dsc -- you nailed it. So many of my friends in those days really did believe that our parents generation were cruel idiots and that we, as 17 and 18 year olds, had some special kind of enlightenment. Arrogance is right. I never felt that way -- always a right-wing republican, even while buying "Are You Experienced" or "Pictures Of Matchstick Men." But I think a large part of that generation gave new meaning to the word "hubris." And some of them still do, and think all that garbage they spread in the 60s was a positive thing.
"always a right-wing republican"
My hat is off to those of you who were smart enough not to be taken in.
When I heard that "you should learn from your mistakes," I took that to mean that the best way to learn the most was to make every conceivable mistake.
It was this kind of virulent anti-Americanism from the lefties that caused so many of us would-be liberals to embark on the long march to the right back in the late 60s and 70s.