Jesus freaks

Marty Jezer (mjez@sover.net)
Fri, 20 Mar 1998 18:30:24 -0500

One way to get at this subject is through CLASS. Historians of the period
rarely come to grips with the class nature of the counter-culture. The
gurus, spokespeople, organizers were largely college-educated and middle
class (and older than the hippie dropouts themselves). There were a lot of
working class kids and also a lot
of lost "lumpen" kids who joined up. These kids, despite the rhetoric, were
not looking for revolution, they were looking for a
means of salvaging their life. And the Jesus movement was a lifesaver for
many of them.

There's always been a class of teenage dropouts, alienated, lost, and
without the education or social skills to get by in the middle-class world.
The hippie movement, as a whole, and the Jesus movement in particular,
gave them a place in the world, something that the kids like that no longer
have.

On the other hand, their lack of skills, and their really desperate
alienation and (understandable) rage made them difficult to organize in any
non-hierarchical communal fashion.

Marty Jezer
Author: The Dark Ages: Life in the USA, 1945-1960
Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel
Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words