The Hippies: Permanent Revolution?
Dworkin, Gerald
You know, on the waterfront, the richest longshoremen are all ex-Communists. Ac tually from my own experience, I would say that the Communist Party in the United States is a vehicle for...
...The use of pot will not distinguish the Hippie from the non-Hippie...
...I neither ran experiments nor made any observation that is beyond the competence of anyone willing to spend some time with Hippies, talking and listening with a sympathetic ear...
...And there is no doubt that with the commercialization of the Hippie—particularly in the area of fashion— some Hippies may be able to "do their thing" and "make it" at the same time...
...they are a fairly non-literate breed...
...It is easier for them to ignore the role of money in our society for the very good reason that they have never been entrusted with it or the responsibilities connected with it...
...What is significant about the Hippies is that the break is taking place at a much younger age...
...I wasn't close enough to make an accurate check, but it looked like about a buck and a half in four blocks...
...Unlike working-class parents who at some point will just give up, the checks from middle-class poppa will flow eternally...
...Every culture has its rituals, its own way of establishing group identity, and for the Hippie world it is dropping acid...
...There is another fact that is relevant to the question of permanence...
...Then they'll have to get a regular job...
...It is assumed that the young will sow their wild oats and mature into respectability by middle age...
...How important these anthropological facts are, just how much they are facts, would require empirical investigation...
...Remember: Hippies need very little money...
...And what might be a major expense--entertainment—is minor for the Hippies...
...Some of it is hysterical, or at least this is true of the publicity attached to the research reports...
...This doesn't quite exhaust the resources, NOTEBOOK but drugs are fairly inexpensive...
...Their efforts at being self-sustaining flopped...
...As long as they get their daily dose they can function efficiently...
...It is surrounded by music of a special kind, by social relationships of a unique character, by values antithetical to the dominant morality...
...It may be later than we thought...
...The thought of attending a meeting is enough to turn him off completely...
...For many teen-age Hippies, this represents the first family structure that they identify with and which provides a model for living that is greatly at variance with the standard models of the society...
...It is not prepared to see any substantial proportion of its youth die of starvation or illness —particularly if the youth is middle-class and white...
...acid blows your mind...
...Yet even while, say, a Communist was denouncing his society, he accepted values that were essential to the society...
...Why won't they fade into insignificance like the Beats or become insurance salesmen like the Bohemians of the 20's...
...What more could a Hippie do than attack the profit motive, private property, the business ethic...
...No one can understand what it means to be a Hippie without understanding the decisive role of drugs...
...Still it is not unlikely that there will soon be hard data on the possible physiological effects of LSD and other hallucenogenics...
...It is usually during the teen-age years that many of the attitudes connected with making a living, caring about material possessions, looking to the products of mass culture for one's idols, are developed...
...A new one is introduced almost every week which brings free samples for market promotion...
...Clearly it is a complicated question to decide which came first— the drugs or the rejection of bourgeois society...
...But this may only be a fad and if they are to last, Hippies will have to fall back on the other sources I mentioned...
...The whole notion of dating, for example, strikes these kids as weird...
...What this means in English is that the typical Hippie household is not two parents and 2.5 children, but rather a heterogeneous grouping of six or eight people, some of them, perhaps, being children, linked to each other by ties which are in many ways family-like...
...But in all these cases the individuals involved were fully acculturated into the dominant mores of the society...
...Generational revolts—political, moral, artistic, sexual—all come to an end...
...It is not so much a homosexual emphasis (although a recent HaightAshbury survey reports 37 per cent of the males and 24 per cent of the females as having engaged in some form of homosexual activity) as a pan-sexualism...
...All previous generational breaks took place at a fairly late stage in the maturation process...
...Naturally, there is an ideological shift which has to come first and there are many persons who remain faithful to their early ideological commitments—although many more have abandoned them...
...Previous rebels have had to return to the fold because they found no way of sustaining themselves outside the market economy...
