Current Events > Just got done with a book about hippies in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Read most of it, very enjoyable. I learnt a lot.

It talked about the relationship between the beats, and the beatniks. It showed how the hippie movement was already growing in strength a lot in 1966, despite some people saying hippies didn't "officially" begin until 1967 - stuff like the free concerts by the Grateful Dead, etc. in San Francisco, free food given out, some crime, and so on. It covered the Yippies, who liked to make fun of the Establishment, with major figures such as Abbie Hoffman; the Diggers, who not only thought that everything should be free - "decommodification", if you like - but thought the best way to get stuff to people without paying was to steal it.

There were all the communes and collectives that sprang up. The difference, seemingly, between the two words is that collectives were more political and authoritarian, and communes were more fun and easy-going. It talked about rural communes, like Drop City, and various others. It also discussed the reasons that a lot of the communes eventually failed, such as drugs and alcohol, lack of money, lack of rules to make people, well, behave, causing things to fall apart by the early Seventies. There were also a mix of communes when it came to religion...they weren't all Westerners trying to follow Eastern mysticism, such as Hinduism and Buddhism. There were Christians, too, and also secular communes.

It talked about the big "events", such as the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and Altamont. Of course, I already knew plenty about them. It did show the wider context that existed in, though, such as all the hippies in San Francisco in 1966 (and before), and how that eventually led to the Summer of Love. There was the siege in Berkeley, and also the problems revolving around a hippie park there.

The book was called American Hippies, although I don't recall the name of the author. Very interesting. Peace, man.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
And Flashbacks, by Timothy Leary, were an eye-opener for me.
It shows both sides of the coin.
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Can you go into more detail? Also, I prefer books written after the fact, i.e. with the benefit of hindsight, to be better than stuff written during a period.
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MeIon Bread posted...

Can you go into more detail? Also, I prefer books written after the fact, i.e. with the benefit of hindsight, to be better than stuff written during a period.

Well, they both are in hindsight.
Both are flashbacks, as it were, no pun intended.

I mean, it's Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary.

With all due respect, Have you never heard of The Electric Koolaid acid test?
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Of course. But I was under the impression, and apparently this was a mistaken impression, that The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was written in 1968. Which is at the height of the hippie era.
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MeIon Bread posted...

Of course. But I was under the impression, and apparently this was a mistaken impression, that The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was written in 1968. Which is at the height of the hippie era.

Ya, okay...but if that's what you're on...aint we just living it now? The aftermath.
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To be fair, I don't know anyone who is going to give you a compressive explanation of how that generation fucked everything they had to give. But Vietnam and Cocain had a lot to do with it. Throw in a chuck of fucked-up assanations and there you go.
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