Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
If you read the biographies of the university students killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, you find that they were the children of regular working people.
New age cosmic hippies and the far right
- Thread starter Blagsta
- Start date
If you read the biographies of the university students killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, you find that they were the children of regular working people.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
It was in large part a reaction to consumerist suburbia, with a large student element.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
It may have appeared that way in the media, but the majority of North American hippies never saw the inside of a university.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Probably more of them than you did.
The class makeup of hippydom isn't what primarily matters. It's the fundamental lack of realism in the hippy stance, as described by Kunstler and others.
TruXta
tired
I have, and I've read the OP. I get what the discussion started off with, inasmuch as "new age cosmic hippies" has any well-defined referent. Seems to me the discussion moved on a bit after that.
TruXta
tired
Norwegian Maoist leader, Pal Steigan, even met Pol Pot.
They were big big fans of Pol Pot, North Korea and Albania. About a decade ago quite a few of the old M-L'ers went public with their regrets at having supported these regimes. I think Steigan was less contrite than many others
TruXta
tired
Fair point, but it has to be taken into consideration that for many hippies the reality to which you refer was something to be actively rejected. It wasn't that they weren't aware of the distance between their conceptions of a higher reality and the more mundane reality of everyday working life.
They were big big fans of Pol Pot, North Korea and Albania. About a decade ago quite a few of the old M-L'ers went public with their regrets at having supported these regimes. I think Steigan was less contrite than many others
Yep. So as to not leave Random out, here are some Swedes, enjoying the sunshine in the Cambodian state of workers and peasants, back in 1978.
Not sure about Jan Mrydal, but naive fool Gunnar Bergstrom (wearing the PLA field cap) publicly repented a few years ago, donating all of his materials (photographs of his visit to the country etc) to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.
TruXta
tired
Yep. So as to not leave Random out, here are some Swedes, enjoying the sunshine in the Cambodian state of workers and peasants, back in 1978.
Not sure about Jan Mrydal, but naive fool Gunnar Bergstrom (wearing the PLA field cap) publicly repented a couple of years ago, donating all of his materials (photographs of his visit to the country etc) to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.
Myrdal's gotta be about the only guy both of whose parents received a Nobel Prize - dad Gunnar for economics, shared with Hayek!; mom Alva got the Peace Prize. He disowned both of them apparently. Don't think he's repented anything.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
SO MUCH GUILT in one body
TruXta
tired
Who?
In his novel Atomised, Michel Houellebecq argues convincingly that the roots of the 'hippy revolt' can be found not only in the success of the post-WW2 political settlement and the rise of mass consumerism-which both nurtured the expectations of the hippy generation and fuelled their revolt against it-but also in the creation of a cult of youth and overt sexuality which, contrary to common assumptions, deepened mass misery and neurosis due to the inescapable fact that everybody ages and becomes less physically attractive, while the majority are not physically attractive in the first place and thus miss out on the wide variety of thrills supposedly on offer. Thus, a new form of social inequality was added to all the pre-existing ones, and this at a time when the new cult was disseminated throughout society by the commercial mass media and entertainment industry. In buying into this cult of youth, based around constant stimulation of a kind mostly out of the reach of those with responsibilities, the hippies helped create a tyranny of youth over age that is now irreversible. More disturbingly, he also suggests that it gave rise to elements of the counter culture that, in seeking ever more sensational experiences and contemptuously distancing themselves from straight society, eventually produced the likes of Charlie Manson.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Myrdal
TruXta
tired
I'd say the Western cult of youth is older than that. This paper traces it at least back to 20s Hollywood, whilst also pointing the finger at emerging consumerism, as well as the cinematic gaze. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4137165
TruXta
tired
He doesn't look very guilty to me. Unless you're referring to him disavowing his parents?
The book acknowledges this but, as I said, emphasises that it really took off with the rise of televison and rock music etc after WW2.
TruXta
tired
Could be, it's not something I know all that much about.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
I would (and there are many, I do everything better than everyone else, and humour's no exception) but I'm now concerned that I may offend your sensibilities again and I wouldn't want to do that, would I precious? I feel that I should probably slip "maaan" in there somewhere to ensure that your sensitive soul is made as comfortable as possible but I'm just not sure where to fit it in.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I'm on about third world fetishes
TruXta
tired
Kinky.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
What does that mean, though? That they envisioned a utopian society, but failed to achieve it?
