy of
campus protests. Demonstrations against military-contractors and other
campus recruiters were widespread, and ranking and the draft issues grew
in scale. The school year had started with a large demonstration
against Dow Chemical Company recruitment at the University of Wisconsin in Madison
on October 17. Peaceful at first, the demonstrations turned to a sit-in
that was violently dispersed by the Madison police and riot squad,
resulting in many injuries and arrests. A mass rally and a student
strike then closed the university for several days. A nationwide
coordinated series of demonstrations against the draft led by members of
the Resistance, the War Resisters League,
and SDS added fuel to the fire of protest. After conventional civil
rights tactics of peaceful pickets seemed to have failed, the Oakland,
California, Stop the Draft Week ended in mass hit and run skirmishes
with the police. The huge (100,000 people) October 21 March on the Pentagon saw hundreds arrested and injured. Night-time raids on draft offices began to spread.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), mainly through its secret COINTELPRO
(COunter INTELligence PROgram) and other law enforcement agencies were
often exposed as having spies and informers in the chapters.
FBI Director Hoover's general COINTELPRO directive was for agents to
"expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the
activities and leadership of the movements they infiltrated.
The National Office sought to provide greater coordination and direction (partly through New Left Notes,
its weekly correspondence with the membership). In the spring of 1968,
National SDS activists led an effort on the campuses called "Ten Days of
Resistance" and local chapters cooperated with the Student Mobilization
Committee in rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, and on April 18
in a one-day strike. About a million students stayed away from classes
that day, the largest student strike to date. But it was the student shutdown of Columbia University
in New York that commanded the national media. Led by an inter-racial
alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society
activists, it helped make the SDS a household name. Membership again soared in the 1968–69 academic year.
More important for thinking within the National Office, Columbia
and the outbreak of student protest which it symbolized seemed proof
that "long months of SDS work were paying off." As targets students were
"picking war, complicity, and racism, rather than dress codes and dorm
hours, and as tactics sit-ins and takeovers, rather than petitions and
pickets."
Yet Congressional investigation was to find that most chapters
continued to follow their own, rather than a national, agenda. In the
fall of 1968 their issues fell into one or more of four broad
categories: (1) war-related issues such as opposition to ROTC, military
or CIA recruitment, and military research, on campus; (2) student power
issues including requests for a pass-fail grading system, beer sales on
campus, no dormitory curfews, and a student voice in faculty hiring; (3)
support for university employees; and (4) support for black students.
The December 1967 convention took down what little suggestion
there was of hierarchy within the structure of the organisation: it
eliminated the Presidential and Vice-Presidential offices. They were
replaced with a National Secretary (20-year-old Mike Spiegel), an
Education Secretary (Texan Bob Pardun of the Austin chapter), and an
Inter-organizational Secretary (former VP Carl Davidson). A clear
direction for a national program was not set but delegates did manage to
pass strong resolutions on the draft, resistance within the Army
itself, and for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam.
Women and SDS
There
was no women's-equality plank in the Port Huron Statement. Tom Hayden
had started drafting the statement from a jail cell in Albany, Georgia,
where he landed on a Freedom Ride organized by Sandra "Casey" Cason (Casey Hayden).
It is Cason that had first led Hayden into the SDS in 1960. Although
herself regarded as "one of the boys", her recollection of those early
SDS meetings is of interminable debate driven by young male intellectual
posturing and, if a woman commented, of being made to feel as if a
child had spoken among adults. (In 1962, she left Ann Arbor, and Tom
Hayden, to return to the SNCC in Atlanta).
Seeking the "roots of the women's liberation movement" in the New
Left, Sara Evans argues that in Hayden's ERAP program this presumption
of male agency had been one of the undeclared sources of tension.
Confronted with the reality of a war-heated economy, in which the only
unemployed men "left to organize were very unstable and unskilled,
winos, and street youth," the SDSers were disconcerted to find
themselves having to organize around "nitty-gritty issues"—welfare,
healthcare, childcare, garbage collection—springing "in cultural terms
... from the women's sphere of home and community life."Sexism was acknowledged as commonplace in the anti-war and New Left movement.
In December 1965, the SDS held a "rethinking conference" at the
University of Illinois. One of the papers included in the conference
packet, was a memo Casey Hayden and others had written the previous year
for a similar SNCC event, and published the previous month in Liberation, the bi-monthly of the War Resisters League, under the title "Sex and Caste". As "the final impetus" for organizing a "women's workshop," Evans suggest it was "the real embryo of the new feminist revolt." But this was a revolt that was to play out largely outside of the SDS.