...Another fairly important development, still in too early a stage to be assessed fully, is what the sociologists would call the "breakdown of the nuclear family and a return to the extended family...
...One estimate I heard from a girl who was living with seven other people in the Haight was $48 a month...
...The most usual time NOTEBOOK was late adolescence and the beginning of college life...
...What, then, distinguishes the Hippies from the generation of Communists who now teach conservative sociology in the academic establishment or make reactionary foreign policy in Foggy Bottom...
...Attempts, such as those of the Beats, to compromise by working on a part-time basis were usually not stable...
...The exact age varies—with the Beats it was a bit later, with many radical youths a bit earlier...
...If this seems like very little, consider that there are a number of free goods and services available to Hippies...
...The Yippies who might be thought to be a counter-example are not really...
...For example: to the economic point—when they're 35 their parents will be dead or stop supporting them...
...WHAT I have been arguing is that in all the dimensions—biological, physiological, psychological, sociological, economic—the breaks are so far-reaching that it will be much more difficult for Hippies to backslide...
...They don't even steal them...
...That is what makes it a revolt and not a fad...
...And Hippies do not buy books...
...Consider also, the radical break made by the Hippies in their attempt to break down traditional conceptions of sexual identity...
...I shall indicate reasons which support this conclusion but I am not going to try and evaluate the data in any systematic way...
...Ultimately, however, the psychological changes will be more important...
...Why are these youths different from all other youth...
...Still, even this degree of politicization represents an interesting change from the view expressed a year ago that the only power is flower-power...
...Still, I think the points I make are generally true of the Hippie culture, and local variations will not be important...
...Head" drugs are different from "body" drugs...
...their beauty ideal neither clearly defined as masculine or feminine...
...The values and mode of life of the Hippie run counter to all this...
...The process has become so much a natural development that it no longer occasions surprise—although always some resentment...
...Finally, there is what might be called the Marxist angle...
...I think the Hippies can make it economically for a number of reasons, the main one being that this is a very affluent society and it is welfare oriented...
...The Hippies have gone beyond that...
...Surely, it might be claimed, the very notion of a political radical involves a basic break with the fundamental tenets of the powers-that-be...
...still, the conception is not to be dismissed lightly...
...All I am suggesting is that the emphasis on the use of psychedelics by the Hippies makes them different from other generational revolts and that the long-range effects, both psychological and physiological, may make it difficult for the Hippies to be re-absorbed into the mainstream of American life...
...But it is significant that morphine addicts have no ideology...
...Pot is too respectable, too middieclass...
...Or perhaps they only produce drastic value shifts in conjunction with a psychological "set" that only takes place at the time of adolescence...
...There is a good deal of loose talk about changes in consciousness induced by the regular taking of psychedelics...
...The Yippies were there in full force— Krasner, Hoffman, Rubin—and spent most of the time denouncing the proceedings as bullshit and calling for a demonstration of love and acid-rock...
...Eric Hoffer T T HE HIPPIES are merely the latest in a continuous series of revolts by a younger generation against its fathers, both literal and symbolic...
...Compare the Hippies with any of the radical political sects of the 30's...
...Compare for example an ex-bohemian or ex-radical father explaining to his children why he now works as an advertising executive or stockbroker and the kinds of rationalizations available to him (maturity, responsibility for a growing family, you can't change the system, duped) with those either necessary or available to a Hippie drop-out...
...He listened to his leaders, accepted responsibility for selling a certain number of Daily Workers each week, for raising a given quota of money for the fund drive, etc...
...from its environment...
...Ac tually from my own experience, I would say that the Communist Party in the United States is a vehicle for transforming true believers into successful real estate dealers...
...As one nymphet observed: "We fuck for fun...
...Second, it is a good bet that some time in the near future we will see some form of guaranteed income at least on a subsistence level...
...The world of the Hippie is a different world—more mystical, more enthusiastic...
