"Fonda was neither wrong nor unconscionable in what she said and did in North Vietnam"
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Hayden’s line is built like a legal brief disguised as a moral verdict. “Neither wrong nor unconscionable” isn’t the language of celebrity gossip or even ordinary political defense; it’s courtroom diction, calibrated to meet the two charges most Americans lodged at Jane Fonda after her 1972 trip to North Vietnam: that she was factually mistaken (“wrong”) and that she crossed an ethical red line (“unconscionable”). By refusing both categories, Hayden doesn’t just defend Fonda’s conduct - he reframes the entire scandal as a misreading of conscience under wartime pressure.
The context matters: Hayden, a leading figure of the New Left and a veteran of the antiwar movement, is speaking from inside a political culture that believed dissent was not a side note to democracy but one of its last functioning organs during Vietnam. His intent is to deny the premise that patriotism is measured by obedience, especially when the state’s narrative is suspect and the body count is real. The subtext is sharper: the outrage at Fonda wasn’t purely about national security; it was also about gender, spectacle, and betrayal. A famous woman’s presence made the antiwar critique impossible to ignore, and therefore easier to demonize.
It also reads as a strategic act of solidarity. Hayden is insulating a movement by protecting its most visible lightning rod. If Fonda can be cast as uniquely monstrous, then the broader antiwar argument can be dismissed as moral rot. Hayden won’t grant that concession; he’s insisting the real unconscionability lies elsewhere, in the war itself and the narratives used to sanitize it.
The context matters: Hayden, a leading figure of the New Left and a veteran of the antiwar movement, is speaking from inside a political culture that believed dissent was not a side note to democracy but one of its last functioning organs during Vietnam. His intent is to deny the premise that patriotism is measured by obedience, especially when the state’s narrative is suspect and the body count is real. The subtext is sharper: the outrage at Fonda wasn’t purely about national security; it was also about gender, spectacle, and betrayal. A famous woman’s presence made the antiwar critique impossible to ignore, and therefore easier to demonize.
It also reads as a strategic act of solidarity. Hayden is insulating a movement by protecting its most visible lightning rod. If Fonda can be cast as uniquely monstrous, then the broader antiwar argument can be dismissed as moral rot. Hayden won’t grant that concession; he’s insisting the real unconscionability lies elsewhere, in the war itself and the narratives used to sanitize it.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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