Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Hippies

e [Music] uh the topic tonight is the hippies and understanding of whom we must I guess acquire or die painfully uh we certainly should make considerable progress in the next hour because we have with us a professional student of the hippies as also someone who is said to have started the whole beat gener business and finally hiby type who can correct us ever so gently please if we are wrong Mr Lewis Yoni is a sociologist who studied at ruas and took his Doctorate at New York University and teaches at San Fernando State College in California where he is Chairman of his Department his first book uh which focused on teenage gang life and drug addiction prepared him for his his magnumopus which is called the hippie trip a firsthand account of the beliefs and behavior of hippies in America uh Mr J Jack kak over here became famous when his book on the road was published uh it seemed to be preaching a life of disengagement making a virtue out of restlessness the irony is that when the book was belatedly published in 1958 years after it was written Mr kak had fought his way out of the B generation and is now if not exactly Orthodox at least a regular practicing novelist whose 13th book the vanity of Doos is widely regarded as his best Mr Ed Sanders is a musician a poet and a polemicist he is one of the fugs a widely patronized combo he has published four books of poetry and has vigorously preached pacifism for a number of years I should like to begin by asking Mr Sanders whether we have serious terminological problems for instance are you a hippie Mr Sanders and if not wherein not well I I'm not exactly a hippie I mean I have certain uh uh sentiments for that quote hippie movement uh unquote uh I would say say that I'm differed from the hippies and that I would have a more radical uh political solution to the problems of this part of the century and I have uh my roots more strongly in uh say the classical tradition and in poetry and literature rather than in uh dope and Street sex this this you think um and you wrote you published that magazine called what called gutter exp a magazine of the Arts well now uh do do I understand from this that we that we are supposed to make the inference that the hippies don't have a highly developed uh political uh schedule a highly polit a highly political ideology is it the problem with the terms like hippie is that they have a definition foed on them by the media and that uh the word hippie is uh has been limited by the necessities of the type of journalists that promote it and uh uh you know you can't rely on the name hippie to include a human being you know everything about a particular human being you know so uh it's a bad term I think because it has no meaning think of hippopotamus and I mean you you know it's like it's it's it has no uh other uh connections spiritual and emotional like say beat the beat uh uh generation title had you know it had other implications but the word hippie you immediately think of uh uh you don't have any good connection I kind of disagree with that I I spent last year traveling around the country uh various communes and various uh hate ashbery Lower East Side various City scenes and there was an identifiable uh Define a hippie as a rather generally a young person uh in several categories there's kind of a Priestly type I include Alan Ginsburg and Tim ly and individuals like that in that category uh people uh try searching for some loving solutions to society's ills uh trying to tune into the cosmos whatever that means we can explore that generally using psychedelic drugs uh and then there's a whole cadri of individuals who uh whom I've turned the novices who are uh attempting to achieve a certain uh transcendental State and there's a lot of teeny bopper kids who are uh sort of uh hanging on then there's some ancient folks like kowak here who why couldn't you keep quiet while I was talking I'll keep quiet when you talk yeah that's a fair enough isn't it what I think that's fair enough you're request you said cadri it's Cadre well I'm sorry I apologize my semantics aren and I showed my thumbs down to Ginsburg over there in the back oh he's a nice fell yeah we'll throw them to the Lions well what about it Mr carck uh your exercise about something here or buy something Restless is true you had the right word Restless is right what what what is it that um that in your judgment uh distinguishes the the hippie movement from for instance or A rou rad over movement no I I interrupted your s s sentence yeah I say what what what distinguishes the hippie movement from Simply an orthodox radical uh say uh nothing adomite uh movement adomite there was Adam Adam and Eve or atam Adam an Adam and Eve what's an Adam and Eve what's adomite where they all wear their their hair long layers and caves yeah and sort of Back To Nature and uh exclusive concern for you might have to Due Time the adomite bomb hey that was good wasn't it good all the time boy they give that amount of drink now Jack Mr K what I want to ask is this to what extent do you believe believe that the Beat Generation is related to the to the hippies what do they have in common was this an evolution from the one to the other just the older ones yeah I'm 46 years old these kids are 18 it's the same movement which apparently some kind of dionan movement in late civilization mhm and which I did not intend any more than I suppose dius did or whatever his name was but although I'm not dest the aerop I should have been yeah that's the point yeah no it's just a movement which is a uh supposed to be Lous but it isn't really well not Lous in in what respect hippies are good kids they're better than the beat the Beats say Ginsburg and W Ginsburg boy we we're all in our 40s M and we started this and the kids took