how strong was the overlap between hippie and prog in the 60s/70s? feels like a drop-out ethos is somewhat at odds with an activist progress-oriented ethos
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Very strong. Lots of overlap. Choosing voice over exit is circumstantial, but both represent defections from “loyalty”. Fundamentally aligned in that way.
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If you haven't read it already, read Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus as a very unique take on punk and connections to other things that happened in history
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fred turner's book _from counterculture to cyberculture_ differentiates well btwn the new left (oriented towards political change/critique) & what he calls "new communalists" who were more oriented to transformations in consciousness. aesthetics were similar, politics were not
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"Turn on, tune in, drop out."
"Turn on" and "tune in" seem consistent with activism. Maybe "drop out" referred specifically to the establishment rat race (college, jobs, etc.), and not to all social engagement/concern.
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The Diggers are the group to look at here. They were indeed often at odds with typical Haight-Ashbury washouts. OTOH, a lot of "dropping out" was explicitly political, if not terribly effective. A refusal to participate in a perceived grey flannel narrative.
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Fred Turner wrote an entire book about this (where he called the hippie element "the new communalists"). It's called From Counterculture To Cyberculture.
There was some writing about it at the time, too, where the division was generally called "Heads vs Fists"
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