This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and watching all of the retrospectives, I'm convinced that I shoulda been born sooner!
How did that group of kids, nearly "half a million strong," who partied so peacefully for three days, taking care of each other, sharing their food and drugs (the Hog Farm's trip tent, where people went if they were having a bum trip, was a classic example of paying it forward -- once you came down, you stayed to guide the next kid to the end of his trip, and so on and so forth) -- how did these muddy, music-loving, war-hating utopians turn into the generation of "I got mine, so fuck everyone else?"
When did they become Republicans?
4 comments:
So there's this thing called Burning Man, and it engenders a culture that lasts the year round, though only in a few places apparently (SF, Sac, San Diego perhaps). Well, I'm particularly into it now because I'll be there in less than two weeks.
Of course the idealists became Republicans because reality hit and some of them saw left-leaning idealism as a dead end. Now right-leaning idealism is an even deader end. So we find a week of living on another planet to be most inspiring.
All I'm saying is there is hope.
Not me. When I was a little kid and all the other kids were saying stuff like, "my dad says if Kennedy wins, we're all going to wind up in concentration camps," I thought, that's for me! I also liked the idea of having a hot-line to the Pope. The Republicans are way too waspish for me. Even in the first grade, I knew they were a bunch of peckerwoods.
Don, I don't get Burning Man. Is it supposed to have a meaning?
Jane... Not all of them did. Some became democrats. I'm having trouble detecting the difference lately, but that's another story.
Roy, no one gets it at least until they've been there a few days. Some never. I will enjoy trying again.
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