Posted on 05/09/2021 9:57:53 AM PDT by lightman
Are there parallels between the anti-war, hippies of the 1960s and today’s social justice warriors? Are there valuable lessons we can learn from the past, both cultural and spiritual, that will give us insight for today?
Growing up in the 60s (I was born in 1955), I lived through the anti-war movement. But for me, being a few years younger than the activists, that era was all about rock music and drugs. Giving the “peace” sign was just something we hippies did.
“Peace, man,” we would say while holding up two fingers. Our mantra was, “Make love not war.”
As for being anti-war, that was hardly a philosophical issue for me. It was simply pragmatic: I was getting high and playing drums in a rock band. Why on earth would I want to go to Vietnam to be killed in battle?
But for others, there really were serious philosophical issues, and deep questions were being asked.
Why are we here? What’s the meaning of life? Is the American dream our dream too – to have a better job and a nicer house than our parents, so our kids, in turn, can have a better job and nicer house than us? And what is the purpose of this war on the other side of the world? What are we actually fighting for?
Of course, even in my world, as we sit around and got high, we would also talk about spiritual things, endlessly, by the hour. There was a search for meaning and truth, and we knew there was something more than just going to work and having a family. CARTOONS | Steve Breen View Cartoon
As for the naïve attempts to find a perfect world in hippie communes, there was sincerity in the dream. Let’s get away from the rat race and from the pollution and violence of the big city, and let’s live naturally as one big, happy family.
Today, if we can look past the craziness (and violence) of groups like Antifa or the absurdity of the woke mentality (see here for a recent example) or the dangers of intersectional thinking, there is something similar going on.
Even when young people come down on the wrong side of social issues, becoming advocates for the most radical elements of LGBTQ ideologies or accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, there is often a cry for justice behind their zeal.
In other words, they are convinced that gays (or Palestinians or others) are victims of gross injustice, and they want to side with the underdog and make things right. When it comes to racial inequality, they don’t only want equal opportunities for all, they want equal outcomes.
Put another way, what they long for and what they want to bring about (even by force) is a Marxist utopia, similar to what the hippies were looking for on their communes. It will be paradise on earth.
Unfortunately, since human nature remains the same, the dream goes up in smoke, with the 60s ultimately building the platform for the sexual revolution, radical feminism, gay liberation, Roe v. Wade, and more. So much for finding a better way of life.
And today, we see the terribly destructive direction of cancel culture and oppressive wokeness. It is anything but a passive call to “make love, not war.” Today’s activism breathes the spirit of the Weathermen and Black Panthers of the 60s. Today’s activism is armed and angry.
Writing in the important new book Cancel Culture: And the Left’s Long March, Kristian Jenkins observed, “What we invariably discover is that the excitable young rabble rousers have gotten a little bit ahead of themselves. They fondly imagine, in their unseasoned youth, that they are the first dauntless adventurers to discover the principle of justice, and its inevitable foil, injustice. Incandescent, they set out pumped full of righteous indignation determined to overturn oppression and inequality. But in their exuberance they overlook vital facts. Yes, a fallen and imperfect world made up of fallen and imperfect people is bound to be subject to injustice in places. But the thing is, wiser heads than theirs have spotted this already and have over time written into the laws, constitutions and institutions safeguards like the separation of powers, democratic principles, the rule of law, free speech and so on, precisely to guard against the overreach of power by those that hold it.”
He continued, “In essence this is the root cause of all the incessant leftist overreach. The radicals and the revolutionaries of the left identify genuine injustice and determine to fix it. All well and good so far, but from the outset their objectives are built on faulty foundations. Unlike liberals and conservatives—who also want to address injustice but recognize the necessity to do so gradually, sometimes, and sensitively, always, careful to keep what works and cautious of unintended consequences—leftists see injustice as evidence that the whole edifice is rotten and oppressive and must be pulled down in entirety, beams, bricks, buttresses, the lot. Out goes the bath water, along with the baby, the bath and the rubber ducky. And if pig-headed reactionaries don’t get it they deserve to suffer the consequences. The Great Terror, the Great Purge, the Cultural Revolution.”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Jenkins has truly nailed it here.
What, then, can we learn from the past? You could say that the flesh and the world answered the cry of the 60s seekers while the church, by and large, failed to answer that cry. That’s because the church primarily saw the rebellion and the sin of the younger generation – the sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and Eastern religion – while missing the spiritual search and the cry for a better world that was behind it.
Today, we can easily lose sight of the cry for a better world and the longing for justice and purpose in the midst of the craziness of the autonomous zones and the oppressive madness of cancel culture.
We who are followers of Jesus should seize this moment, not only praying fervently for these young activists and their allies, but also telling them (and demonstrating!) that: 1) the teaching and example of Jesus are the ultimate path for social transformation; 2) true reconciliation can only come when hearts are changed; 3) in ourselves, we will only make a bad world even worse. We need to be saved ourselves!