...And it is this last bit which is significant for my hypothesis...
...I want to suggest that the Hippies really are different, that there are reasons for supposing that this revolt may be permanent in a way all other revolts have not been...
...The long hair is an attempt to defy the traditional ways of classifying individuals on the basis of superficial characteristics, and straight people are aware of this, reserving some of their choicest venom for this part of the Hippie life-style...
...EVERY GENERATIONAL REVOLT involves a rejection of a larger or smaller part of the dominant values of the society...
...By circumventing these routes, by having just that much less time for patterns to be built in, the Hippies are provided with just that much more freedom to ignore conventional paths...
...Most serious as opposed to "plastic" Hippies have now left the Haight, moving to other parts of San Francisco or what promises to be the most interesting new development—to rural communes...
...Any society must meet certain basic economic requirements, must find ways of wresting food, shelter, etc...
...We know that doctors, who carry on normal lives in all other respects, form one of the largest groups of morphine addicts...
...Pot is euphoric, acid explosive...
...But even if this didn't pan out, there are the indigenous ways of making money—panhandling, pushing, selling Hippie newspapers, etc...
...There are objections that could be raised to each of my arguments...
...He doesn't accept leadership: each individual is his own trip leader...
...Still I think the kinds of considerations I have advanced should make one cautious about the inevitability of a return to the womb of the "Great Society...
...If one ran a mimeograph machine for the Socialist Worker's party, one could run a Xerox machine for the local insurance company...
...If he was a good party member, he attended meetings faithfully and attended them on time...
...Pot makes you happy...
...Very crudely my point could be put as follows: It's not a very large step to go from being a labor organizer to being a personnel manager for IBM...
...It seems improbable that a Hippie who has taken a hundred trips could settle down to be a used-car salesman...
...What is essential for my argument is the relative ease or difficulty of abandoning one's youthful commitments, and I am arguing that in many respects it's going to be harder for a Hippie to "drop in...
...The teenie-boppers are a growing phenomenon and it is not uncommon to find eleven-year-olds who have left their family and are living in some kind of communal setup...
...This generation is never fully acculturated...
...but I think they are significant...
...He doesn't raise money: he burns it...
...Important decisions are made corporately, possessions are shared, children are cared for by whoever is around and in good condition, sexual partners are not clearly demarcated...
...For more sophisticated types, there is access to the increasing commercialization of Hippie clothing, music, art work, etc...
...Pot is safe (everyone knows this even if it's not news fit to print) ; acid is potentially dangerous...
...Their sex is androgynous...
...Note on pan-handling: I followed a very Hippie-looking chick down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, who confined her pan-handling, oddly enough, only to fellow Hippies—some kind of queer principle at work there—and did amazingly well...
...But the Hippies are involved in a more radical rejection than other rebels have been...
...I attended a conference of the New Left in Chicago last spring which met to decide what kind of political action to take at the Democratic convention...
...It is at least possible—we don't know enough to say probable—that the longrange effects of regular use of psychedelics will make it impossible to live as the American way of life demands...
...The parents of the Hippies are not about to cut them off from support no matter how long they maintain their break...
...There is some evidence coming in on the nature of the physiological changes that take place—both in genetic and brain structure...
...And statistically the Hippies are overwhelmingly WASPS...
...Whether or not they have found God—as many claim—there do seem to be important changes in values associated with the NOTEBOOK taking of these drugs...
...he accepted party discipline...
...Music is the basic staple of culture and is enjoyed communally, hence economically...
...Their world isn't changed as a result of their use of drugs...
...Previous revolts took the form of calling for extensions of traditional sexual paths—free love, communal marriages...
...one survey shows 1 per cent Negro, 3 per cent Jews...
...To the physiological argument about drugs—these effects are not long-term...
...My own experience and some of the data I have are drawn from the Haight-Ashbury and Berkeley communities...
Vol. 16 • March 1969 • No. 2
