This page is part of the archives of the IshCon.org discussion forums, as they existed from November 2002 to January 2007. Some links and other content references may be outdated or broken. For more information about IshCon, visit www.ishcon.org.
Topic: What inspired the 60s-70s social movement?
Part of the forum "Ishmael and Saving the World" in the IshCon Forum Archive
| Poster and Date | Post |
| ProjectPurity Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 02:25 PM |
Just a question. I'm not satisfied by what MC has fed me on this matter. I'm also not satisfied that it actually ended, just "turned into a fashion statement." |
| ninjapirate Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 02:48 PM |
"ProjectPurity" wrote: Just a question. I'm not satisfied by what MC has fed me on this matter. I'm also not satisfied that it actually ended, just "turned into a fashion statement." Well, I know I catch a lot of flak on this website for agreeing with Daniel Quinn on most issues, but let's just start with his explanation. He says the movement was about people who wanted out of our current story, but lacked a new story to enact. In other words, they didn't like our perception of the world and man's place in it. They didn't want to be homo magister, man the master. But they didn't really know what else to be. They started a lot of communes where they could escape from our story, but it proved not to be so much a new paradigm as it was a place to hide. The whole shuffling off into the woods strategy is reactive in a way. You're not trying to build something better, you're just trying to get away from what you don't like. What is more likely to hold peoples' attention is if you give them something to like. A more proactive strategy is, in my mind, a more realistic strategy. Build something better. If it involves being in the woods, living in a yurt or a tent or whatever, that's fine. But it needs to be something that attracts people by offering them something they want, not by offering them a chance to get away from something they don't want. Anyway, that's my two cents. Although I fear I'm delving into the territory where I was trying to steer the other thread, "Thinkers and the New Tribal Revolution." |
| jefgodesky Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 02:49 PM |
I'd say the Vietnam War. The Nazis, World War II, and Operation Paperclip brought some of the world's brightest scientists to America. We were the only major power to escape World War II without significant damage to our own country. German engineering and an unbombed infrastructure made America an economic power which we're only now beginning to lose. By the time the Vietnam War began, the baby boomers born from homecoming GI's after WW2 were reaching college age, their parents had money to send them, and the average life expectancy of a lieutenant in a hot zone was measured in seconds. Colleges used to be where the rich would send their children to learn to be rich themselves; how to play polo, how to conduct oneself in polite society, and all the rest of that garbage. The Vietnam War led to an influx of hoi polloi into the Ivory Tower. Once there, those unwashed masses started taking classes. It was the first time Westerners became aware of the East on a massive scale. My opinion is that the Hippie Movement was driven largely by an infatuation with Eastern religions, as well as some Native American spiritual beliefs, into a hopeless mish-mash. I'm also quite convinced it did simply turn into a fashion statement. While some of the original movers had some interesting ideas, it quickly became an excuse for hedonism, drugs, sex and rock and roll. All philosophical import was lost. For a microcosm of this, see the development of the Burning Man Festival, which had a similar trajectory. |
| ProjectPurity Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 03:05 PM |
Thank you, what do you think that the scale of that movement was REALISTICALLY. Recent speak of the silent majority in mind. |
| tonyz Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 05:28 PM |
Acid. Seriously. Love, ~TonyZ |
| Araquin Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 06:36 PM |
Jefgodesky described some of it, but IMO not all of it. I'd say that this was the interesting moment when Europe and America began to drift apart for good, unnoticed by everyone, except on hindsight. Anything that happened during the 60s and 70s all over the world was to a major extent inspired by what happened in America. And Jef described that pretty well. There's no doubt about it. And of course a lot of it did indeed become a fashion statement (I get sick to my stomach when I see apolitical teens use OUR highly charged signs lately, and now it's really just a fashion statement with zero content). But in Europe, it went on. In America, as far as we could see, it died away except for some advances for blacks or women. In Europe, it led to Green movements in many countries, it led to a profound pacifist attitude and it led to many thoughts about a different world. Much of that was enacted during the 80s when America - at least for us - was in hibernation, spiritually. Reagan was loathed as much as GW Bush is today in Europe and the demonstrations against his Star Wars concept/stationing of cruise missiles in the heart of Europe drew an entire generation to the streets by the millions. The pre-Iraq demos in Europe recently were only equal but never superior in numbers to the outrage felt at the time. Also, there was a strong anti-nuclear movement in Europe, another brainchild of the 60s and 70s. I haven't seen anything similar in the States either. It gained wide popular support after Chernobyl, of course, but had been very vociferous until then. So I can't say that the 60s and 70s message failed - only if you happen to think that America is "the world". It did produce very long-lasting effects. At least in my part of the world. In a way, the digust with the present US administration is an indirect product of ideas that during the 60s and 70s to a large extent were made popular in the States themselves but were carried on more forcefully outside the States. I can't agree that these movements lacked direction. They were ideologically more sure-footed than some stuff I've heard in Ishmael-inspired circles (people were just more educated - yeah, that hurts, but it's the truth). 90% of what feminists claimed about history was on hindsight the same as what Quinn claims, for example. Greens always rejected the idea that the world belongs to man, and by now they are sizeable parties - some places even in governments - on my continent. Many of the ideas from those days did become mainstream in Europe but not in America. Quinn does go further, granted, but he's not as revolutionary to someone who's been a dyed-in-the-wool green either. But why was there no political follow-up in America? Was it enough for the Vietnam War to end and rich white kids no longer in danger of being drafted to end an era of new visions? We did feel abandoned by you then, that's for sure. There was only deafening silence from the place that had provided us with so many great visions. |
