Drag Queens, LGBTQ++, transgender obsession, pornography in our public school system, gender confusion; children given puberty blockers and life altering sex change surgeries. Attacks on the traditional family, patriotism, traditional morals and biblical values, conservatism, traditional religion, Christians and capitalism. Add to this, DEI, the need for pronouns to signify what sexual orientation one identifies as, and CRT.
In light of the above, several major retailers are marketing LGBTQ++ clothing to children. Babies! Toddlers! That’s insane! We’re supposed to protect children, not defile them! Marxist “woke” ideology has taken over our culture. Again, how did we get to such a degenerate state as a society? As a country? And so quickly? What happened to our culture? Answer, the 1960s. It may not have all started in the 1960s, but that was the decade that ushered in a “Revolution,” or the “Counterculture,” as it was called. It indeed brought a cosmic pendulum shift, and nothing would ever be the same again.
There are so many things that come to mind when I think of the 60s and early 70s. The Vietnam war and the protests against it. The “hippie” movement, formerly referred to as “beat necks” that started in various coffee houses in San Francisco, California. The Kent State shooting where our National Guard actually opened fire killing four student protesters and wounding nine others. The Civil rights movement. The Charles Mason cult murders. The draft. Draft dodgers. Incense. Black lights. Peace signs. Patty Hearst. VW Buses decorated with peace signs and various Deco Art. Flower Power. Woodstock. There were Nudist Colonies and communes. The emergence of Eastern Mysticism upon the West, and its cousin, Transcendental Meditation. Abstract Art. The Kennedy assassination. Watergate. Streakers. Sit ins. Black lights and psychedelic posters. Jesus Freaks. Bell bottoms and hip huggers. Anti-government protests. The Weather Underground. The Stonewall Riots in NY city (the beginning of the gay rights movement, from which, decades later morphed into the LGBTQ+ movement of today). The proliferation of psychedelic drugs, of which Dr. Timothy O’Leary encouraged young people to ingest LSD. He even suggested that it be added to the public water system. Dr. Tim told them to look inside to “find yourself.” Hence, they embraced existentialism to find their own reality. And lastly, Rock n’ Roll music which had a major influence upon the counterculture. Rock n’ Roll laced with lyrics of debauchery and drugs that romanticized a partying lifestyle. Rock musicians became their gods. In my opinion, the only good thing that came out of that decade was the Moon landing. However, there were skeptics questioning that it actually happened. Some believed it was staged in the Hollywood Hills or deep within area 51. I’m not kidding! Maybe they did sneak some drugs in the water. All in all, it was a time of civil unrest and chaos. It was the young revolting against the old.
What exactly were these young people revolting against anyway? Well in order to answer that question one needs to understand what was being taught on most college campuses back then as it is still being taught today. The short answer was, Marxism, Socialism, Communism and a general disdain for America. Sound familiar? Moreover, these professors taught that Capitalism was bad, religion was a farce, and God was dead. On the latter, The cover of Time Magazine published on April 6th, 1966, asked the question, “Is God Dead?” The article went on to opine that he indeed must be.
These brainwashed young people were against the establishment. Basically, anything that had been established heretofore, the government, religion, morals, reasons for war, duty, obligation, traditional values, the nuclear family, law and order was anathema. You name it, they were against it. They were “anti-establishment” Hence, they wanted to start a whole new culture. A “counterculture”, if you will. One where they could all live together in perfect peace and harmony. No more war. Just love and peace. In short, a neo-Garden of Eden. Additionally, they were done with anything they thought was a restraint and limited their personal freedom in any way. That meant casting off all of the old Elizabethan/Biblical morals that their parents taught. Accademia had indeed captured their hearts, minds and souls. At best they became amoral, at worst, immoral. All they wanted was to be free. But what did that “freedom” look like?
They wanted to have sex with whoever was willing. Anywhere. Anyone. Anytime. Basically, they wanted to live in some imagined state, a sort of a hedonistic utopia. A philosophy that touted that pleasure was the highest good. “If it feels good, do it.” “If you can’t be with the one you love honey, love the one you’re with.” ‘How can it be wrong if it feels so right?” These were some of the popular song lyrics of that generation. We’ll go into the influence of their music more later.
These hippies came to hate and disdain everything of their parent’s generation and all of what the generations prior held sacred and dear. They were rebels. Moreover, they felt their parent’s generation were greedy and materialistic. Capitalist pigs! They felt that traditional religion was tantamount with enslavement and bondage. They viewed that sex within the confines of marriage was unjustifiably limiting their freedom. In addition, they rejected the American dream. Working hard to attain a better lifestyle was meaningless. They were right insofar as material things don’t provide any lasting happiness. In contrast, they sought a much more metaphysical form of happiness. Hence, they believed an altered state of consciousness through meditation and psychedelic drugs was the answer. They thought true reality could only be found from looking within. They embraced existentialism or they wanted to achieve a state of Nirvana. However, in doing so they opened themselves up to the entrance of demonic entities. And these demons were not interested in their “freedom.” In fact, quite the opposite. Not realizing that a self centered hedonistic lifestyle only drives one further into bondage.
My question, which is rhetorical, is whatever happened to the hippy movement and their experimental new way of living? Well, the problem was that it was unattainable and unsustainable. It was unattainable because enough was never enough. Having not attained the utopia they sought, they took more and more drugs like acid and LSD. It was unsustainable because of the inherent destructive nature of taking copious amounts of these narcotics. The results of which were devastating. These drugs were causing many to die at an early age. One need only to look at what happened to the likes of Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison.
Their philosophy simply didn’t work. Instead of peace they found anarchy, instead of satisfaction they found only further discontent and instead of peace they found only strife. Their experiment didn’t last. Even their ill-fated attempts with socialism failed. They could live on the beach of southern California for free, but since nobody wanted to work there was nothing to share. But why? What didn’t they take into account? The answer is simple, really. It was their own depraved, sinful, and fallen human nature. They couldn’t escape it. They simply had no answer for eradicating or even taming it. Things like greed, pride, hate, envy, dishonesty, lust, violence, and the self-centeredness that lives inside us all.
This generation of the 1960s never did achieve their utopian dream. But having rejected the “establishment” any prior meaning of life was now gone. Hence, all subsequent generations would never fully recover. Young people now have a bigger void that they’re still desperately trying to fill. They’re more lost now than ever before. Doing the things described in the opening two paragraphs. And like the hippies that came before them, they’re seeking love without the God of love. They’re seeking peace without the Prince of peace. They’re seeking meaning without knowing the God had already given them intrinsic meaning. They’re still seeking freedom, but not the God who is the only one who can truly liberate them.
I think that one line from Joni Mitchell in her 1968 song, “Woodstock”, sums the 1960s generation up in a nutshell, “We are stardust. We are golden. And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Young people are still trying to get back to that perfect world like that of the garden before the Fall. However, without God, they’ll always find themselves somewhere, East of Eden.