The doctrine of the "just war" has a hallowed place in the history of political and legal thought, while its more inflammatory counterpart, "revolutionary war," cannot call upon such a long and distinguished pedigree. This is not so surprising as it may at first seem since the doctrine of the "just war," or its momentary variation, has proved flexible enough to accommodate all sorts of wars for every kind of reason. I am prepared to argue that the claimants for either doctrine base their reasons for waging wars on similar, if not identical, principles. Hence the concept of "revolutionary war," to the extent that it may be a discernible and separate concept, can be subsumed in most cases under the general category of the "just war." What has happened in the long history of institutionalized warfare among nations is that the underlying reasons for legitimizing war have been overwhelmed by legal norms — a legal edifice so to speak — that have of necessity favored the established authorities.

The metaphysics of violence has been wrongly restricted to describe illicit and illegal application of physical force. In the common estimation of men, violence is associated with "riots in the streets," muggings, rape, murder, and other such forms of injury. These are certainly forms of violence but they are the symptomatic forms of violence arising from deeper, more underlining causes, both covert and overt.

Historic and fundamental issues of human rights will remain with us as long as man is his less than perfect self. No end is foreseen to the struggle between the evil in man's nature and his ideals of justice. But to these traditional problems of human rights a new element has been added. There are new challenges to the interrelation of men — challenges at once novel, frightening and complex. They hold enormous promise for good and evil. We have not begun to think out their implications; indeed, we have just become dimly conscious of them.

In our present program of higher education the student is by and large the odd man out. This holds particularly in the larger university complexes where the iron law is that the student is made for the system. The symptoms of the student's discontent with this predicament are obvious enough: restlessness, estrangement, apathy and, increasingly, outright rebellion. According to a report by the National Student Association there were 221 major demonstrations at 101 campuses in the first six months of this year.