it up and everything but uh a lot of hoods hoodlums and uh Communists jumped on our backs mhm well on my back not his mhm fer and gy jumped jumped on my back and and turned the idea that I had that the the B generation was a a generation of beatitude and pleasure in life and tenderness but they called it in the papers beat Mutiny beat Insurrection words I never used M being a Catholic I believe in order tenderness and piety well then your point was that a meeting that a that rather that a movement which you conceived as relatively pure has become IDE biologized and uh misanthropic and generally uh objectionable no a movement that was considered what pure yes it was pure in my heart What About That M did you do you do you see that as having happened somewhere between well I the beeps and the hippies I think there's uh in early 67 and going back to around I suppose 64 or five there were a lot of people trying to kind of return to sort of an Indian style of life or relate to the land differently uh trying to uh uh to uh love each other and uh and and communicate be more open with each other and I think it uh recently it's uh it's taken a turn in a violent Direction uh a lot of responsibility I think is due to drugs like methodin the amphetamin uh uh and perhaps the uh the over use uh because it's been around for quite a while now of of drugs like LSD what about the Herring what is Herring is that kind of a drug it's a cherry hering no no not uh kowak still on is style he's still on alcohol which is other drugs now how about that s is that out of style well uh you mentioned misanthropic uh an objectionable I think that misanthropic many of the uh so-called misanthropic elements of this generation is are due to uh the war let me and that you have a surly generation of draft eligible but literate and uh articulate people who are who are confronted with the Hideous probability of having to go to an Asian land War that and that uh so they have to go to war and they're faced with this this looming gloomy future and that rather than die in Vietnam they'd rather prepare themselves to articulate a lifestyle in the streets and in the open that that that really reflects something they really want to do rather than this other thing you have to do later on they don't really believe in and they will do because uh push comes to shove most kids go to war you know course the trou with that is it doesn't account for instance for the restlessness in say Paris where they don't have that particular problem does it well that's the up against the wall uh Mr Sanders I'm interested in in trying to uh pin this point down because a lot of us have heard that the restlessness of so much of American Youth uh which has contributed to the growth of the hippie movement has to do with the trauma of Vietnam but then all of a sudden a while ago in in France the entire what seemed like the entire student uh population exploded even though that particular provocation was singularly in fact conspicuously absent France having been officially very pro- North Vietnam very ATI americ now how do you account for that and has it caused you to perhaps look in for more generic sources of I think it's a nefarious uh occurrence in French civilization of Madame deal Madame deal because she has exercised a noxious influence on French television sitting up and personally censoring it and uh I think no I think I it's absolutely true and I think that when you have a uh a type of obnoxious matriarchy as uh uh that's evident in France plus a encrusted boring borish uh University structure and uh this and a you know and the old man himself and who wouldn't I mean there's a whole thing to God there's a there's a huge structure there to revolt against so know Madame Deo is roughly equal to Vietnam she's uh Professor yonky what would you say if a student of yours told you that well I think in in the United States uh the hippies uh with all the panamount difficulties of defining them come from the uh middle upper classes upper socioeconomic situation and these are generally uh people who have uh tasted uh the best that American society seems to have to offer they they have access to all the goodies and they're turned off by it they feel that it's kind of a plastic Society there's no room for political change I'm talking about the pure hippie the pure hippie isn't particularly involved in politics he sort of uh Retreats from that he's he's with withdrawn from it and he's involved in uh I mentioned the term Cosmic Consciousness before there is uh an experience one seems to get under LSD that uh a lot of uh people talk about is putting them in touch with all things with all people and there's an effort kind of an extremist effort at love that seems to dominate the uh the hippie scene and a retreat from uh uh politics uh well is is there a causal relation between uh they're going they're adopting these attitudes and the Vietnam War uh or do you do you reject the Vietnam War as the the proximate cause of this movement the Vietnam war is is a part of it uh but if they had been no Vietnam War we might have had the identical thing is that your point well I think uh part there a lot of there's no single cause for for a particular movement I think part of it may have been uh the assassination of of JFK I think people on the left felt that through the establishment through political devices uh uh the society could move in other uh directions and then uh in what direction was it moving in 1963 that was pleasing to them uh there was uh a a a movement towards uh greater welfare programs towards uh uh resolving in some ways the Civil Rights issue there seemed to be some hope and then this seemed to be snapped off and uh a lot of kids who went to Mississippi if I may say so precisely the movements that didn't get passed in 1961 62 and 63 of the