I see from the NY Times Arts section that this summer is the 40th anniversary of the year the hippies went public. The human-be-in and all the concerts. The drugs, the very shorts skirts and the anti-war movement. They are all being brought back by festivals and museums. Now, it has become a branding experience.
I don't remember it that way. I remember those summers very clearly. 1966, 67 and 68, were very intense times and very formative for me. I was finishing college and beginning graduate school. I was beginning the relationship that continues to this day. Myself and most of my friends were very concerned about the future of the world.
We were really, really concerned about what kind of world we wanted to live in and how we could build it. We didn't trust the politicians, and they were all exposed as liars. We wanted things to be different. We wanted things to be more honest, more equal and more just. That was much more important than caring about our own wealth or creature comfort. We expected that we would be comfortable, but not much beyond that. None of my friends even wondered about how to get rich.
For about twelve years, from about 1966 through 1978, things seemed to be going in that direction. We ended the war. We got rid of Nixon and Ford. The civil rights movement really made a difference, as did the women's rights, and eventually gay rights. Homosexuality stopped being classified as a disease in the early '70s. From 1960 though 1980, the gap between the rich and and poor was narrowed significantly. America was finally doing some good things.
During those years I worked as a psychologist in a community mental health center. We did a lot of preventive work that no one today has even heard of. We went into schools, housing projects and police departments. We were the first to alert people about child abuse and addictions. We were beginning to learn how to prevent them, or to catch these problems at a very early stage.
But then Carter proved to be an inept leader and Reagan took over. He is the one who changed the tax codes and economy (which really wasn't doing that well) so that the rich could stay rich and get richer, and the poor got stuck with the bill. He also said that all of these preventative programs were a form of socialism, and we can't have that. Why should a government care about it's people? That's BIG government. A government should just watch out for money.
It was his supporters who revised the history of the 60s to look like all the hippies wer a bunch of drug-crazed narcissists.
I don't remember my friends like that at all. We were idealistic, and a bit naive, but many of them did, and continue to do a lot of good work.
3 comments:
I was too young in the sixties to be a part of what you describe, but my ex--who is eleven years older than I, talks the same as you about that time. In fact, he could have written what you wrote....obviously, what really WAS at that time, has been changed throughout the years.
Those were the days. Sad how they get re-written by Big-Brother. Makes me wonder what else they lie about.
I remember my parents being big supporters of Reagan. Your post has made me think...
Thanks for setting the record straight!
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