| maha Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 07:15 PM |
Projectpurity, I'm not really sure what kind of insight you're hoping to gain from posing that question. Because there are so many assumptions that have to be made about the 60s and 70s to even answer it. For example, are you talking about the 60s and 70s in America, or other countries? And really, what was unique about those decades? During the 20s (in America) there was the Flapper "movement" which was typified by music, fashion, and by all means and purposes, the culture of the youth of that period. So the "Vietnam Era" was no different from any other in that respect. If you asked random people what there perception of the 60s and 70s was, what would they say? Would it be drugs, the war, bell bottoms, flower children, communes, or the use of the word "man"? What are the defining characteristics of this time period? I'm sure they are unique, and relative, to every individual, regardless of whether or not they grew up during that era. Quinn addressed this issue...somewhat. He said that generations are dynamic, revolutionary in one generation, and old and stale in the next; yet most people in every generation possess the same fundamental set of memes. This is very relevant, and is proof why the "hippy movement" didn't work. Hippies were still Takers, though they thought they were so much different than there predecessors. And in the end, once bell bottoms became unfashionable and they grew too old to smoke pot anymore, they just went back to being regular old Takers again. And this is why the movement failed. Plus, I don't think there was ever any clear and collective vision of what their movement was trying to accomplish. This also insured its inevitable failure. It always boils down to a lack of vision. Fortunately for us, the followers of the NTR have a very clear vision. |
| ProjectPurity Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 08:09 PM |
it's always important when trying to inspire social change to understand what has caused it in the past. This goes for everything. Truely you don't believe that the hippie thing was without consiquence? The notions of sustainability came directly out of that era, as did the knowledge from which Quinn wrote from. |
| PiperErickson Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 09:24 PM |
"tonyz" wrote: Acid. Seriously. :D Dude, are you being serious serious or haha serious? :) Cuz I really want to you what Big-T think on this issue! :) - Joe PS This post is serious. Really! :) |
| ProjectPurity Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 09:54 PM |
I'de like to think otherwise, but i have a feeling that the liberalism that came along with drug culture really spun the coggs of that era. Some will make claims of "free'd minds" or "expanded consciousness" but i like to be a bit more analitical about things.... the motivation has a motivation, if you know what i mean. |
| maha Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 11:10 PM |
Okay projectpurity, I see what you mean now. You want to know how the consequences of the hippie movement effected people of today, especially Quinn types. Well, I think that for the first part of the twentieth century and even some time before that people had really become pro-government and pro-military. WWI and WWII never had any big anti-draft protests; yet all of sudden, in the Vietnam War, things changed. People went from saying "I love the Government" to "Fuck the Government." This, I believe, resulted in major changes to the American Ethos. In the wake of this, people like Daniel Quinn sprouted up, but it could have just been a coincidence. Quinn may have become who he is regardless of the culture around him. After all, his views are very anti-cultural, which means he's able to distance himself from the concept of culture. And other great writers and philosophers have come up in times when either their countries supported or denounced an act of war. To say that Quinn and the NTR is what it is, only because of the hippie movement...may not be entirely true. |
| Hypnopompia Sat Mar 5th, 2005 at 01:00 AM |
I think that Quinn is very much a product of his times. Remember, the world is ready for this, and humanity has the habit of coming up with exactly what it needs when it needs it. Providencal, ain't it? |
| tonyz Sat Mar 5th, 2005 at 02:42 AM |
Doors of Perception, Heaven and Hell By Aldous Huxley. Required reading by and inspired the Leary-Hoffman-Ginsberg folks. The movement began as a spiritual quest of redicsovering the ancient use of psychadelics. Of course, like everything els in this country, it became abused and a source of addiction. Now it's illegal. But, now mushrooms, which grow every where in the world, and DMT, which occurs in a variety of plants across the whole earth, are beign reduced to schedule II drugs for research in curing bi-polar disorder. not treating I say, but curing. Right now as we speak, MDMA is being given to soldiers to treat PTSD. Acid, and psychadelics in general, were the Daniel Quinn of the 50's, whcih becaome the revolutions of the 60's, whcih became the periods of excess addiction and violence of the 70's.. Of course, Psychadelics take you much further than pen and paper ever will. We need psychadelics. The earth gives them to us in abundance, in fact, we carery DMT in our brains to give us at least one great trip in our lives. They are the impetus in psychological evolution. IF you can't hear that, clean some of the Mother Culture wax out your ears. Love, ~TonyZ |
| onions Sat Mar 5th, 2005 at 04:39 AM |
definately LSD had the major part in everything 60's,its worth reading the book 'Storming Heaven', the story of lsd and its role in history, and it explains who and why thigns happened like it did... |
| Hypnopompia Sat Mar 5th, 2005 at 12:26 PM |
"tonyz" wrote: But, now mushrooms, which grow every where in the world, and DMT, which occurs in a variety of plants across the whole earth, are beign reduced to schedule II drugs for research in curing bi-polar disorder. not treating I say, but curing. Right now as we speak, MDMA is being given to soldiers to treat PTSD. I'd be interested in reading more about these. Any links? |
| This page is part of the archives of the IshCon.org discussion forums, as they existed from November 2002 to January 2007. Some links and other content references may be outdated or broken. For more information about IshCon, visit www.ishcon.org. |