Political compass for the21st century

[David Horn]

(02-19-2019, 04:47 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think so. Meditation and drugs (if rightly used, a big if) open you to life and to others. You can't have a full relationship with life or other people if you are scattered and unfocused within and possessed by reactive fears and social programming, which most of us are most of the time. The biggest fault in our society is our lack of spirituality. The counter-culture was a step, along with aspects of our previous (but mostly forgotten) awakenings, toward reclaiming and updating this within traditional America. Since it is being ignored and denied again, and indeed so strenuously opposed at the time, the next awakening may well have to start from scratch again, and if so, may well be reviled again, and the cycle of nowheresville, spirit-dead, fear-possessed, uninspired and lonely America will just continue. Our streets will still be too dead for dreamin'

The original flower children made a real run at an alternative with heart, but most of the 'joiners' were not of that ilk. Look at the differences between Woodstock and Altamont. They were both held in 1969, but the bloom was already fading by the time Altamont happened in December. Let's be honest here. 95% of the population is mostly oblivious -- often by choice. Once they started to join the hippies, the real hippies faded into the background. I don't see that being different in the future, to be honest. That lifestyle is a bad fit for most of us.

Eric Wrote:I'm not an expert on how good the communes were, but I think only those people who oppose them think they were "toxic." I imagine they were not all they were hoped for, though, since the commune culture didn't last. What lasted longer were events like the rainbow gatherings and the dead-head concert gatherings. Some of these may still be happening. Music festivals still had, and may still occasionally have, some of the original love-in spirit for decades afterward, inspiring many new hippies and awakened folks. These are not all that we need for a spiritual society, of course, but meditation has become much more mainstream, and so have other growth techniques. So the awakening may continue for some people; that's something to hope for.

The Dead Heads are part of the original hippy movement, and the few true believers who joined later. Just like the cloistered monks, the lifestyle is and will always be a fit for only a minority. Most of us aren't wired well enough to "just love one another".