Until recently, I believed my own experiences of the 60s were typical.
My own personal involvement in the Age of Aquarius arose from circumstances that, at least at the time, I assumed were fairly typical. I first began to question the war in Vietnam after a “teach-in” at the college I attended. One lecture had stood out above the rest. Entitled “The Myth of Monolithic World Communism,” it was given by an obviously knowledgeable professor who made it clear how serious the rivalry and animosity between the Russians and the Chinese had become. It forced me to re-examine my thinking about the prevailing Domino Theory. I came around to actually opposing the war while taking an anthropology class on Peoples and Cultures of Southeast Asia. After learning of the Vietnamese people’s centuries-old history of struggle against Chinese domination, it seemed like too much of a stretch to presume that they were now interested in becoming Chinese puppets. The ongoing nature of Ho Chi Minh’s fight against first the French, then the Japanese, and now us Americans indicated to me that he was primarily a nationalist and anti-colonialist, and that what was going on in Vietnam was more of a post-colonial civil war, rather than something that pitted our country directly against the Russians or the Chinese. I found when I went back home for vacations that objecting to the war had put me into disagreement with a lot of people I had known earlier in my life. The conflict was difficult, but eventually I got accustomed to feeling like I was simply a bit ahead of the curve on something that not everybody was yet on board with. This in turn led me to anticipate that there might be other areas where the generally accepted thinking would prove inadequate to the times, and something newer would come to the fore. I was now primed for the notion of Counterculture and The Movement. I spent the next several years trying to assimilate the best of what The Movement had to offer, without going overboard into things that seemed excessive. My outward appearance probably gave a fairly accurate indication of what was going on inside me. My hair was longish, but not in a way that anyone would ever confuse with a girl’s hair; and although I wore the jeans and army fatigue jackets popular in The Movement, I would not have been considered a hippie.
(c) COPYRIGHT 2000 ROBERT WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
