What Can We Learn From Flower People, Power People, And Other Rebels

May 12, 1968
Plainfield

What Can We Learn From Flower People, Power People, And Other Rebels

In our culture, one of the most difficult tasks is to look below the surface characteristics of rebels in order to discover if there are valuable under-currents beneath the waves of belligerence, bohemianism, and blunt rejection of what we believe to be true and good. My belief is that we can learn from the acts and attitudes of persons and groups whose ways irritate us, whose behavior alarms us and who act profanely toward patterns of living we may consider sacred. Properly understood, those who rebel against all or some of the ways of our society may be reaching for enduring values. In speaking of what we can learn from flower people, power people, and other rebels, I am also asking each of us to ask himself, Why do rebels irritate me? Why am I alarmed? How sacred are some of the cows which I believe the rebels have profaned?

One important qualification should be made. When discussing characteristics of flower people [and] power people, one should be aware that individual differences prevail in every group. As Russell Baker pointed out by exaggeration, pre-packaged personalities are a myth. There may be prevailing climates of attitude and behavior among groups, but we should be just as wary of stereotyping flower people and power people as we should be wary of stereotyping people by race, religion, occupation, and national background.

When I speak of Flower People, I refer to those well-publicized young people who crowd New York’s East Village, San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury, and similar gathering places. They have rejected the prevailing culture of white suburban, de-odorized, middle-class America. They wear flowers in their uncut hair; they wear clothes distinctively different from Madison Avenue garb; their Mexican shawls or vests and tight dungarees or bell-bottomed trousers may be unwashed and paint-smeared; some flower people may be strumming stringed instruments; a goodly percentage may have experimented with “pot” and have taken “trips” with LSD or other chemicals; nearly all have rebelled against the authority and beliefs of their parents; many live openly in varieties of sexual freedom.

The Power People are those who seek salvation by acquiring political power in order to achieve economic justice, human equality, and peace in the world. They may be Black Power people seeking to weld together the Black people as a political force because of the reality that when one is poor and not numbered among the socially privileged, then political power is not given but must be seized by united numbers who hold together to force concessions from the traditional holders of political and economic strength in this nation.

Or, Power People may be members of Students for Democratic Society or similar organizations sometimes classified as the “New Left.” Their focus too is on tactics which will shift political control in some effective measure to themselves. Or, at least they may shake up and stir anxieties in the usual seats of political power. The lens of Power People’s effort is focused on tactics: resist the draft (“Hell no, we won’t go”). They seek to force a confrontation with power; for example, the events at Columbia University of the last few days or the Berkeley campus of some months ago. They condemn the Vietnam War, particularly, as the immediate reason for resisting the draft; they rebel against the administration of Universities much more than rejecting the faculties. The rebels are fearful that the Government will dominate educational institutions through publicized grants for defense research/development; they fear even more surreptitious subsidies by the C.I.A. The power people of the New Left, on the whole, are not doctrinaire in their political and economic theories. Most of them are not convinced socialists, communists, or capitalists in any of the accepted definitions. They believe that all such ideological distinctions are 19th century antiquities, exhausted of meaning or irrelevant to the human needs of our times.

A significant majority of Flower people and Power people are young. They were born toward the end of WW2 or after that. They are the first generation reared in front of that most influential of educators, the TV tube. That hypnotic eye exposed them to years of fictitious violence: the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Zorro, and other blood and bullet re-creations of the old frontiers. They learned about tommy-guns and gangsters from Eliot Ness and Sergeant Friday. Some years ago, Kenyon Scudder, then a delegate to the U.N Congress on the prevention of crime, quoted this little verse:

Sing a song of TV
For the little ones
4 and 20 jailbirds
Facing tommy-guns

When the scene is finished
The blood is ankle deep
Wasn’t that a pretty dish
To send the kids to sleep.

From the same omnipresent screen there emanated the “situation comedy.” “I Love Lucy” - the family situation, or “Our Miss Brooks,” the educational situation – neither of which could possibly have done much for either family life or education, even though the humor was believed to be uproarious.

You will recall other instances wherein the lowest common denominator was emphasized in order to secure the largest possible viewing audience to the end that detergents, aluminum siding, cigarettes, and all other manner or precious goods could be skillfully marketed. As many young people became saturated and surfeited with the banality of such mass entertainment, they could hardly escape the conviction that the American culture not only placed its major emphasis on minor pursuits, but also that it was dreary and boring.

