I know Easy Rider was a watershed in American cinema. I know anybody who doesn’t understand this has no appreciation of context.
I know nobody over 30 could be trusted in the 1960s, but that the Flower Children who are now approaching 50 can be trusted totally because their generation is different. I know that there is no logical contradiction between the philosophy of the YIPpies of the 60s and that of the YUPpies which so many of them have become.
I know that giving up cities and going back to the land was a really important social movement — the only way to satisfy the soul is to put the body through 12 to 16 hours of backbreaking farm work a day. I know that collective farming was the most effective kind because when people are no longer burdened by individual property, their souls are free for more important pursuits. Candlemaking, for instance. Or macrame.
I know that in the sixties long hair was a sign of political protest (unlike today, when it is most often merely a sign of personal moral decay).
I know that nobody was ever cheated by his or her drug dealer in the sixties. I know that nobody ever had a bad trip. I know that nobody ever died of an overdose (other than the occasional rock star, and that’s okay because they died for our sins). I know that nobody was ever ratted out by a friend to the Feds or the narcs to save himself or herself from going to jail. And if anything like that ever did happen, it was beautiful.
I know.
I know that rock music was better in the sixties — the stuff kids listen to today, well, that’s just noise! I know that, under the right conditions, you can find god in 20 minutes of feedback. I know that mud, rain, overcrowding, lack of food and inadequate toilet facilities did nothing to dampen the love vibe of every single one of the millions of people at Woodstock. I know that the…little unpleasantness at Altamont was completely the fault of the Hell’s Angels who were hired to be security guards and in no way reflected any undercurrents in the crowd during the Summer of Love.
I know that women were equal partners in the social revolutions of the sixties. I know that bra burning was an effective response to thousands of years of sexist oppression. I know that all the different liberation groups of the 1960s cooperated fully with each other in a wonderful air of mutual respect, always supporting each other’s actions and never disagreeing on matters of ideological principle. I know that revolutionary violence was fundamentally different from violence carried out in the name of the state because it was, well, revolutionary.
I know that the Warren Commission was wrong. In fact, the Warren Commission was so wrong that it probably wasn’t even called the Warren Commission.
I know that Haight-Ashbury was the physical and spiritual center of the universe. I know that spritual fulfillment was simply a matter of following the right religious leader, as long as he or she was not the leader of the religion you were born into.
I know that nothing but lasting, deep and meaningful relationships were started when one person asked another, “What’s your sign?” I know that clothes were a bourgeois means of social control, and nudist movements were never populated by horny young men. And even if they were, that wouldn’t be a problem, because sexuality is always beautiful, no matter what form it takes. And if somebody’s sexuality took a form which made me uncomfortable, I wasn’t sufficiently liberated — and if it took a form which made you uncomfortable, boy, were you a square!
I know. Really, I know.
I know that the threat of levitating the Pentagon five feet in the air led to the end of the Vietnam War.
How do I know all this?
A Baby Boomer who came of age in the sixties told me, of course.