kind you just enumerated were passed in 64 6566 so there would seem to be almost a negative correlation between the civil rights legislation and Welfare passages and the growth of the movement I think if you can cross compare the limited JFK Administration and the rather lengthy LBJ Administration I think uh the LBJ situation has kind of been a going through the motions of doing something and there was a certain I feel uh and and a lot of people have told me the spirit of foot in the country and there seemed to be a bit of a of of a Revival with uh uh with Bobby Kennedy and uh here again uh uh and to some extent the McCarthy uh involvement uh and I think a lot of uh people are turned off from the political establishment because they don't see any hope for uh changing it that they use terms like uh plastic and more more severe words about it and they they've disengaged they're uncommitted to it how about that M carak does that make sense to you the in terms of I lost the entire train of thought well the the train of thought has to do with whether uh whether in the last few years people have ceased to look at the political processes as profitable in terms of bringing on the kind of world they want to live in and and maybe that has something to do with the assassination of Canada that kind of thing no that was an accident I I refer back to uh count Leo tolto who wrote War and Peace you know Leo Toto who said that at one time the uh the The Hourglass that sand is coming down from one top of The Hourglass down to the other and that will be the end of War I think that war will be over fairly soon mhmh although I don't know for sure that's what to sto said and he was the guy who taught Gandhi in the yeah Henry David the yeah told him a lot of foolish things no but I didn't get the the full context of your question well the full context of the question is are are a significant number of Americans precisely at an age when we enunciated the Great Society I Great Society I.E the society that was actually going to introduce Politics as in everything are they disillusioned and does this have to do with the growth of the hiy movement in the first place I think that the the Vietnamese War is nothing but a plot between the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese War cousins to get jeeps in the country and as for they're not very good plotters I well they got a lot of jeeps I think they're pulling the wool over our eyes and we're little American Lambs they turned out to be more expensive than se's robug Jeeps yes but I that's what I really think there as for the Russian shouldn't take over of Czechoslovakia that showed the world what they're like MH what the Communists are really like they're really fascists well yeah I don't guess anybody doubted that except maybe Mr Sanders right oh I've I I think it was a terrible thing you know and I uh if I were in Czechoslovakian a Czechoslovakian student I'd be putting out a a underground newspaper and doing my best called what called gutter EXP [Applause] well since since you since since you are in Czechoslovakia uh Mr Sanders what do you consider it appropriate to do in the United States during the during the presidential campaign Yeah by way of protest against the Czechoslovakian business well I recommend uh uh stins in front of the Russian missions what for to uh vigorously and more uh forcefully yet non-violently uh to witness against it and I would Advocate uh writing articles and Advocate uh you maybe going to Czechoslovakia I mean we may the fugs are going to Europe in a couple weeks and we may to bring your carbines we're going to the Essen song festival in Germany we just may try to freak across to Czechoslovakia to visit uh kafka's birth place I guess was he born in Prague yeah so we may go play have a homage to uh kofka with the uh uh with our band well do do you do you draw any uh do you draw any generalities on the basis of the behavior of the Soviet Union which instruct you in assessing other political situations like mayor daily in Chicago M and what what are those well those are that when you when you attempt to essentially peacefully gathered together to press a point about a war about a about a freedom or about freedom of journalism that when you're confronted with people like uh D like the Soviet leaders and like the uh leaders in Chicago namely mayor Daly and Mr stall and Mr Barger of the Chicago uh municipal office that you're conf you're confronted with essentially the same position you're not you're allowed you're clubbed you're maed you're gassed you're freaked Zapped pushed over if you're an old lady you're thrown through a plate glass window if you're a [ __ ] you're thrown against a street light if you're a peaceful long-haired loving protester you're SM smashed and knocked down if you're a cameraman you're bricked and your camera is destroyed and your your blood is splattered all over you I mean it's it's a nefarious scene and there's there's there's all kinds of correlations and what the only the only uh what the lesson you would draw would be to uh prepare yourself and you know in the sense of if you're nonviolent like I am and if you believe in pacifism you will ATT to create a body of love and light so that that thing can't happen that there'll be so many loving people there that you will have a festival of life life and all its attributes and you can do that by by praying together by loving together by Allan was singing Al in the streets which is the Hindu uh benevolent word and uh by doing by getting together and creating love I think it's a great force and at least in allowing you to demonstrate in United States against uh uh Daly who is you know like Al Capone you know you know yeah sure beware of false prophets who come unto you dressed in sheep's clothing and underneath they are ravening wolves