Then there are those of this young generation of rebels whose deep impression of our culture can be described as a tale of three cities: Auschwitz – Hiroshima – and Nuremberg (see Kenneth Keniston, p. 242, article, “Youth, Change, and Violence” in The American Scholar, Spring 1968). As Kenneth Keniston wrote, “Auschwitz points to the possibility of a ‘civilized’ nation embarking on a systematized, well-organized, and scientific plan of exterminating an entire people. Hiroshima demonstrated how ‘clean,’ easy, and impersonal cataclysm could be to those who perpetrate it, and how demonic, sadistic, and brutal to those who experience it. And Nuremberg summarizes the principle that men have an accountability above obedience to national policy, a responsibility to conscience more primary even than fidelity to national law.” There are many young persons who have seen clearly, or at least felt inwardly, the brutal and destructive potential of so-called civilized nations and are placing individual conscience above unprotesting obedience.

What can we learn from the Flower People and the Power People who have grown up in the setting described? They are minorities among youth. Many, probably most of them, will move on into suburban, middle-class, affluent settings as they become weary of the struggle – and others will take their places.

We need not adopt their mistakes in order to learn from them. Many Flower People fool with dangerous drugs, even though it is probable that some compounds and weeds may one day be as acceptable as tobacco, liquor, and tranquilizers are today. We need not condone all the acts of student rebels on campus. But we ought to become aware that when social change does not happen fast enough, the consequence is not static acquiescence but revolt. Of course it was wrong to vandalize Dr. Kirk’s office at Columbia and steal his private papers. It was both breaking of law and an invasion of his privacy which none of us would tolerate if it happened to us. Similarly, acts of violence cannot be approved. If anything is clear now, it is that violence breeds violence. This is no less true of heedless and senseless police actions as it is of rioters. The principles of due process of law and order have been evolving and becoming more valued for thousands of years. The bullet is no substitute for the ballot. Our salvation will come not from more deadly bullets but from more effective ballots. And this can come only when those who value human dignity, freedom, and equality learn the lessons of how political power is achieved and used to establish progress.

What can we learn from the radical Flower People and Power People?

We can remember what “radical” means – radical means fundamental, having roots, reaching for the center, going to the source.

The Flower People remind us of a radical continuity in our society that is as old as the Hebrew ethical prophets and as new as a candid, unsparing view of our culture and values. By “radical continuity” I mean that there are moral currents springing from the source which can be known in any period if one examines protest and reform movements. The Hebrew prophets looked at their prevailing culture and did not like what they saw – hypocrisy, narrowness, injustice: “I hate, I despise your feasts,” said Amos, “but let righteousness pour down like a mighty stream.”

The Flower People remind us of the ancient radical values of personal fulfillment and inclusiveness.

By taking one’s own mind and person seriously, the Flower Person may be reaching for the ancient and profound experience of wonder and awe. They seek sensitivity and openness to colors, tastes, sounds, and touch. That they are in error in using harmful drugs to achieve mind-expanding experiences does not indicate that we should be insensitive to the potential growth experience of expanding consciousness. Personal religion in all cultures has been characterized by mind-expansion and self-growth. Buddha sat under the tree and opened himself to experiences from which he had been protected by his family’s wealth and status. He became conscious of human suffering and human need. His mind and soul expanded and one of the great religions of the world was precipitated.

So it has been with the founders of great religions and great institutions. They sought to expand their interior horizons with new ideas, more sensitive consciousness. The human hind has the capacity to expand if we are open to its opportunities. As Mark Twain said, “Take out your mind and stomp on it; it’s getting all caked up.” This we can learn from Flower People.

Inclusiveness is a value of which we need to be reminded frequently. It is one of the radical continuities. In ancient times, Malachi cried, “Have we not one father? Has not one God created us?” Most of the Flower People would reject this ancient religious language, but would endorse the idea of one human family, including all persons. And the relationship between all persons should be direct, open, accepting; the contrived and artificial boundaries of nation, class, race, and Puritan rigidity are not tolerated by the Flower People. However scandalous older generations may believe the conduct of some Flower People to be, their slogan, “Make love, not war” is a symbol of inclusiveness. It is a slogan of a superior society than that of war-makers and racists.

