Why the Hippies were Wrong: Social Change in the Latter Half of the 20th

Century

“When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in

the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator

of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the

world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people --

these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many

of us began maturing in complacency.” “Preamble,” The Port Huron Declaration, 1962.

With this extraordinary statement, a document begins, which, like Hitler’s Mein

Kampf, sets out in the plainest of terms what the next fifteen years of American life were

to be. Spoiled brats, white kids who were lucky enough to go to college, were going to do

everything in their power to destroy the country that had awarded them such privilege,

and dishonor their own parents who had weathered the Great Depression and World War

II to ensure such privilege would not be denied them.

Our culture is doomed. For a society to advance, or even to continue, there must

be more people contributing than there are taking from it. Unbridled, shortsighted

liberalism, anti-human conservatism, and a thinly disguised promotion of anarchistic

ideas by a myopic and self-involved media have brought us to this juncture.

Our system cannot renew itself, because it takes many stalwart, boring types to go

forth every day, and perform the mundane work that keeps so mighty a machine as was
once our nation, actually working. This is a fact of life; but the number of people who are

willing to accept this seems to be declining. Why?

In the years following the Port Huron declaration, which was nothing more than a

manifesto of treason, the United States, and much of the world, went into an uncontrolled

spiral of social change. A great wind of change swept the world. We still feel the

consequences of this leveling wind, even today.

The 1960s. To mention the decade is to conjure forth images of a storm of

change. But where do these images originate? And how accurate is our recall of this

time? This period brought about the most drastic changes Western Civilization had seen

since the end of absolutism. Those who think of the 1960s as some sort of golden era are

for the most part simply buying into revisionist media version popularized by “youth

movement” apologists. For those who would disagree with this assertion, let us examine

the social changes that were wrought by this era.

It is now no longer safe to walk the streets in many American cities. This is a

direct result of the weakening of law enforcement through strictures placed on it, by a

increasingly cynical American criminal justice system. But the increase in crime is only a

symptom of the real lurking social illness that the 1960s produced.

The death of respect for any institution, and hysterical suspicion of those few that

remain, however weakened, was shamelessly popularized during the decade from 1965-

1975. There are still many examples of this thinking in film and television today. It has

become part of our culture, and such an attitude is tantamount to cultural suicide.
 In short, our domestic dialogue has been poisoned with a corporate-controlled

paranoia, one that is reinforced by dumbed-down conspiratorial thinking, endlessly

paraded in front of us in all forms of media.

Was there good that grew out of the 1960s, and the years immediately following

them? Undoubtedly. African Americans, through a long and bitter struggle, finally won a

federal guarantee of rights long promised to them, but never delivered. It is sad to think

that the heroic struggle for Civil Rights is often lumped together with the Spoiled Brat

Rebellion of the so-called “youth movement. “ Intermingled with whatever good came of

this decade, however, was (often skillfully disguised) bad. Some of the positive outcomes

that arose during that era were no more than the results of the anarchist’s unplanned

matrix of chaos. Some things cited as triumphs of the Youth Movement, for example, the

end of the Viet Nam war, were no such thing; the war was winding down through the

(admittedly, belated) actions of Richard M. Nixon’s administration. His subsequent fall

from grace emboldened many fringe types to claim victory where none existed.

Many youth leaders of the time even attempted to somehow claim proxy credit for

Nixon’s woes and subsequent resignation, whereas once again the distance of time

showed quite clearly that there is not one iota of truth in such a claim.

The mantra of the anarchist is to destroy all order, so that a new order, perhaps

better, may arise. This idea is so obviously flawed that it is beyond consideration. The

real lasting effect of the social changes of the 1960s has been a loss of respect for

anything. This is precisely what the authors of the Port Huron declaration desired, as

they, themselves, were anarchists of the most ill-mannered, adolescent type.

 The media have developed some quite plausible defenses over the years, for their

slanted, self-serving misrepresentation of our world. In the case that that intentional

misrepresentation is discovered and exposed, it was a mistake. The government and our

institutions, however, are capable only of engaging in conspiracies, and any mistake on

their behalf is invariably represented as the product of malfeasance of the darkest stripe.

This play up to the ideas, implanted in the social consciousness during the 1960s and

1970s, that no one in authority of any type is to be trusted, under any circumstances.

The ostensible reason that many engaged in the reactionary protests of the 1960s

was increased personal freedom. The end result for millions, however, has been the very

opposite. With the distance of time, this becomes apparent. We are now less free in our

cities, because of the collapse of the social order; we are less free in our dealings with

others, because of the storm of litigation that the social changes of that chaotic decade

produced. We are less secure than once we were. The Anarchist destroys the old, but he

makes no plan or provision for the new.

By tearing down cherished institutions, and failing to offer any alternative to

them, the protestors of the 1960s and 1970s brought us several steps closer to

totalitarianism. When the idea of group rights was lost--and the United States was

founded on the idea of protecting the rights of less powerful groups--the nation was

weakened. The resultant stress on the rights of the individual brought us to the sorry pass

that we currently occupy.

The rights of the individual now are perceived to matter more than the security of

our very institutions, the stability of the nation, the social order on which our very future

depends. We have lost sight of the fact that there are things that matter more than our
own personal, instant gratification. Those who gave of themselves in the World Wars

were not so deluded. They understood that freedom is never total, and demands a heavy

price from those who would enjoy it. Liberty, while an inalienable right, must always be

guarded; once it is lost, it is, without revolution, almost impossible to reclaim.