By Butch Freedman
“Far out, groovy, outasite, you’re trippin’, stay high and fly.” I think I made that last one up. But it fits. We had our own language back then, we being hippies and freaks and other assorted riff raff who could no longer be contained by the square world and its restrictions. The Vietnam war was one of the catalysts as were mind-enhancing substances. Thank you Dr. Leary. Lots of young people got on that train, high on cocaine. But hold on, it wasn’t all about drugs and disaffection. There was also a clear moral center to the movement. We wanted a better world, a freer one, more open and inclusive; and for a while we actually believed it was possible. We were dreamers. And we legitimately believed we could change the world, or at least improve it. How naive we were. Reading today’s news and looking at our world under incompetent and corrupt leaders, and all the other manifestations of a universe turned toward darkness and depression, I am deeply sad for our broken dreams and promises.
My own counter-culture enlightenment began in the unlikely confines of the Philadelphia School District, where I was a freshman teacher. Since I had attended a rather conservative college, I hadn’t been exposed to much of the new consciousness, other than smoking weed with a few other disaffected stoners. We were mostly shunned on that campus, where fraternity and sorority groups set the norms. I knew I didn’t want to be a part of that, but didn’t quite know where the alternatives were. When I began teaching at an inner-city junior high school, my eyes began to slowly open. I didn’t like much of what I saw at that first school. Students were repeatedly dismissed as unable to learn, and the faculty’s main charge was to keep them ‘in order’. That didn’t set right with me. I thought those students deserved better despite their race(s) and financial circumstances. But I didn’t fully understand that until I set out on my own liberation I wouldn’t be able to help those kids feel like they also had a chance to expand their horizons. I found friends who turned me on (another catch-phrase) to ways to stand up to the straight world, to see different possibilities. Yes, we smoked a lot of dope and took the occasional psychedelic journey, but we also applied the lessons of heightened sensibility to other areas of our lives and work, then looked for ways to make those places a part of the revolution.
I encouraged my students to express themselves in class; let them know that a quiet classroom wasn’t necessarily a functioning one. I emboldened their free expression, and the students, after a spell of disbelief, soon found their own voices. We began a school newsletter, written by the students, and uncensored (for a moment). Of course, the administration did not like it. The horror! Students speaking out! They tried to stop us from publishing it, and called me on the carpet. “What do you think you’re doing, Freedman? Your classroom is noisy. Stop stirring things up.” I had no answers they would understand. The gulf only grew wider, and before long I was told to either shape up and stop encouraging those kids, or else. I chose ‘or else’ and had to move on from that school, but my idealism remained, and plowed into other aspects of the new education movement.
We thought we could change the world. Honestly, we did. Some through politics and protests, others through personal growth of various, not always healthy, types. Free expression sometimes became lack of good sense. Let’s admit that. Staying high all week and sleeping in did not benefit the planet and moving to communes, often ended in chaos and hurt feelings. But it was the effort that counted, the unwillingness to be set into a conventional mode, only because that’s what had always been done. “You have to settle down and make a living,” our parents warned us. They were both right and wrong. We did settle, but not down. And for most of us, chasing money was not the basis on which we made our future plans. The majority of 60’s kids did figure out how to be both good citizens and free thinkers. We continued to believe in and work toward the possibility of a more just and free society. Many of us still believe in that possibility. But today in the USA our beliefs are being severely challenged.
The ideals of the 60’s feel like a shattered dream. Instead we find our beloved country in the hands of the small and petty, the racists and climate deniers. The far right of the far right—those who hate free expression and disregard the rights of the poor. We are controlled by bullies, white nationalists, billionaires, and thieves—the whole institution of government by and for the people only a sad joke. We are honestly frightened for what future generations will now have to deal with. A world gone mad. It’s not where we thought we would be these many years after our own cultural revolution.
So what now baby boomers, ex-hippies and freaks? What do we do to reclaim the dream? It’s not hopeless. Let’s not go there. Underneath all the corruption and aggression now in control, there are still the glimmers of light and resistance. And those glimmers grow brighter every day as more of the evil empire slowly crumbles under the weight of its own dishonesty. I still believe that the consciousness raising of the 60’s has life and power, and not only for those of us old enough to remember. That sense of free expression and love remains strong. Look at all the people, young and old, out in the streets protesting the rise of the rotting king and his moronic followers. We may be down now, but the return of flower power is on the way. Kindness wins out. We can still bring back the 60’s.
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