When, at the 1966 SDS convention, women called for debate they were showered with abuse, pelted with tomatoes.
The following year there seemed to be a willingness to make some
amends. The Women's Liberation Workshop succeeded in having a resolution
accepted that insisted that women be freed "to participate in other
meaningful activities" and that their "brothers" be relieved of "the
burden of male chauvinism". The SDS committed to the creation of
communal childcare centers, women's control over reproduction, the
sharing of domestic work and, critically for an organization whose
offices were almost entirely populated by men, to women participating at
every level of the SDS "from licking stamps to assuming leadership
positions." However, when the resolution was printed in the NO's New Left Notes it was with a caricature of a woman dressed in a baby-doll dress, holding a sign "We want our rights and we want them now!"
Little changed in the two years that followed. By and large the
issues that were spurring the growth of an autonomous women's liberation
movement were not considered relevant for discussion by SDS men or
women (and if they were discussed, one prominent activist recalls,
"separatism" had to be denounced "every five minutes").
Over the five tumultuous days of the final convention in June 1969
women were given just three hours to caucus and their call on women to
struggle against their oppression was rejected.
Inasmuch as women felt both empowered and thwarted in the movement,
Todd Gitlin was later to claim some credit for SDS in engendering second-wave feminism. Women had gained skills and experience in organising but had been made to feel keenly their second-class status.
Secession and polarization
At
the 1967 convention in Ann Arbor there was another, perhaps equally
portentous, demand for equality and autonomy. Despite the winding down
of SDS leadership support for ERAP, in some community projects struggles
against inequality, racism and police brutality had taken on a momentum
of their own. The projects had drawn in white working class activists.
While open in acknowledging the debt they believed they owed to SNCC
and to the Black Panthers,
many were conscious that their poor white, and in some cases southern,
backgrounds had limited their acceptance in "the Movement".
In a blistering address, Peggy Terry announced that she and her
neighbors in uptown, "Hillbilly Harlem", Chicago, had ordered student
volunteers out of their community union. They would be relying on
themselves, doing their own talking, and working only with those
outsiders willing live as part of the community, and of "the working
class", for the long haul.
With what she regarded as an implicit understanding for Stokely Carmichael's
call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own
organizations, Terry argued that "the time has come for us to turn to
our own people, poor and working-class whites, for direction, support,
and inspiration, to organize around our own identity, our own
interests."
Yet as Peggy Terry was declaring her independence from the SDS as
a working-class militant, the most strident voices at the convention
were of those who, jettisoning the reservations of the Port Huron old
guard, were declaring the working class as, after all, the only force
capable of subverting U.S. imperialism and of effecting real change. It
was on the basis of this new Marxist polemic that endorsements were
withheld from the mass demonstrations called by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam to coincide with the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
In the event, under a mandate to recruit and to offer support should the Chicago police "start rioting" (which they did), national SDSers were present. On August 28 national secretary Michael Klonsky
was on Havana radio: "We have been fighting in the streets for four
days. Many of our people have been beaten up, and many of them are in
jail, but we are winning." But at the first national council meeting
after the convention (University of Colorado, Boulder, October 11–13),
the Worker Student Alliance
had their line confirmed: attempts to influence political parties in
the United States fostered an "illusion" that people can have democratic
power over system institutions. The correct answer was to organize
people in "direct action". "The 'center' has proven its failure ... it
remains to the left not to cling to liberal myths but to build its own
strength out of the polarization, to build the left 'pole'".
The Worker Student Alliance (WSA) was a front organization for the Progressive Labor Party
(PLP), whose delegates had first been seated in the 1966 SDS
convention. The PLP was Maoist but was sufficiently old-school that it
viewed policy and action not only from the perspective of class, but
also from the perspective of "the class". The PLP condemned the
protest in Chicago not only because there had been the "illusion" that
the system could be effectively pressured or lobbied, but because, in
their view, the "wild-in-the-streets" resistance estranged "the working
masses" and made it more difficult for the left to build a popular base.
It was an injunction that the PLP appeared to carry across a range of
what they regarded as the wilder, or for the working man more
challenging, expressions of the movement. These included feminists
(those who want to "organize women to discuss their personal problems
about their boyfriends"), the counterculture, and long hair.
At a time when the New Left Notes could describe the SDS as "a confederation of localized conglomerations of people held together by one name",
and as events in the country continued to drift, what the PLP-WSA
offered was the promise of organizational discipline and of a consistent
vision. But there was a rival bid for direction and control of the
organization.