Do you castigate someone who at least made an attempt?
elbows
Well-Known Member
Hats off to those who have managed to make this thread quite full of quality thoughts on the subject despite the thread also aptly demonstrating why the hippy label is an especially useless one due to its wide and varying meanings. A situation made even worse by one of its meanings having come to encompass many disparate ideas and players in an entire messy era in US history.
At least the environmental & green movements along with those who are interested in theories such as peak oil have now had several decades to at least partially separate their image from that of the cliched hippy, so that all the politics of environmentalism and 'the good life' are not completely indistinguishable from all the other baggage that the hippy term has attracted.
Personally Id try to separate whats then left of the term hippy into a few different blobs:
Historical figures or movements we can reasonably safely label hippies, the yippies and yuppies that followed etc.
New Age thinkers of the modern era.
The hippy that some become as part of a process of coming of age, dealing with those first years of adulthood, trying to explore who you are, and finding your own place in the world. May or may not include an overt desire to rebel against parental expectations, certain musical or drug choices, the direction your friends & peers just happened to drift in, a rejection of the mainstream, a spiritual journey east, etc.
The latter group I completely let off from political analysis for a while, as they are young and still finding their feet and why prejudge their politics when their political mould has likely not yet fully set at that point, its very much a transitory phase for most. They'll eventually go off in a direction that allows me to use a different label and do some crude judging. Anyway Im reasonably sure I was one for myself for a couple of years back in the day. It was mostly a social thing for me and I was always too cynical and geeky to buy into the broader belief system. Luckily for me when I picked books to read during that period I stumbled into the interesting characters from that rich and disturbed period of US history. Writers that may sometimes have been tainted by the silly stuff or not looking at everything with the right sort of political & class consciousness to meet with our complete approval, but who still gave birth to some interesting ideas or documented strange periods in US culture in a rich and entertaining manner.
At least the environmental & green movements along with those who are interested in theories such as peak oil have now had several decades to at least partially separate their image from that of the cliched hippy, so that all the politics of environmentalism and 'the good life' are not completely indistinguishable from all the other baggage that the hippy term has attracted.
Personally Id try to separate whats then left of the term hippy into a few different blobs:
Historical figures or movements we can reasonably safely label hippies, the yippies and yuppies that followed etc.
New Age thinkers of the modern era.
The hippy that some become as part of a process of coming of age, dealing with those first years of adulthood, trying to explore who you are, and finding your own place in the world. May or may not include an overt desire to rebel against parental expectations, certain musical or drug choices, the direction your friends & peers just happened to drift in, a rejection of the mainstream, a spiritual journey east, etc.
The latter group I completely let off from political analysis for a while, as they are young and still finding their feet and why prejudge their politics when their political mould has likely not yet fully set at that point, its very much a transitory phase for most. They'll eventually go off in a direction that allows me to use a different label and do some crude judging. Anyway Im reasonably sure I was one for myself for a couple of years back in the day. It was mostly a social thing for me and I was always too cynical and geeky to buy into the broader belief system. Luckily for me when I picked books to read during that period I stumbled into the interesting characters from that rich and disturbed period of US history. Writers that may sometimes have been tainted by the silly stuff or not looking at everything with the right sort of political & class consciousness to meet with our complete approval, but who still gave birth to some interesting ideas or documented strange periods in US culture in a rich and entertaining manner.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
No, it's a: 'your blanket statement that the majority of NA hippies were students, is based on even less information than my blanket statement'.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Did the hippies have much to do with creating the cult of youth, or was it capitalist marketing schemes that saw yet another opportunity to make a buck?
I think it's a bit of a stretch to try to tar all hippies with the Charles Manson brush. Any group of people of whatever persuasion, will contain some small percentage of psychotics etc.
No, it means what it says in that quote from Kunstler and what others have mentioned-that 'dropping out' was dependent on there being a fully functioning industrial society to fall back on, run by people who didn't have the option of 'dropping out.'
The 'capitalist marketing schemes' and the hippies/other youth cults reinforce each other, but there can only ever be one winner.
I haven't tarred all hippies with the CM brush, as my post makes clear.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Ermmm, most social histories of hippy that I have read acknowledge its roots in rebelling against suburban consumerist conformity. I'll take their analysis over a known contrarian on a bulletin board.
Similar threads
