I was recently listening to this podcast, Hermitix, and they talked about the 60s, and the darker aspects of it, but at the same time, made an interesting statement - that the 60s were the last time there was ever a real leftist movement.
Since then i've been pretty fascinated with hippies and counterculture, and I'm pretty conflicted on how to feel. On the one hand, they got literally nothing done. Every idea they had got recuperated - in fact, the 60s pretty much birthed the modern woke neoliberal idpol ideology - during the 60s, idpol was radical, anticapitalist, and revolutionary, stuff like the Black Panthers - after the 60s, it got turned into wanting female cops. The most radical ideas of the counterculture - "extreme" sexual freedom, anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, never caught on in the mainstream, while the more recuperable ideas got turned into wedge issues and woke capitalism. On top of this, the hippies weren't really Marxists. They didn't really talk about materialism, they were way too keen on almost ecofascist ideals, like the idea that humans have to give up possesions and live in poverty to save Earth, and they were NOT working class. Still, most of their ideas, like communal living and such were well-intentioned and overall good.
But at the same time, some of the stuff they did was badass. They were funny, edgy, smart, and I feel like the left, unironically prior to the "dirtbag" podcast explosion, was largely the same way. Unfortunately, even with this, in many ways, the left still is seen as "lame" to kids. I think the best aspects of the counterculture were their pranks and snarkiness. I feel that really attracts young people, and winning gen z and millennials is key to winning the future. The left is already doing this, but not nearly enough, hence the prevelance of fascists in Gen Z. The Yippies pranks and edgy humor, like when Abbie Hoffmann jokingly threatned to "spike the water supply with LSD," or when he wrote Steal This Book, are, frankly, cool, and I feel that no political ideology, but particularly the left, does pranks and such anymore. As weird as it may sound, I do think pods like our beloved Chapos, TrueAnon, and co. do really help the left seem cool, but maybe what the left needs to do is start pulling pranks on the mainstream again. I mean, 4chan did that in 2017 - maybe we should as well?
Idk, what do you think of the 60s counterculture chapochat? Were they useless idiots who just joked all the time? Or were they the last real leftist movement?
I dunno, sometimes I'm annoyed and think, "wow, what a bunch of ineffectual bourgeoisie idiots" but then I think... well, maybe they were doing the best they could given what they knew. There were like 3 TV channels or you could read your local newspaper or radio for info. Wasn't much alternative to trusting what you were being told. And ultimately there were some real ones, after all.
A big part of how we view the 60's left is filtered through decades of media propaganda and half truths. And at the time, with the Soviets making western capitalists sweat, a strong welfare state, generally good living conditions in Western countries, and stronger labor unions... maybe it wasn't so crazy to think that Socialism could prevail just by appealing to people's "better nature"?
I don't know. I wasn't around then. But ultimately the hippies failed in their goal of a more egalitarian society and it's an experience we should take lessons away from today versus trying to quarterback the past.
Weird analysis when the literal black Panthers were around at the same time as these guys
True, today we can clearly say the Black Panthers had the better strategy! Just saying it might look too-obvious to us looking back and we shouldn't judge 60's counterculture too harshly with what we know now.
Bear in mind that during the '60s the Soviet Union had only existed for like 40 years - and more than half of that time they had been in full war mobilization mode against counter-revolutionaries, the Nazis, Japan, and then NATO/US. These were genocidal existential threats and wartime living conditions were understandibly poor until about the 50's when they finally had some peace. It's hard to build Socialism under those conditions and it was only really during the 60's/70's the USSR made great progress.
(The PRC only existed since the 50's and it was still very much a developing agrarian society at this point.)
Likewise, labor unions in the West had actually won real concessions from capital as of the 60's. Social Security, FLSA, Social Democracy in Europe, the GI Bill for education (practically free College for everyone), medical insurance (employer provided insurance didn't suck nearly as much in the 60's).
Of course... knowing what we do now about how social programs were decimated worldwide following the Fall of the USSR... its pretty clear that capital was far less motivated by militant labor unions and more motivated by competing with the USSR. Ditto for Space Exploration, the US "War on Poverty," Medicare, etc. Might not have appeared so at the time though.
It's not talked about much, but I do also wonder how much the US suddenly becoming a world power following WWII played into the whole equation. Up until WWII, Great Britain was the dominant world imperial power... and I do wonder how many of the international bourgeoisie decided to jump ship to the US following the war (versus bothering to rebuild their destroyed native countries.) Wonder if there's any credible research there... (I can elaborate but it's a little off-topic.)
I can't help but think of all the hippies who ended up becoming yuppies. Jerry Rubin famously became a Wall Street stockbroker later in life. In the end for the most part they were neoliberal rich kids that became neoliberal rich adults.
Silicon Valley also came from the hippies, and Steve Jobs comes to mind as the ultimate "hippy capitalist". Also, I'm reminded about that story of Silicon Valley programmers who were microdosing LSD so they could be more productive at their jobs to make more money for their bosses.
A picture is worth a thousand words: https://images.app.goo.gl/Pu2KemgKkQf3b9Zo9
Sorry to be a pedant but there have been plenty of leftist movements outside the US since the 60’s
The new left and the counter culture were two different movements. The counter culture was never oriented to real political change via organized mass movements and the most influential thing it left is silicon valley utopianism.
In America, too much pre-oedipal enjoyment, they turned into Reagan voters. Europe did it way better but the 60s were when the communist bourgeois parties "failed" in the sense of they did what they were always going to do, sided with liberal democracy instead of the "revolutionaries" of 68. AFAIK, America had nothing like '68, just a bunch of people sick of the hyper-conformity of the 50s