1 post tagged “hippies”

One of the most interesting books I have read about Vermont History is Barry Laffan's book on the hippie commune at Jackson's Meadow near Brattleboro, Vt (Communal Organization and Social Transition: A Case Study from the Counterculture of the Sixties and Seventies). I knew a number of folks who had participated in the commune movement in Vermont in the late '60s and the notion of living a life this "outside" the parameters intrigues me, being as it is that I am a fairly play by the rules person generally. As Barry Laffan puts it "for many, disculturation was so thorough that what social process remained often appeared to be governed by biological ryhtms instead of conscious decision. . .. . Nobody seemed to be able to offer a rational explanation as to why deferred gratification was morally superior to instant gratification." 

So tonight, in an effort to better understand this period of time and culture both here in vermont and around the nation, I was able to watch the documentary Commune. I am not sure that I can say that the film comes recommended to anyone who is not interested in Modern American Social History (A course I often teach) but it certainly does give one an insiders perspective on the 60's counter-culture and what happened to it.

Seeing interviews with people who are now grown up, looking back on their experiences in communes that took few if any of the rules seriously is educative for me. I was interested to hear whether or not they felt they had wasted parts of their life ... or damaged their lives, or their kid's lives. I was interested in knowing more about what they learned in their communal version of On Waldon Pond. These were people who decided to forgo paychecks and mortgages and college and cars and standard conceptions of family and marriage and monogamy and capitalism. They often experimented with drugs and sex and religious cults and music and political stuctures about as close to anarchy as they could get. I am not sure that the documentary intended to track down those who may have been destroyed by it but those who did take the opportunity to remenisce had engaging perspectives to offer.

One certainly could not conclude that such lifestyles, when freely chosen, catagorically served their human contributors poorly. One of the central characters was Peter Coyote, (The voice in many a Ken Burns documentary) who spent a good deal of time at the Black Bear commune. He is presently a Buddhist and an intriguing mind and soul. In one of the side interviews, he says that he wishes that he had not been so counter-cultural in terms of style because by being so "style wierd" the countercultural movement made itself impotent to express its values to the wider culture who rejected it ALL simply on issues of external lifestyle decisions that they were making. He spoke of the need to have the right intention and that one should not let that intention be frustrated by the creation of obstacles rooted in style decisions (i.e. what clothes you wear).