but who's that uh now Mr yansy I'd like to ask you this because you have you have studied very carefully the whole Hipp mentality I was I was in Chicago and uh uh so were a lot of people who would not really have recognized what happened on the basis of Mr Sanders description but I do think that Mr Sanders means it in other words I think that he really thinks that cops were looking for old ladies to name and gentle people to Savage and that and and I think the fact that he thinks it is interesting now Happ is is this yeah I know sure sure sure yes yes uh uh I think I I I would like to hear your analysis of why it is that they seem to feel it compulsive to believe that a DA who was after all a hero of John F Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy whom you associate with the best of the aspirations of the youth how come they feel this way what is it in their Creed that requires well first of all I wouldn't hook Bailey in with JFK and that he's a he's a big city boss I think that I just observed uh you and others on television uh in Chicago um I think Bello about me was oh boy you're going to slug someone there but uh I think uh that if the people who were involved with the hippies or the ippies had been permitted uh to uh to sort of do their thing and and to chant and to have a peaceful March that thing involve the assassination of a few Democrats didn't it no oh no not I think there were around maybe 10,000 young people there who would have uh sang peace songs in the park and done things like that now I do believe but in fact they threw bricks and in fact well I think there were there were there was apparently a lot of frustration yeah uh of of their efforts to do something uh uh that in that direction you know Tom Hayden you know reny Davis you know these characters I know everybody here knows them and we know that the these are not sweet little Old Flower children but they didn't have they are here intending to make a scientific ideological point which is to engage the police in violence in order to try to produce I'll be right with you in order to try to produce a wave of sympathy in which they succeeded and they are absolutely elated it would have been impossible for the police to withdraw in such way as to satisfy them because the only way they could have been satisfied is by forcible encounter you asked me about the hippies and the ippies and I talking about what they would have done now I I tend to agree with you that there were other uh segments uh of the population possibly including the Blackstone Rangers can I say something and uh and other groups in who were who were prepared uh to stir something up uh if it didn't happen but I think the there was such an overreaction and such a uh uh uh trigger finger kind of situation that these kids began to open the thing up and before anything could get going there was a lot of Smashing and then the others moved in and I think there would have been kind of a uh a lovein type of scene in Chicago by a large segment of the young people if you could have separated the two yes well because they were very clearly separated until they were mixed together there were two movements operating in Chicago The yippies Wanted Lincoln Park which is many many miles away from the amphitheater and was many miles away from the Hilton they wanted to have a festival of life with rock music in the park with uh uh with theater classes with Gorilla theater with like various uh uh poets and people coming together for a festival of Life what is Gorilla theater gorilla theater is a bunch of people who engage in uh who don't need props and who don't need uh uh regular stage crucified chickens well no that that's it's not gorilla theater but anyway the gorilla theater people just need themselves and their own body makeup and you know a few props like that well anyway uh we wanted Lincoln Park we wanted to have and have to use the beach to uh swim and sleep at and the Chicago authorities continually thwarted us throughout a whole six months of negotiations refusing at any point to allow any demonstrations so that uh we were forced they drove literally drove Allen Jean Jan William Burrows even Clive Barnes the New York Times were driven out of the park at night to buy tear gas terrible that's true by tear gas by these by cops who refuse to let peaceful people so all these people were forc into the streets and with no place to go except for the benevolence of a couple of churches to sleep so they were and there was a there was a bus strike in Chicago there was a cab strike and the the there was no live TV coverage of anything so they were forced into the street the police attacked pushed mauled m i mean it's really what happened now the other movement was the mobilization movement which wanted they wanted to march on the amphitheater theer and that's rannie Davis and that's Tom Hayden but also Dave Dillinger who's an avowed pacifist benevolent leader of some standing and they wanted they wanted to have a peaceful march on the amphitheater split up into groups and those who wanted to march on would march on those who wanted to sit down would sit down but there was never any violent confrontation planned and when the Chicago people thwarted and frustrated constantly anybody's attempts to have a peaceful demonstration naturally frustrations it it mounted but the the amount of brick throwing was so negligible compared to the number of peaceful people there for a peaceful purpose namely to protest with their with their loving bodies what was going down at the uh at the uh alcoholic Amphitheater what were you saying M Mr car I said there are people who make a a rule of creating chaos so that once the chaos is under way they can then be elected as the people who take care of the chaos so and do you think that this applies to the Chicago situation