Requiem for the Sixties

 

The 1960s was a good idea that went terribly wrong; or at least, there was a good movement underlying it, that then over time got flooded out by a bad one. 

As I saw it then and see it now, the Sixties were a rebellion against the materialism of modern society; behaviourism, demands for conformity, the growth of government and big business control; the rat race. This was headed in a spiritual direction, and ought to have ended in a religious revival. I really expected that to happen. The folk songs were religious, at the start of the decade; everyone was interested in Zen, TM, Eastern Religions. LSD was “mind expanding.” The Byrds publicly converted to Christianity, although no one seemed to notice. Bob Dylan publicly converted to Christianity. Jack Kerouac introduced us all to Zen, and declared himself a Jesuit general. George Harrison went Hindu. The “cults” appeared: the Hare Krishnas, the Children of God, the “Jesus freaks.” I saw it happening; it was starting to snowball.

Politics was there, but secondary. The main thing was to end the war and make drugs legal. That, and civil rights for blacks. But these are libertarian concerns; libertarianism is currently considered on the right. And perhaps was then as well. Kerouac claimed to support Taft; Dylan claimed to support Goldwater. Jerry Brown got hippie support, but this is because he embraced libertarianism: “small is beautiful.” Eugene McCarthy got hippie support, but on the single issue of ending the war. 

There was a Marxist strand too—Marcuse and the New Left—but that was more something you heard about from Europe. That was no more politically mainstream within the hippie movement than “hip capitalism.”

Why did it all go weird? Why were the cults shut down? Why did it all get identified with Marxism, “political correctness,” big tech, and a resurgent demand for censorship, materialism, and conformity?

 At the time, we blamed the “yuppies”; who toyed with the spiritual ideas, but ended up selling out. But the real poison, I suspect, was sex. What we used to call “The Pill” was a poisoned pill.

Perhaps some future generation will do better. Or perhaps such things cannot be left to the young, whose natural urges are so strong.