The new Woodstock generation

Reihan Salam

18 June 2008

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Reihan Salam predicts the dawning of a new hippy era as critics of consumerism head to the hills

Indeed, one can’t help but admire the Harrises, and other families who’ve chosen to ‘downshift’ their consumption, for putting their money where their mouth is. Whereas others on the liberal Left rue consumerism and inequality, they almost invariably expect the government to step in and solve the problem by, for example, hiking taxes on the rich. You’d think we were children who couldn’t help but work longer hours or buy expensive new automobiles in lieu of darning socks and eating thin gruel. What if the real inequality problem isn’t a technical problem? What if it really is a moral problem? Not moral as in ‘envy is a corrosive thing, so get over it’. Moral as in no tax hike will prevent people from building overlarge houses or custom cabinets at the expense of spending time with family and friends. A culture that is plagued by materialist excess won’t be cured by taxes. It can only be cured, if at all, through a revival of postmaterialist values — that is, a revival of hippie values. Assuming Barack Obama is elected and he doesn’t achieve paradise on Earth by 2012, it is easy to imagine a new generation growing cynical about politics and, like the hippies, deciding to beat the system in their own idiosyncratic ways.

I’m by no means convinced that consumerism and inequality are the worst things in the world, or that we are hurtling towards environmental doom. But wouldn’t it be nice if all those who believed these things to be true moved to bucolic communes where they’d busy themselves with handicrafts instead of tormenting the rest of us?

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Reg

June 20th, 2008 12:20am Report this comment

Speaking as a refugee from office work and as a current maker of 'custom cabinets' (no, really), I can assure you that I have no intention of moving to a commune and eating 'thin gruel' (or any gruel) whilst wearing a grass shirt and recycling my nightsoil.

But then, my cabinets are high quality and expensive (and require electricity and diesel to produce).

vb

June 24th, 2008 10:48pm Report this comment

Why would you want to inflict these people on the countryside?

ariadne

June 25th, 2008 12:03pm Report this comment

I am one of those original "hippies" from the sixties and I can tell you that to this day I still gag at the least whiff of Patchouli. Worse yet I can attest to the utterly moronic nature of 90% of my compatriots as they smoked, snorted, shot into veins and ingested virtually any substance that would alter their minds. The old nonsense of "expanding your mind" usually led to their minds expanding out of their ears down their arms and onto the ground. Which, in any case is where most of them belonged. If they come back in any guise I guarantee they will smell even worse and their children will be even more of a pain in the ass than the last batch. Don't say we didn't warn you.