no I'm not talking about daily I don't know anything about it I wasn't there but I'm talking about his idea of protesting and running around and making noise all over the place if you create chaos you can become the com commissar of the control of chaos I think there's uh that's my idea kind of I see it situation that was operative there uh simple to go back to Prague maybe to the 30s a guy named capek wrote a book called are you are right great writer uh related to uh the universal robots Noka and he what he was doing was making a statement about the fact that man is turning into kind of a machine that there's no love there's no communication no humanity and in Chicago we had a political machine which was uh airtight plastic solid as a rock and here were uh some uh antagonists but not really antagonist there were people who were trying to uh uh be spontaneous uh to do something else to loosen the situation up and we had these forces uh kind of at at opposite ends of the of the uh Continuum and they and and a clash took place I think this was part of problem there I I I think that that's an interesting Theory but I'm not sure how convincing it is in the light of the fact that the U the the Democratic party was by no means airtight it may have been airtight up against people who wanted to storm the amphitheater and burn it down but it was certainly not a tight in terms of the tussles going on uh within it there was very spirited debate and there was a very high permeability there for ideas that were fired in from about every uh uh Democratic philosopher in America now in other words this this was not a Tito like uh uh neat little nominating session uh for a while as though Teddy Kennedy would be nominated if it was lip service given to an open convention but I think the at the heart of the matter it was all uh set yeah wa a minut right down to the the when when it's all set it can mean nothing more than that people have made up their minds now if the uh if uh if we decide in this room that that our duties to free speech require us to listen to the nostrums of let's say the labor Progressive Party uh but having listened to them we then proceed to reject them I don't think they have a right to say that our views were air tight closed evidence that thought wasn't a lot of people had decided that they wanted Humphrey and a lot of people uh weren't shaken in their particular resolution which doesn't necessarily make it a static Convention of it yeah but you don't have to stack the galleries with we love daily signs you don't have to shake down Mrs McCarthy just because she you know tried to search her purse when she's surrounded by four secret service guards you don't have to run people up the wall and smack them down well that didn't have to do a lot of people say you don't have to publish the kind of stuff you publish in order to love people well then you know why don't we just Unite with the Russian and dance around I mean you know you want to you know my mother call I don't know flat faced flui with the Floy Floy I got I'm surprised was I'm surpris he wasn't nominated as vice president and you know what ago's real name is anagnostopoulos which means the son of the reader and in Mia in ancient Greece the Turks had taken over ancient Greece Mia yeah and he said don't read you're censored and his father read all the books you the Bible everything and someday you become president huh I said someday you'll become vice president I the re the re the reason uh that I my father my mother my sister and I have always voted the Republican always we voted for Hoover have you no ambition I was 6 years old voting for Hoover kicken leaves around the gut well see the only thing that that the type of police state oppression forces on us is the next convention we're going to have to take 10,000 of us and run naked through the streets with smeared with strawberry preserves or something I mean you know maybe I can lick you my wife maybe no but I mean I say I say uh you know I mean it's it's you know they force you into an incredible incredible position in the world when you want to protest or you want to make your voice known in a benevolent way and yet at the same time you're you're pushed and clubbed you know and and you make your you make yourself Famous by protest that's not who does not me no why make myself Famous by singing a SMUD I made myself Famous by writing by writing uh songs and lyrics about the beauty of the things that I did and ugliness too you're a great you make yourself Famous by saying down with this down with that throw eggs at this throw eggs at that I not that's not what I want I cannot use your abuse you may have it back okay still you're a great poet and we admire you in fact it's your fault that we're like now Mr blans in your book you you list what you call the the Psychedelic Creed and I I I take it that um these are articles of Faith to which most hippies would would add here and I think it would be interesting to check them out uh uh with Mr Sanders um and Mr carak for instance you say that the hippie movement is a spontaneous Evolution it is not a heavy worked out plan right most people agree with that I would say that those uh Creeds are kind of summarizations of based on several hundred interviews with people on the scene and what they say it's not especially what I say I know yeah it's it's it's it wasn't handed out in some tablet but you iner yeah okay now then you say drugs are a key to the god uh in men drugs are sacraments for a greater knowledge of the universe drugs are a vehicle to a cosmic uh uh Consciousness is a considerable a considerable consensus on this point well a lot of people uh in in the movement uh do take the position that the the way that every man is a God uh and it's a very uh individualistic uh kind of a of a movement uh each