They didn’t really lose because they were not committed to a specific left cause in the first place. They were about aesthetics and self-gratification, which included avoiding barriers to that, i.e. the draft. As the war on Vietnam wound down, they simply continued their project by getting professional jobs, doing drugs, and buying shiny objects. Importantly, they were not organized, so “they” doing anything is not a concerted action taken on purpose, but was itself the result of wider social forces and of course capitalism. They were manipulated by these forces originally and continued to be manipulated by them afterwards. Their “counterculture” came complete with branded clothing and millions of hot-off-the-presses vinyl to listen to at the local bead door-bedecked sexpest house party.
Fair enough, but my point is that why should we be looking to them for a strategy that actually affects change on the world, not to quibble if these people lost or not.
Understanding them as not even trying to effect change, but rather satisfy their personal wants (which were slightly reduced by capitalism/imperialism), explains why not to look to them. They weren’t on the left exercising a failing strategy, they were using a successful strategy for their own needs, Vietnamese (and black) people be damned. This should change how we think about their approach: it worked for a different goal, so it could be strategically deployed by us given appropriate circumstances and needs. If a restoration of some liberal norm or PR move serves us, then have at it. If it is instead better to agitate, then it is to be avoided.
Maybe aimed at something similar but I don’t think they are succeeding even by the self-soothing metric. Everything seems like more of a toned down prelude to something worse or, similarly, a way to let off steam while ICE raids ramp up.
They didn’t really lose because they were not committed to a specific left cause in the first place. They were about aesthetics and self-gratification, which included avoiding barriers to that, i.e. the draft. As the war on Vietnam wound down, they simply continued their project by getting professional jobs, doing drugs, and buying shiny objects. Importantly, they were not organized, so “they” doing anything is not a concerted action taken on purpose, but was itself the result of wider social forces and of course capitalism. They were manipulated by these forces originally and continued to be manipulated by them afterwards. Their “counterculture” came complete with branded clothing and millions of hot-off-the-presses vinyl to listen to at the local bead door-bedecked sexpest house party.
Fair enough, but my point is that why should we be looking to them for a strategy that actually affects change on the world, not to quibble if these people lost or not.
Understanding them as not even trying to effect change, but rather satisfy their personal wants (which were slightly reduced by capitalism/imperialism), explains why not to look to them. They weren’t on the left exercising a failing strategy, they were using a successful strategy for their own needs, Vietnamese (and black) people be damned. This should change how we think about their approach: it worked for a different goal, so it could be strategically deployed by us given appropriate circumstances and needs. If a restoration of some liberal norm or PR move serves us, then have at it. If it is instead better to agitate, then it is to be avoided.
In that light it is better to look at the current protests as achieving a similar aim.
Maybe aimed at something similar but I don’t think they are succeeding even by the self-soothing metric. Everything seems like more of a toned down prelude to something worse or, similarly, a way to let off steam while ICE raids ramp up.