EDITORIAL 40 years later: The youth protest movement in retrospect … and what we can do about it

Stephen Proffitt

Contributing Writer

As I walk around the city, I see peace signs everywhere—spray-painted on buildings, printed on Victoria’s Secret outfits, as bumper stickers on minivans. The peace sign has always been used to symbolize anti-war initiatives throughout the cold war, and became known as a visual connection to pacifism, especially during the youth protest of the Vietnam War. Today, we are still at war in the Middle East. Though war has continued throughout the decades, it seems that peace has become more of a culturally idolized symbol than a political statement aimed at pacification.

During the Vietnam War, a large American student population protested the war in a unique way. Many radical cultural and political leaders of the movement laid plans for revolution by encouraging their generation to grow their hair long, take acid tests, riot, protest, run for office, and even attempt to make the White House float using psychedelically-induced telepathic power. Despite their radical efforts, they never really changed the culture or system of government in America in any distinct fashion. For a significant percent of the populous, the non-student hip lifestyle was more about getting high, hitchhiking across the country, and being ‘in’ with the revolution than actually organizing their skills to take more efficient and mature action toward social equality, which lies beyond the government against whom the youth protested so strongly.

What if the revolutionaries had encouraged the youth to stay in school and change the function of our country from the inside out? The movement utilized a very experimental and unique vision, but it is easy to see that the hippie generation failed in their humanitarian initiatives by actually causing more conflict within America. This leads to a more important issue: How can we learn from this generation’s mistakes while adapting to address current problems? With the present era engrossed by international terrorism, natural disasters, racial injustice, increasing pollution, and massive poverty, it is important that we not only crank up the steam, but exceed the efforts of the past to deal with the unique challenge of our current era’s moral and political shortcomings.

The Hippies’ main fault lies in the carefree lifestyle they pursued. By taking drugs, drinking, and living in a utopian perception, these activists were deluded from the impact of everyday decision making to more-effectively progress our society. In fact, the free drugs, sex, and anti-government protest involved in the lifestyle spread disease, induced insanity, increased poverty, and deemed these activists ‘loonies’ by powerful politicians and businesses.

The Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out message adopted by Tim Leary and leaders of the Youth International Party promoted LSD use, theft, and an all out declaration of war against the American government. A more effective course would have been more about helping the poor nationwide rather than living in a party where everyone gets doses and the flowers always bloom.

In my experience, a fair amount of college students, enjoy spending their free time using drugs, drinking, and engaging in (sometimes unprotected) promiscuous sex. Inadvertently, these are ways of becoming victim to society’s tempting drawbacks. Most people cannot think clearly and maturely when distracted by reaching for more. In fact, over consumption is an issue whom other nations believe to be America’s greatest problem. Not to say it’s a crime to have fun, but a lifestyle drowned in fictional pleasure is neither realistic nor helpful to our society.

Reduce your money and time spent on alcohol and drugs. We can’t help others when we are busy thoughtlessly consuming or indulging in our self image. The businessmen of our time know that the youth are immature. This is why so many tobacco ads are directed at teenagers. This is why you don’t see old men sipping Wild Turkey in alcohol commercials. This is why pharmaceutical companies hand out Xanax and OxyContin like Andes mints.

By cutting down our investments in these tempting products, we can improve on the road to social change which the 1960s protest movement paved. We must understand the flaws of the past in order to progress as a society into a more humane future.

Set down your bong and GO! Refuse to be lured by the vices of profit-based organizations who aim to cloud us in ignorance. College is a time for learning and progressing into mature and skillful pieces of a currently deconstructing machine. It is important to realize the importance of the everyday struggle for human rights and social equality, and to pursue the alternative choices we can coincide with our lifestyle in doing so. There are alternatives to disorientation and consumption that simultaneously enhance our senses, educate us, and incite the relaxation and sense of accomplishment that substances and over-consumption only imitate. By cutting down our investment in these societal distractions, we can progress. Act now!

The following are a list of local organizations (which you can find on Facebook, Twitter, or Google) in which you will find refuge.

Virginia Coalition for Education

Richmond Animal League

Richmond Zen Group

International Students for Social Equality

Richmond Court Appointed Special Advocates

Urban League of Greater Virginia

And any of the numerous clubs, student activities, or volunteer opportunities available at the VCU Student Commons front desk.