individual should be free in quotes to do his own thing whatever that may be it's rather anarchistic actually and I think here the are the seeds of its uh well how are standards AR that in hippie culture on the basis of which one decides whether somebody's thing is is teacher insufferable teacher well I I've I've I just want to finish this and then uh I saw someone uh assaulting uh someone uh at a commune up up in Northern California and I started to intervene and several people rather gently said well he's just going through his violence bag uh let him do his own thing and I said well what if he kills him uh you know and uh they uh their position was everyone should be free to do their own number I don't share this View and and uh uh but this is uh part of the do you endorse that particular impulse standers I've seen a lot of communes and I've never seen a commune that really tolerated violence I think that's one of the character chief characteristics of a community of free people that they would they they're there to get away from violence and when there's like drug induced violence or or other types of violence it's generally in my view in my experience is generally quelled you me Kut no well that's one part of every commune I went to uh people were I saw some degree of violence and Anarchy and and uh chaos and they would tell me that about another one and I went to around four and the last one was I I was way back in in the hills and uh I was rather frightened uh because uh there was a uh a rather High degree of violence there were a lot of people freaked out on on drugs uh it was uh a rather chaotic uh scene and how do the victims of this violence characteristically react ouch or hurt like like most people do to but but but they have they have no mechanism to which to appeal correct right and uh this was one of the few times in my life I wish there were police around uh there goes the black flag of Anarchy well would you say that their their leaders are quote spontaneous they're not pushy leaders who are self-appointed they're selected by hippie constituents because they are quote spiritual centers how are they selected and what Authority once selected do they have well the the theme the philosophical theme would be that certain individuals are are purer uh more loving uh more tuned in to uh nature and other people than others and that people seek them out Asad what Authority do they have they they uh deny having any and claim to have uh no power so that a victim in one of these situations would get nowhere by addressing his complaints to the quotes leader because the leader would have no authority to address those grievances well there's no tight organization are we talking about reality or not I mean you know it I've never seen such a situation where he's talking about uh he's written a book it he's talking about a type of say a desert commune or a commune that's isolated from the fabric of the police fabric now I'm familiar with a communes in New York City for instance where you're constantly uh reacting and relating to the so-called other other world you know with that and uh so you know you're really not you're really never without police protection you know everybody usually they have a phone or something well up in Big Sir places like that you're uh you know people are point is out there's no I think we're emphasizing violence and I sit that was a big sir when were you there oh get off of it I liveed you there lately yeah I live with a mule up there well is is it is it okay for hippie to call the police when he needs help or is that considered a anti something sure you got some Snuffer going to get you you say you call of course why not I mean you know you can't you're you're attaching all these theoretical tags that's that's the problem with using the word hippie and it's a tag you know you can't say they're anarchistic to degree they they're all they all have middle class equipment a lot of them and they plug right back in you know it's easy easy G let's see you know police yeah right you dial you know I mean you know 911 isn't one of the goals of a lot of people on the scene to to turn off all middle class values and to tune into some other uh sense of reality is a middl man man for the middleman and agu uh you know I think the whole the whole the L's you know the what really involved in is the word what the definition of the word drop out you know and I think that that uh the thinking thinking quote hippies are involved in a new type of a new interpretation of what dropping out means it really you know like you you naturally create you naturally retain some some connections with say the police and the hospital and the fire department isn't this a and the medical retention uh you know the the things your parents laid on you than I'm glad they laid hospitals on me I me you know it's like Ed huh huh you heit me Ed sure I was arrested two weeks ago and the arresting policeman said I'm arresting you for Decay devil was that I assume you was able to prove it this may be the start of a new movement Decay just he said Decay All right we have a question here on the floor Mr yansky I'm interested in what kind of a future you see for the hippie movement well I think a lot depends on uh American society if if it uh becomes more open and uh uh less plastic uh more loving and a lot of the rigidified institutions that have developed like many a lot of our families and whatever if things begin to change there won't be any need for people to uh react uh in in this in a rather extreme form looking for love it will be found in the uh in the regular social system and in that case it'll it'll will disappear or it may grow if things become more rigidified or if Nixon gets [Music] elected I'd like to comment on that and uh and that uh it it it may very well grow to the extent uh