So, while we must continue to critique and expose the dangerous agenda of the left, let us also reach out redemptively to those who, like many hippies more than 50 years ago, are on a real search for the meaning of life. Let’s show them the way.
Those of us of the 1970’s who are classical liberals wanted less government, and more freedom. We are now considered RW fascists because the liberals of today are the opposite of us liberals of the 1970’s. Todays liberals want more laws, more government, more oversight, less freedoms and less free choice. And they call those of us who are against this “controlling fascists”. Weird
“Those of us of the 1970’s who are classical liberals wanted less government, and more freedom...”
...are suddenly and increasingly self-identifying as libertartian.
Marx didn't think much of the communes and utopian socialists of his own day. He would not have liked the hippies very much.
I love the music of the 1960’s and 70’s.
Much of what was popular back then has come full circle and can now be interpreted as an attack on todays Leftists.
Three words. Same now as then
GET A JOB
I love the music of the 1960’s and 70’s.
Much of what was popular back then has come full circle and can now be interpreted as an attack on todays Leftists.
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Me, too. Really insightful. I have thought of that many times.
That’s why I can put Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen lyric lines on posts although both pushed people and things I disagree with. Bob Dylan at no time went to even one march or rally. He was a performer at the Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream” speech march, but not a marcher.
Funny moment: The guy sitting next to him was Hugh Romney (later called Wavy Gravy for the hippie bus trips of author Ken Kesey). He said to Bob Dylan: “The next guy to speak is Martin Luther King. I hope he doesn’t talk long. Mahalia Jackson is on next and I don’t want him to take any of her time up there.”
My favorite BD quote: (Motorpsycho Nitemare, 1965)
....
He still waits for me, constant, on the sly
He wants to turn me in to the F.B.I.
Me, I romp and stomp, thankful as I romp
Without freedom of speech I might be in the swamp
The Communist Party used front organizations under different names (such as "the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice"), which formed the umbrella which brought together a wide variety of Leftist entities, like the unions and the National Welfare Rights Coalition and Save Our Soldiers.
At the height of things, they had a commuter service between here and Hanoi, shuttling their operatives to the enemy's capital and they could gather hundreds of thousands of pinheads to mass demonstrations, fueled by the many young people who didn't want to fight/get hurt/die in the war and their mothers or girlfriends. It seems ridiculous that anyone would not know the marches and demonstrations supported our enemies when the VC and NVA flags were featured prominently and the had chants like "Ho, ho, ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win"?
Hippies were a different bunch: they were into drugs, sex and dropping out and had little to do with the "antiwar" crowd.
A much smaller percentage of us went ahead and fought in Vietnam and we carried the weight of the latest front in the Cold War all by ourselves.
Yes, it is. Leftists have become the very animals they hated in the 12970’s. They have become the real White Supremacists that they attack. They stand up and tell minorities “they” (White Woke Democrats) are the enlightened ones who know what is best for all minorities, and that minorities cannot survive, progress or gain independence with the control and guidance of Elite White Liberals. Like the plantation owners of the 1860’s
It is the old siren song of desiring to create a utopian "heaven on earth." Marx promised it, and his followers (especially the atheists) ardently think that they, in godlike fashion, can actually overcome sinful human nature,and create a "new man" who will want to live in a communistic society. What utterly simplistic, naive, childish, egotistical thinking!
Dylan and Cohen are among my favorite Poets and performers.
There were so many really great artists from those years that it’s easy to leave out so many more when trying to recall those times and their messages.
I’m a big fan of Jim Morrison and the Doors. There’s a deep sense of Brutal Sarcasm if you actually listen to the words. There’s no way Morrison DIDN’T do this intentionally. Listen to “An American Prayer”, the whole thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDNQYrfsjtQ&list=PLCc1CdM5OcYwybs3Yrdj7-1kFNTsuNzxq&index=2
It seems that at some point in our history people no longer listened to the WORDS.
No one listened to words any longer....
Some lines like “stayin’ alive...” and ones such as “Get on up, on the floor
‘Cause we’re gonna boogie oogie oogie
‘Till you just can’t boogie no more
Ah boogie, boogie no more” ( A Taste of Honey)
Not as memorable as...
No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour’s getting late. (All Along the Watchtower, Bob Dylan)
Weather Underground and SDS all had roots in the Communist party.
I suspect you like the movie “The Watchmen”
If you haven’t seen it, you should watch the first season of HBOs “True Detectives”. It is a fantastic exploration of Philosophy, Human Nature and Religion. Just watch and listen, it’s really deep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LejnTJL173Y
In the end?
Satan is Real,
therefore,
GOD is Real,
Never heard of it until your post. Thanks.
Bump
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