Never Trust a Hippy

[egb_hibs]

"The Love Generation? More like the love me generation


Before we get misty-eyed about the right-on 60s, we shouldn't forget what a small jump it turned out to be from hippie to yuppie

John Harris
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian

In just over a fortnight, it will be 40 years since the release of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Teary-eyed baby boomers will presumably get out their vinyl copies for a Proustian spin, and perhaps wonder where all that peace, love and understanding went, a question that has been hanging around for almost as long as the record itself. Paul McCartney once related the tale of being cornered by a crestfallen hippie in 1972: "God, man, around the time of Sgt Pepper, we really thought it was going to change the world," he was told. "What happened?"


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imho, the writer is in many ways so so right, and yet simultaneously utterly wrongheaded in the conclusions he draws from being so.

if the hippies agenda is ultimately that of the libertarian right - then why doesn't he explore the implication that today's leftist position is then perhaps the mirror of the establishment the hippies were contesting; authoritarian and censorious.

[O'Driscoll]

What's the article got to do with the left?

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by O'Driscoll
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What's the article got to do with the left?

given it's in the guardian, and given the obligatory views on the libertarian right, i'd say it's a safeish conclusion that the article is written by and for lefties. the point that the article doesn't address the left, is the point i was making. there is no following through of the implications of the critique put forward.

[O'Driscoll]

Oh I see so when a leftish article appears in the Spectator it is designed for a right wing readership then!

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by O'Driscoll
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Oh I see so when a leftish article appears in the Spectator it is designed for a right wing readership then!

it's intended for the spectator readership, the majority of whom are probably right of centre.

not sure what your getting at? or where the potential comparison would be?

if this was a right wing article in the guardian, presumably it wouldn't be attacking the right, or at least not on the basis of cliched lefty arguments. in any case, this is a red herring - even if the author is a rabid rightist, he still hasn't explored the implications i talked about.

[O'Driscoll]

what I mean is that the Guardian is capable of nuetral articles (not that I read it) and the article you refer to is in fact nuetral.

As for the piece it reflects well something I have thought for years, that the 60's generation have had the best of all worlds. They have fought the state but retired early on its pensions, they have won they're freedoms on issues like sex and drugs but left the next generation with the consequences and they have railed against capalism whilst doing remarkably well out of it. Unfortunately I belong to the next generation the one that is picking up the tab!

I don't have a problem with hippies its just that their vision failed.

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by O'Driscoll
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what I mean is that the Guardian is capable of nuetral articles (not that I read it) and the article you refer to is in fact nuetral.

As for the piece it reflects well something I have thought for years, that the 60's generation have had the best of all worlds. They have fought the state but retired early on its pensions, they have won they're freedoms on issues like sex and drugs but left the next generation with the consequences and they have railed against capalism whilst doing remarkably well out of it. Unfortunately I belong to the next generation the one that is picking up the tab!

I don't have a problem with hippies its just that their vision failed.

Their vision was hopelessly utopian and simplistic, it ignored the real world and its complex problems. I was born slightly too late to be a hippie but I would never have subscribed to that tosh about love and peace, no more war, end capitalism etc. In any case the gear they wore was just shite.

[Archie]

On the other hand, whatever you think of Hippies and the values thay espoused, it is arguable that they helped put in train a dramatic shift in values that helped shape where we are today.

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Dixie Chicken
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In any case the gear they wore was just shite.

and frankly, that's the important thing really.

i can't help feeling that youthful politics is mostly influenced by this stuff; okay today's kids don't seem that political, but in the past the violent chic of skins etc draws on long established fascist traditions, invented by the bolshies (if not before) and then perfected by benito and addie.

and how much has youthful radicalism been propelled by borderline erotic fantasies about che and his ilk, never mind the prattling of endless posh pop stars.

at the end of the day i suspect it's a truism that any political vision which goes hand in hand with a 'look' is probably profoundly dodgy.

[Colr]

That generation changed loads. There comes a point where you stop fighting the establishment and start becoming the establishment and at that point the ideas go into practise. The Russian children of the 60s brought down the USSR and liberalised the eastern block for example.

The impact of the 1968 risings has been very important even if they didn't bring down the government at the time.

[pilrig70]

Dont know why Sgt Pepper generates so much nostalgia. As albums go its patchy, some classic tunes on it like A Day In The Life but some absolute unlistenable keek on it too like the title track and "With A Little Help From My Friends".

The Beatles made better albums before Sgt Pepper - such as Revolver - and they sure as hell made infinitely better albums after it.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by pilrig70
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Dont know why Sgt Pepper generates so much nostalgia. As albums go its patchy, some classic tunes on it like A Day In The Life but some absolute unlistenable keek on it too like the title track and "With A Little Help From My Friends".

