A (very) sketchy look back at the 60s

Their message could be articulated. They had a voice, and they used it well. Yet try dissecting it, try classifying them, and you would quickly be branded a “straight.”[1] In some cases this is not a clear-cut expression of anti-intellectualism, and is instead a concern that trying to do so may just detract from the fluidity of the subculture in responding to the needs of and – perhaps more importantly – whims of its members. That people should just “get in and do it.”[2] Can this simply be construed as cowardly evasion? That if no end-goal is defined then criticising its attainment is impossible? Or is it a more optimistic appeal to the numinous and the unknowable, an admission of uncertainty in the face of establishment orthodoxy?

To evaluate the legacy of the hippies we must somehow lay down measuring posts, at least temporarily.  Where did they succeed and where did they fail? The intervening years since the soixante huitard and their ilk captured the world’s attention, and even recent events, make this an auspicious time to look back at this inimitable subculture. Primary sources are in a unique position to reveal the flowering of the movement, yet have a forced myopia towards assigning weight to specific, salient events, especially those damaging to its image. While the sociologist John Robert Howard tries his best, and Richard Nixon his worst, to critique the upwelling discontent of the sixties, both men reach a limit; the former constrained mainly by the zeitgeist, and the latter – being generous – blinkered by political ambition. It has been astutely observed that counter-culture contains the seeds of a future over-the-counter culture, yet it is doubtful that these would be able to germinate were elements of the subculture not able to shed earlier weaknesses.[3] Much as natural selection leaves standing those organisms that most effectively evolve to fit changing environments, the course of history is most kind to those ideas that meet its dialectical challenges. In that sense, this and other secondary commentaries would be well placed, as opposed to contemporary sources, to assess the movement’s successes. These surveys are complementary, not exclusive, with later sources providing context to those closer to events.

Two of these contemporary publications, The Digger Papers and Abbie Hoffman’s 1968 Lincoln Park address, reveal that both the Diggers and the Yippies wanted essentially the same thing: the absence of outside domination of thought and action. Each group emphasised very different means for moving towards these shared hopes, the Diggers the cooperation of entire communities to sustain ‘Free Cities’ relatively independent of ‘straight’ society, and the Yippies the individual means – through “guerrilla theatre,” while embedded in the ‘system’ – to free oneself from and continue resisting dependence and control, that desperate “holdin’ on to their fuckin’ pig jobs ‘cause of that little fuckin’ paycheck.” As Howard observes, for the Diggers it is in the somewhat codified volunteerism where they unwittingly encode their own downfall. While aspiring that “every brother should have what he needs to do his thing,” the Diggers seem to miss that this volunteerism calls for the implicit Marxian precondition: “From each brother according to his ability.”[4]

With Nixon’s fear-mongering denouncement aimed at civil disobedience in general instead of the hippies in particular, it requires some context to accommodate it in this discussion. That said, it is plausible that groups like the hippies would be ashamed of their successes did they not draw the ire of such figures, as those who have occupied Wall Street recently may feel towards Mitt Romney painting that campaign as “dangerous … class warfare.”[5]  It must also be asked if Nixon was any more responsible than many of those he attacked – or to what extent he should be taken seriously – in his misleadingly quoting Robert Kennedy as saying that the law was a foe to “the Negro,” as opposed to his actually pointing out that many Negroes justifiably considered it antagonistic.[6]

Reflecting on these contemporary documents in the light of years past – and especially recent events – reveals parallel perspectives on social justice to this day.  This in itself highlights a massive success of the hippie movement; more than its music struck a chord then, many of its ideals impassion us still.

Bibliography

Boxer, Sarah B. “Romney: Wall Street Protests ‘Class Warfare’.” National Journal, last modified 5 October 2011, accessed 21 September 2012. http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/romney-wall-street-protests-class-warfare--20111004.

Brown, Charles E. “Shouts of ‘We’ll Kill Whites,’ ‘Burn’ to ‘This is War’ Heard” in JET, ed. John H. Johnson. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2 September 1965: 5-10.

“The Digger Papers” (c.a. 1966), pp. 273-278 in Bloom and Breines, eds. “Takin’ It to the Streeets”: A Sixties Reader, 2^nd edition. Oxford 2003.

Hoffman, Abbie, “Media Freaking,” The Drama Review: TDR 13. Summer 1969: 46, 48-51.

Howard, John Robert. “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382. March 1969: 44-48.

Nixon, Richard. “If Mob Rule Takes Hold in the U.S.,” originally published in U.S. News and World Report, a news magazine, in 1966. pp. 294-297 in Bloom and Breines.

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[1] John Robert Howard, “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382 (March 1969): 45.

[2] Abbie Hoffman, “Media Freaking,” The Drama Review: TDR 13 (Summer 1969): 51.

[3] John Robert Howard, “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382 (March 1969): 46-47.

[4] “The Digger Papers” (ca. 1966), in Bloom and Breines, eds., “Takin’ It to the Streets”: A Sixties Reader, 2^nd edition (Oxford, 2003): 273-277; Abbie Hoffman, “Media Freaking,” The Drama Review: TDR 13 (Summer 1969): 46, 48.

[5] Sarah B. Boxer, “Romney: Wall Street Protests ‘Class Warfare’,” National Journal, last modified 5 October 2011, accessed 21 September 2012, http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/romney-wall-street-protests-class-warfare--20111004.

[6] Charles E. Brown, “Shouts of ‘We’ll Kill Whites,’ ‘Burn’ to ‘This is War’ Heard”, JET, ed. John H. Johnson (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2 September 1965): 8.