Major Project Progress

Another common depiction of drug use in the Sixties comes from the late recollections of leftist Boomers, the generation which lived through the psychedelic experience. This includes historians such as Nick Brommell and Todd Gitlin who, interestingly, both take a similar stance on the reasons and impact of drug use in the Sixties. They pursue the intriguing question of how the interaction between drugs and music in the Sixties caused the transformation of a generation's consciousness. Gitlin's text, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage delves into this idea through an almost biographical recollection of the era. The personalisation of his history is characteristic of Boomer historians (particularly of the Left) who tend to contextualise the major events of the Sixties within their own experiences.This also occurs when recounting the psychedelic experiences, with much of his history being related to personal encounters. Not surprisingly, this presents a very different history to that presented by either the immediate reactions form the right or the later revisionists. He strays from the historians who propose drug use was an attempt to expand "political consciousness" whilst also rejecting the idea that drugs were a symbolic rejection of parental society.

Gitlin explores the perspective that drugs were used by the youth counterculture in the Sixties in order to better understand the cultural changes of the era. "The word got around that in order to 'get' the song, and others like it, you had to smoke this apparently angelic drug. It wasn't just peer pressure; more and more, the get access to youth culture, you had to get high. Lyrics became more elaborate, compressed, and obscure, images more gnarled , the total effect nonlinear, translinear. Without grass, you were an outsider looking in." This establishes the psychedelic experience as a cultural phenomenon rather than an attempt to expand political consciousness or reject the parental society. This is further exacerbated by Gitlin's emphasis on the sheer recreational use of drugs "The point was to open up a new space, an inner space, so that we could space out, live for the sheer exultant point of living... the tension of a political life dissolved." This directly opposes the ideals held by earlier historians that drug use was a feeble attempt by the youth to expand political consciousness. This is explored in greater detailed further on in his work, where he identifies the opinions of the politicos. "Even if they feared that the Haight-Ashbury stood for an unsupportable 'flower-child innocence,' that drugs 'divorced the will from political action,' the force of acid itself could not be denied." Gitlin shows that, although political activists may have dabbled in drugs, it was not seen as a medium towards achieving their goals and hence its use was purely recreational. In fact, drug use was seen, quite correctly, as an obstacle to achieving political progress. Gitlin further reinforces this perspective by quoting drug advocate Ken Kesey at a 1965 Vietnam march. "who showed up in Day-Glo regalia.... and announced that 'you're not gonna stop this war with this rally, by marching.... That's what they do,' marching was their game.... and told the fifteen thousand anti-warriors the only thing that would do any good was to 'look at war, and turn your backs and say... Fuck it'" This shows Kesey expressing a rather apolitical stance and urging the crowd to merely disregard the political issues of the time. This does not seem to be a state of "expanded political consciousness" and definitely supports Gitlin's claims. However, Gitlin does acknowledge that "despite these tensions, there was a direct line from the expressive politics of the New Left to the counterculture's let-it-all-hang-out way of life. Some of the SNCC 'floaters' followed it, in fact, when they shifted to LSD; SDS's prairie-power generation of 1965 saw no barrier between radical politics and drug culture." Here, Gitlin accepts that although largely unsuccessful, there were attempts to make the drug culture of the Sixties of political importance. Largely, Gitlin agrees with other historians that although some leaders of the counterculture were politically aware, the majority of youth were apathetic. "A few old beat-turned-counterculture hands, especially Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, believed devoutly in a confluence of politics (on behalf of the outside and the future) and psychedelia (on behalf of the inside and the present), but the Haight-Ashbury merchants, rock impresarios, and dope dealers who financed the Oracle, and the hip influentials who starred in the media, were anti-political purists."

So what does Gitlin propose as the reason for explicit drug use in the Sixties? As mentioned earlier, he states it was simply the natural cultural merger between drugs and music. He presents drug use as a recreational activitivy with no higher purpose other than enjoyment, freedom and exploration. This is emphasised by Gitlin's reference to the Merry Pranksters and their bus tour on FURTHER. "'Freak freely' was the idea: drop acid, smoke grass, eat speed, whatever drug was around, paint your faces, paint your scene, change everything, go after cosmic unity... but whatever happened, go with it in hot pursuit of the old bohemian vision, enlightenment by any means necessary." Here, drug use is seen as a simple mind expanding exercise without any real goals.

Gitlin's history also differs greatly from the immediate reactions of the right (Roszak etc) in his depiction of the criminality of the movement and the personality of Timothy Leary. "For every Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, or Ken Kesey there were a dozen of the unfamous. Cloistered at first like monks preserving ancient rites in the midst of the Dark Ages, they later took their shows on the road to bring enlightenment to the young: today the Haight-Ashbury, tomorrow the world." Hence, the leaders of the movement are seen as mystical shaman and revolutionaries. They are shown as the leaders of a revolution and not simply entrepreneurs seeking financial gain. Gitlin presents a positive perspective of the aspects which Roszak had depicted in a sinister, unflattering light. The drug dealers are shown in Gitlin's history to be sensitive, cultured people hoping to better humanity. "Expert chemists... were not in it just for the money ; they kept their prices down, gave out plenty of free samples, and fancied themselves dispensers of miracles at the service of a new age-'architects of social change' with a 'mission...to change the world,'" This completely opposes Roszak's perspective that the psychedelic movement was highly commercialised and largely a profitable investment. Gitlin neglects to mention any commercialistion of the movement and does not allude to capitalist endeavors, instead presenting a Utopian history of selfless drug-dealers attempting to "change the world." Without straying towards cynicism, I think it is safe to say that this aspect of Gitlin's history has been at least mildly romanticised. He does not back this up with any statistics or evidence, merely stating his idealistic take on the era. He validates the later sadism of drug-lords and organised crime which sprouted from Sixties culture by attributing this to later eras. "small-scale entrepreneurs first dipped into the marijuana or acid trade as true believers helping their friends; only later did some of their businesses grow into the impersonal operations of big-time dealership." Hence, drug use in the Sixties was, according to Gitlin, free from the menace of later decades. Gitlin goes as far as to attribute the establishment of "counterinstitutions" to the drug culture of the Sixties. "'counterinstitutions' mushroomed, offering excitement, collectivity, and employment: underground newspapers [etc]"