The Beatles made better albums before Sgt Pepper - such as Revolver - and they sure as hell made infinitely better albums after it.

Anyone else think that the white album would have been one of the best ever if it had just been a single LP and they had left pish like rocky raccoon and little piggies off it for a bairns album.

[beefy]

Originally Posted by Colr
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Anyone else think that the white album would have been one of the best ever if it had just been a single LP and they had left pish like rocky raccoon and little piggies off it for a bairns album.

Na, i like the lot of it apart from revolution 9.That track is too freaky.

[Keepitgreen]

Originally Posted by O'Driscoll
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what I mean is that the Guardian is capable of nuetral articles (not that I read it) and the article you refer to is in fact nuetral.

As for the piece it reflects well something I have thought for years, that the 60's generation have had the best of all worlds. They have fought the state but retired early on its pensions, they have won they're freedoms on issues like sex and drugs but left the next generation with the consequences and they have railed against capalism whilst doing remarkably well out of it. Unfortunately I belong to the next generation the one that is picking up the tab!

I don't have a problem with hippies its just that their vision failed.

I'd never really thought about this before O'Driscoll, good points... It's got me thinking alright...
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Were hippies the 'baby boomers' then? Or were they the children of baby boomers? I vaguely remember studying them at some point in Social Studies or some other pishy subject. They had it cushy too didn't they?

[superbam]

Originally Posted by O'Driscoll
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What's the article got to do with the left?

fekin everythings got something to do with the left, even graeme roberts. Nearly everytime I go on the cowshed now theres some reds-under-the-bed type thread, so borin like.

[hughieo]

Originally Posted by pilrig70
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Dont know why Sgt Pepper generates so much nostalgia. As albums go its patchy, some classic tunes on it like A Day In The Life but some absolute unlistenable keek on it too like the title track and "With A Little Help From My Friends".

The Beatles made better albums before Sgt Pepper - such as Revolver - and they sure as hell made infinitely better albums after it.

Being older perhaps I think I know.

At the time it was just so utterly different from anything that had ever been done before.
There were our heroes in psychedelic suits singing about marmalade skies and incorporating for the very first time these studio sound effects which were later to be perfected by the Floyd.
It was revolutionary

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by superbam
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fekin everythings got something to do with the left, even graeme roberts. Nearly everytime I go on the cowshed now theres some reds-under-the-bed type thread, so borin like.

sorry about that; the point of the theme is to invert the standard set of scottish prejudices.

the very absence of right wingers to have a pop at kind of underlines the point.

it's also to challenge dangerous complacency (as I see it) - the rehabilitation of anti-semitism is not happening through bonehead neo-nazis.

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs
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sorry about that; the point of the theme is to invert the standard set of scottish prejudices.

the very absence of right wingers to have a pop at kind of underlines the point.

it's also to challenge dangerous complacency (as I see it) - the rehabilitation of anti-semitism is not happening through bonehead neo-nazis.

Where is anti-semitism being rehabilitated, and how? Are you equating support for the Palestinian cause with anti-semitism?

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by hughieo
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Being older perhaps I think I know.

At the time it was just so utterly different from anything that had ever been done before.
There were our heroes in psychedelic suits singing about marmalade skies and incorporating for the very first time these studio sound effects which were later to be perfected by the Floyd.
It was revolutionary

Absolutely. Actually, at the same time as the Floyd. See Emily Play was a hit at exactly the same time as All You Need Is Love.

[pilrig70]

Originally Posted by hughieo
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Being older perhaps I think I know.

At the time it was just so utterly different from anything that had ever been done before.
There were our heroes in psychedelic suits singing about marmalade skies and incorporating for the very first time these studio sound effects which were later to be perfected by the Floyd.
It was revolutionary

Thats fair comment I guess. By the time our generation, ten years later, had gone through the experiences of glamrock, the stripped-down minimalism of punk, and reggae/funk, and began expanding our musical horizons in other directions, it was often the legacy of Krautrock we first encountered - through the early Human League, Daniel Miller, Wire, Robert Rental, Depeche Mode, Teardrop Explodes - and through them back to Kraftwerk, Can, Pink Floyd and psychedelia.

By the time I got to Sgt Pepper the sounds didnt sound new and revolutionary, and a lot of the lyrics just grated on ma punk sensibilities, and sounded really childish. But, aye, the multi-layered recording techniques must've sounded really revolutionary at the time. And, eh, worked well with the substances that were around then...

[hughieo]

Splutter...I have no idea what you mean by that last bit
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