The utopian idea of creating a gentle, but apolitical underground
alternative society among young people in britain has died. Born in the
balmy days of "flower power" and universal symbols of peace and love in
the middle sixties, it has been quietly replaced by a potentially more
significant awareness among the young.
As a testament to this transformation and an epitaph to the old
underground , a heavily nostalgic history of the movement's metamorphosis
is published this week. Called Watch Out Kids. Written partly by
Mick Farren with Edward Barker (Open Gate Books, £1.50), former rock
musician and one of the folk heroes of the alternative society, it is both
a memorial to the heady days of the first hippies and a manifesto for a
possible youth revolution. It should be essential reading for anyone
anxious to understand the history of young people in the last effervescent
decade.
The book's message is that hippies may continue to saunter the streets
of San Francisco or London, their striving towards creating a separate
society within the established order has gone . Youth style may remain,
for that together with language has been the principal legacy of the
underground, but beneath the hair and the peasant smocks there will
possibly lurk a revolutionary.
Part of the transformation has already become obvious to the general,
and sometimes mystified public. The activities of the Angry Brigade, for
example, with which some young people may morally, if not entirely,
sympathize, marks the first widespread publicity for the use of more
aggressive political tactics.
Illustrated by Edward Barker, who with Farren worked on IT, the
book may irritate some readers with its complex graphics, but it repays
perseverance. For it offers not only a history of the underground and its
ideals but also an invaluable insight for anyone of a different generation
into the "youth revolution".
It accurately and sympathetically depicts the feelings of many young
people throughout the sixties. It charts the rise of the rockers and the
mods, the appearance of the beats, the changes as "flower power" and the
UFO club opened in London, the rise of rock music festivals and the
appearance of political anger among the young.
Assessing the origins of the underground, the authors state
perceptively, "CND, although a predominantly youth organization, seemed
divorced from the instinctive revolt of the rock and roll teenage
rebels...Ban the bomb marches had a usefulness, however, in terms of the
interchange of information between traditional pacifists, left wingers and
young political freaks".
"The later sitdowns and civil disobedience campaigns also brought many
middle class kids into contact with police repression. It was also around
the CND environment that a number of us first came into contact with the
reality of of smoking dope."
Indeed, explaining the origins of the first large scale experiments
with drugs among the young, the authors add that the "mods" in 1964 and
1965 depended upon stimulants to keep them awake while they visited rock
clubs in London. "Cannabis lacked immediacy and was too slow and cerebral,
so although many mods picked up the practice of regular dope smoking, it
was of little use in terms of easing them through the intense competitive
technicolour weekend. They found the answer in pills like Drinamyl (blues
or purple hearts)."
They say the other effect of pills on young people was to give them a
sense of confidence in themselves.
"1967", they go on, "was the year of the great hippie legend. It was
the year in which hundreds of thousands of kids said enough to aggression,
competition and wanton destruction of the society in which they had grown
up.
"It was the year in which a generation who lived with both rock and
roll and the shadow of the bomb decided it was time that a society should
be formed that operated on principles of trust, of love and sharing,
rather than the current ones of fear, self-interest and hate. Instead of
waging violent revolution, they simply said 'later for straight society'
and dropped out, attempting to create a separate way of life that would
convert others by example."
It was at this time, they explain, that the main public features of the
underground emerged: "IT and OZ established themselves as a
solid part of the scene, even underground self-help and welfare
organizations, like Release and the Diggers, came into being." (The latest
edition of IT charts the decline and ultimate closure of 14
alternative publications since those halcyon days.)
But they explain bleakly, "The problem only to be discovered later was
that no genuine sense of community developed and all those freaks who had
successfully conducted one of the greatest revolutions in style and
attitude in just one summer were not emotionally involved with each other
to a great enough a degree to prevent them losing much of what they
gained, as winter and hard times began to close in".
By 1968 they point out that many young people had already chosen to
experiment with a wider range of often illegal drugs. They attribute this
to a growing dissatisfaction with the existing society. But they add that
others chose to participate in demonstrations against the Vietnam War as
their sign of dislike for the existing order. (This was probably the
origin of the aggressive political talking among many young people.)
Perhaps the first public breath of life for the change in the
underground was in November 1970 when Jerry Rubin, the American Yippie
leader, invaded the David Frost television programme in London with a
group of British hippies, including Mick Farren.
The trial of the Oz magazine that followed in the summer of 1971
was probably the last public airing for the values of the original
underground and its preoccupation with rock music, drugs, and sexual
adventure.
They attribute the change of attitude among young people to the
election of a Conservative Government in June 1970. They quote Richard
Neville, joint editor of Oz and probably the most eloquent of the
underground's prophets, when he said of the Oz obscenity case:
"There is only inch of difference between Labour and Conservative: it is,
however, the inch in which we have to live and work."
The recent politicization that has spread through youth", Farren and
Barker add, "the bombings and the campus riots, are not the start of the
revolution, they are the defence against an increasing external threat.
Youth culture can work out fine when it is left alone."
"The bombs of the Angry Brigade and the Weathermen are the result of
the constant attempts to destroy it. They are a warning to the death
culture. The private property of out parents has become the target for a
symbolic vengeance for the lives that have been wantonly destroyed."
By the end of their account of the life and times of the Britain's
youth during the last decade they say: "The rapid spread of youth culture
is the result of the kids themselves evolving a new way of living despite
all the massive opposition thrown against them. Hundreds of thousands of
white kids became social outcasts rather than join their parents' death
culture, is surely the most positive, if disorganized, revolutionary
statement in history."
They also offer a manifesto for the new political aims of young people.
Among a myriad of demands they call for a "Free planet, free land, free
food, free shelter, free clothing, free music, free culture, free media,
free technology, free education, free health care, free bodies, free
people, free time and space, everything free...for everybody."
With considerable nostalgia Mick Farren and Edward Barker say, "The
feeling of community that was about to emerge three years ago has
scattered and split". But they add darkly that the new vision of the
future offered in the manifesto will require violence to defend it from a
"civilization that, as it falls, would rather destroy everything with it
than admit it was wrong".
It is impossible to assess how many young people would accept that
analysis, but it remains certain proof that the gentle conception of a
society among the young of amiable hippies, interested only in living
their lives by separate values, has evaporated.
