Citation

Schuman H. Am. J. Sociol. 1972; 78(3): 513-536.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1972, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/225362

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Opposition to the Vietnam war has been manifested both in university protest actions and in cross-section public opinion surveys. But the college-related protests and the wider public disenchantment have sharply different characteristics: they have peaked at different points in the war; they are discontinuous in educational and age basis; and a substantial part of the antiwar public is also extremely hostile toward college protesters. Together these findings suggest a distinction between moral criticisms of the goals and nature of the war and pragmatic disillusionment over failure to win it. This hypothesized distinction is investigated using thematic analysis of open-ended responses from a cross-section sample of 1,263 Detroit adults who had indicated opposition to American intervention in Vietnam. A small classroom sample of University of Michigan students is also used for comparison purposes. The themes emphasized by the Detroit sample as a whole, and by most subcategories defined in terms of race, sex, age, and education, are generally consistent with the moral-pragmatic distinction. Other related factors (such as traditional isolationism) are also shown to contribute to broader public disenchantment with the war. The moral-pragmatic distinction, while somewhat oversimplified, is useful in considering public reactions to future wars of the same general type.