>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