that we all uh encourage a uh intellectual uh uh irresponsibility uh and be personal irresponsibility may very well be that the psychologists are correct who say that precisely what has encouraged the hippie movement to become irresponsible is is a complete lack of of leadership and maybe that when we start writing books about them we ought even to muster up the courage to say certain things they do they ought not to be permitted to do oh yes question over there would any of you regard the hippie movement uh not only as a reflection of the inadequacies of the society as a whole but also as a manifestation of the uh psychological inadequacies of the individual hippies themselves yes it well I think uh there there's H such uh Freedom within the framework of the movement that people that society would classify as in quote psychotic are allowed to uh to do their thing and uh they they live and eat and they taking care of of by others and uh appreciated in fact uh to a great extent I think this is one of the interesting facets of the hippie movement that there's a Humane approach to people who society would label uh in in some uh uh extreme fashion and so there are a lot of young people who are uh who don't make it through the usual channels who find uh a life for themselves in the on the be seen but but the question itself poses a methodological challenge doesn't it because it's hard to establish by mutually agreed on means what normaly consists in right right I mean maybe Mr Sanders is normal for all we know maybe I am too well if if if people get nuded as Ed describ and put strawberry jam on I think you said strawberry and run through the streets as you know hundreds do this it's it's kind of a movement if one guy does it he'll get arrested in the moment yeah well unless he gets some followers yeah yeah course want followers St Francis all one has to is be like him which is a another Talent did you want to comment on that Mr car sorry I was asking why he wants followers who him Mr Sanders abma witz or what his name is don't be anti-semitic with me I happen to be Jewish my name is is what is the classic answer to call you by your name but why'd you call me a Brahma witz I don't well what is it yansky oh yonky well let's see hey you didn't mean to be rude did you was come on now no no no I I thought I I forgot his name no did you want an answer to that answer that question which which question well the question obviously not so yes yes I answer a question over there about the methodological it's about emotional paraplegics is no what was the question you want let's get another one okay this lady has been waiting I can answer that one too you I can answer any question here's one for you wait a minute as far as the hippies and the people who live in the communes and those who work in the bands do they plan on make it making it a lifetime occupation like are they just going to sit down and watch the world go go by cuz they don't really do anything that's not what they're doing well everybody sits down a part of their time and watches the world goes by but the people live in communes what are they doing they they adding they're living it's called Uh they're pres it's like uh there are certain religious movements like the Brethren or the Quakers who don't believe believe in prizz but live by example and you'll never get uh any queries from the Church of the Brethren to join their uh belief but at the same time they try to live an exemple life and that's that's probably the main motiv motivation behind a commune life you know rather than say come here and join us they would show an example and hopefully a crew do you plan to be a fug when you're 50 I'm 50 I'm 50 uh I plan to be a an emotional paraplegic uh smoking peace herbs neurasthenic psychotic no uh I you know you think that would be an improvement M car no no I'm just kidding you said psychotic when you said I think that's a good point how about how about this youth business why why should U why should this particular impulse uh uh ESS why when you got to be around 30 or 35 you think oh I'm going to put my youth behind me and uh uh go to work with the First National Bank well a lot of the young people who are in this movement they look up and they see their 50-year-old father who did everything has all the goodies 2.8 cars and three houses and whatever and and he's kind of miserable and he's not communicating with his wife and whatever and and they say well if I go to the right schools and do all these things this is what's going to happen to me well I'm going to try something else and I think this is part the hippie movement is partly this uh a kind of a social experiment a part partly a social experiment that um uh understands the likelihood of its own futility uh put it this way will anybody be thinking about the hippies 10 years from now other than in the sort of a hoola skirt sense just something that happened well no by then the hippies will be in the command generation and all the pot smoking law students and all the young legislators who are introducing legalization of pot bills and all the young professionals who are quote turned on and articulate and who are aware of Mr kwek Mr ginsburg's great contribution to American civilization with Ginsburg other you put my name next to his okay Mr kak's contribution to American civilization those people will be quote the command generation and hopefully retain some of the Humane attributes command Generation Well that's what they're going to be that's what Time Magazine calls it I don't call it wait [Music]

Channel: Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Views: 246,380

Keywords: Firing Line, William F. Buckley Jr, Jack Kerouac, Counterculture, Beat Generation

Id: BYgv7ur8ipg

Length: 50min 54sec (3054 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2017