At a national council held at the close of 1968 in Ann Arbor
(attended by representatives of 100 of the reputed 300 chapters), a
majority of national leadership and regional staffs pushed through a
policy resolution written by national secretary Michael Klonsky
titled "Toward a revolutionary youth movement". The SDS would transform
itself into a revolutionary movement, reaching beyond the campus to
find new recruits among young workers, high school students, the Armed
Forces, community colleges, trade schools, drops outs, and the
unemployed.
Like the PLP-WSA, this Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) faction
was committed to an anti-capitalist analysis that privileged the
working class. But RYM made at least two concessions to the broader
spirit of the times. First it outbid the PLP-WSA in accommodating black
and ethnic mobilization by embracing the legitimacy within "the class"
of "Third World nationalisms". "Oppressed colonies" in the United States
had the right "to self-determination (including the right to political
secession if they desire it)." Second, as a youth movement, the RYM allowed that—if only in solidarity with others of their generation—students could have some agency.
Yet neither tendency was an open house to incoming freshmen or
juniors awakening to the possibilities for political engagement. Sale
observes that "at a time when many young people wanted some explanations
for the failure of electoral politics, SDS was led by people who had
long since given up caring about elections and were trying to organize
for revolution." To students "just beginning to be aware of their own
radicalization and their potential role as the intelligentsia in an
American left", the SDS was proposing that the "only really important
agents for social change were the industrial workers, or the ghetto
blacks, or the Third World revolutionaries." For students willing to
"take on their [college] administrations for any number of grievances,"
SDS analysis emphasized "'de-studentizing',
dropping out, and destroying universities." To those seeking to
"supplant the tattered theories of corporate liberalism, SDS had only
the imperfectly fashioned tenets of a borrowed Marxism and an
untransmittable attachment to the theories of other revolutionaries".
As for women wishing to approach the SDS with their own issues,
the RYM faction was scarcely more willing than the PLP-WSA to accord
them space. At a time when young people in the Black Panthers were under vicious attack, they deemed it positively racist for educated white women to focus on their own oppression.
The Port Huron vision of the university as a place where, as "an
adjunct" to the academic life, political action could be held open to
"reason", and the Gentle Thursday openness to a range of expression, had
been cast by the new revolutionary polemic onto "the junk heap of
history".
In the new year the WSA and RYM began to split national offices
and some chapters. Matters came to a head in the summer of 1969, at the
SDS's ninth national convention held at the Chicago Coliseum.
The two groups battled for control of the organization throughout the
convention. The RYM and the National Office faction, led by Bernardine Dohrn, finally walked several hundred people out of the Colosseum.
This NO-RYM grouping reconvened themselves as the official convention
near the National Office. They elected officers and they expelled the
PLP. The charge was twofold: (1) "The PLP has attacked every
revolutionary national struggle of the black and Latin American peoples
in the U.S. as being racist and reactionary", and (2) the "PLP attacked
Ho Chi Minh, the NLF, the revolutionary government of Cuba—all leaders
of the people's struggles for freedom against U.S. imperialism."
The 500–600 people remaining in the meeting hall, dominated by
PLP, declared itself the "Real SDS", electing PLP and WSA members as
officers. By the next day, there were in effect two SDS organizations,
"SDS-RYM" and "SDS-WSA."
SDS-RYM broke up soon after the split. In a decision to
effectively dissolve the organization ("marches and protests won't do
it"), a faction including Dohrn resolved upon armed resistance. In
alliance with "the Black Liberation Movement", a "white fighting force"
would "bring the war home" On October 6, 1969, the Weathermen planted their first bomb, blowing up a statue in Chicago commemorating police officers killed during the 1886 Haymarket Riot. Others were to follow Michael Klonsky into the New Communist Movement.
After the break-up of its rival and before dissolving in 1974
into the Committee Against Racism, the WSA continued on campuses as "the
SDS". Functioning to recruit for PLP, it was a centralized, disciplined
organization quite distinct from the original Port Huron movement.
Beginning January 2006, a movement to revive the Students for a
Democratic Society took shape. Two high school students, Jessica Rapchik
and Pat Korte, decided to reach out to former members of the "Sixties"
SDS (including Alan Haber, the organization's first president) and to
build a new generation SDS. The new SDS held their first national
convention in August 2006 at the University of Chicago. They describe
themselves as a "progressive organization of student activists" intent
on building "a strong student movement to defend our rights to education
and stand up against budget cuts," to "oppose racism, sexism, and
homophobia on campus" and to "say NO to war". They report chapters in 25
states with some thousands of supporters.