Furthermore, some of their rebellion is based on a rather discerning appraisal that the older generations display a considerable inconsistency between principle and practice. Have not we elders frequently communicated, “Do as I say, not as I do?” If with all their faults, the Flower People can spur us to look at the hypocrisy gap in our culture, then we can learn from them. We may squirm when the young rebels accuse us of hypocrisy in our culture – but what is the evidence? Everyone who believes in open housing, but not on his street, supplies evidence for the hypocrisy gap. Everyone who believes in equal job opportunity but not in his trade, supplies evidence for the hypocrisy gap. Everyone who criticizes the young for open behavior which is indulged by the old furtively supplies evidence for the hypocrisy gap. Everyone who casually and unthinkingly supports war while professing to be part of a peace-loving nation supports and deepens the hypocrisy gap. Every parent who believes his child should develop an autonomous self in wisdom, stature, and creative self-direction but at the same time tries to dominate his child’s choices, is adding to the hypocrisy gap. If the Flower People can help us see ourselves with our failures and rationalizations they are providing us with the opportunity to learn.

The Power People too are making a radical criticism in our society. They remind us of root values that we may have forgotten in our insecurities and complacencies. When issues are vital and timely, confrontation is a moral force. This is the purpose of the non-violent demonstration. When issues are plain, confrontation has moral power to effect change. The Power People are reminders that we may have relied too heavily on the printed word to influence change. The Power People teach us that one must confront the institutions that are failing to make social changes quickly enough. This is what the Poor People’s March on Washington is all about. The great teachers of religion have always relied on such confrontation ... peaceful but unequivocal confrontation. The conviction that confrontation has moral force is another radical continuity. You can find one example among many in a man from Nazareth who turned his face toward Jerusalem and went there.

There is some additional support that confrontation can change people as well as events. One of the methods by which human relations can be improved in business, government, religious institutions, or any other kind, is that process sometimes called sensitivity training, T groups, or group dynamics. Essentially the people learn to get along with themselves better and others better by confrontation. One is candid with others about his real feelings. If one is angry at someone else, he expresses this anger. Blunt openness, rather than furtive politeness, is the rule; and it is [a] healthy process inducing personal and social growth.

The Power Person is honest in expressing strong desire and need for change now. If he can’t influence by his wealth or prestige, he can by his numbers. To recognize this legitimate use of power does not condone those practices which are violent or illegal. One may practice civil disobedience because of strong, moral conviction that the law is wrong in a given instance. But part of the moral force comes from accepting the penalties for such disobedience. If you want scripture for this, the death of Socrates or Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” are morally eloquent.

Every member of the Daughters of the American Revolution is descended from a rebel. Everyone who finds moral persuasiveness in the great prophets of all religions relies on the vision of a rebel. We can learn from rebels by seeking out the radical continuities that may be actual or potential in their acts and attitudes.

It was said of the great French architect, Le Corbusier, that in 1927 he prepared one of his greatest designs for the League of Nations competition. But his plans were rejected by the judges on a technicality. He had failed to use India Ink in his drawings. Allen Tamko, a city planner with vision, commented, “Instead of Corbusier’s design, a preposterous Beaux Arts Palace was put up instead. If the League had had the courage and decency to put up Le Corbusier’s buildings and supplied the politics to match it, maybe we would not be in such a mess today.” (Pamphlet, “The City”, p. 22)

To summarize: we do need to expand our minds and recapture the sense of wonder and awe at our human experience in this marvelous creating universe of which we are a part.

We need to be reminded that there must be a fuller recognition of the inclusiveness of the human family and to love the entire human family, not make war on certain parts of it which may at a given moment be an obstacle to plans in high places.

We can learn to be more honest with ourselves and recognize when there is a hypocrisy gap between our principles and our practice.

We may remember that serious criticism of the social structure may require confrontation to achieve needed social change – change that is essential if a worthwhile culture is to emerge from our present conflicts and injustice.

Let me close with a dictionary reference: if you look up the word, radical, you will read that its opposite, its antonym, is not conservative, but superficial, cursory. Anyone should feel free to argue against the radical celebrations and the radical criticisms of Flower People and Power People, but let such criticism be thoughtful, engaging the real issues, not merely [as] a superficial expression of irritation or alarm.