Seeds of Discontent, episode 2 (hippies)

Seeds of Discontent, episode 2 (hippies)

Seeds of Discontent was a 1968 radio documentary series that explored discontented social groups and organizations attempting to improve their conditions in American society.

Smith’s connections with the community as a social worker allowed him to record hours of interviews with people about their lives and their opinions on contemporary issues. This episode features interviews with a group of young hippies as an example of a discontented group in American society.

Hartford Smith, Jr.

Originally distributed by WDET in Detroit, Michigan; made available in digitally archived format as part of the Unlocking the Airwaves project, a digital humanities initiative from University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched in 2021.

1968

Sound

Speaker 0 00:00:03 This is the second in a series of programs, entitled seeds of discontent presenting the program tonight as Hartford Smith, junior assistant professor in the school of social work, Wayne State University professor. Speaker 1 00:00:16 Thank you. And welcome to Seeds of discontent. Again, the purpose of the program during these first several weeks is to look at analyze and listening to the voices and concerns of individuals or groups who have some grape with the present order of things and who is individuals or groups seek to do something about it and constructive or destructive ways. And it's our belief that by listening to and analyzing selected discontented forces within our society, that we may be able to understand the total ramifications of social unrest and turmoil so prevalent in our society today, especially in large urban centers where the majority of Americans habitate only out of this kind of dialogue, can we hope to look beyond to plans and actions that can lead to a life that holds greater promise than meaning for all last week, you heard the voices of a selected group from the growing population of youngsters being classified as juvenile delinquents. Speaker 1 00:01:22 The delinquents were basically from a lower socioeconomic strata of society. These youngsters faced overwhelming odds as they started on the long road towards becoming free, responsible and contributing citizens. To a large extent, they were victims of a history of racial and socioeconomic problems, which to this late date, we have not got around to correcting tonight. We moved to an entirely different strata of society to the growing disenchanted white youth of suburbia and the middle class. We're going to look at the growing subculture of the hippies, although the hippies are different from last week's group in terms of racial, social, economic characteristics. And to a certain extent in terms of expression of behavior, there are striking similarities between their outlook, their concerns and rebellious mood. The term hippie is derived from the old bebop phrase, Hep which later during the cool jazz movement of miles Davis and John Coltrane became hip the term connotes to be with it. Speaker 1 00:02:42 This is basically when it is applying to the hippies, a Madison avenue term and does not fully reveal the depth and concern of the people involved or what it is that they're striving towards, what it is that they're seeking to be with. During the past several weeks, I interviewed a number of young men who live in a developing HIPPA community, just south of Wayne state university. They were rather resentful of the term hippie, but readily identified with the hippie philosophy and hippie values. And they agreed to discuss the matter with me, listen, as they attempt to define what hippie means Speaker 2 00:03:26 The main hippie movement is, uh, namely, uh, what you were kind of could call a change of society in a few ways done by as the press cost hippies. And, uh, I mean that, I'm sure they don't mean to change the whole society. Just a few points of it, which they considered would be in their benefit. Speaker 1 00:03:49 What are some of these points? Speaker 3 00:03:51 Do you feel needs to be changed? Speaker 2 00:03:54 Well, one thing is there is a lot of prejudice in the world and that is one of the main factors. And I say that there's as much prejudice, prejudice as I guess, tip is now as a result. And that's kind of ridiculous. And I think that's a main point. And now the hippie movement, Speaker 3 00:04:16 There was the term it'd be me well to most people, it would be anybody with long hair who dresses funny and, uh, acts funny, but a hippie itself it's it started out as an organization, uh, or not so much an organization, but just a, a group of people who were very, very serious about, about doing things, uh, in their way and trying to build their, their surroundings to suit their tastes. And, uh, more and more people who have gotten into this. Now you have, uh, the, the kids that come in and go along for a free ride on it. They dress funny. You can see them down at plum street, they'll get out of their cars and they'll dress up in there. There they'll put their beads on things and go out on the street and play hippie for awhile. And this, uh, these, these people aren't are the ones that are seen most often, but aren't the ones that are really doing, uh, work in the community. You have very dedicated people like, uh, Mr. Sinclair and Michelle, uh, in this particular area who, uh, are building things, newspapers, and, uh, the workshop and, uh, magazines to, uh, build an atmosphere that they feel is one that is good to live in. Speaker 4 00:06:01 Um, basically then, um, hippie I can use that term means the rebuilding of a community and you're talking, Speaker 3 00:06:11 They want to build their thing, make, make it work for them because what they see on the outside and where they came from, they cannot agree with. And so they're building it their own way. Speaker 2 00:06:24 I also went straight to the point that I made of a prejudice and they have to change it to suit them because in the world, things can not be as they like it because there was prejudice against him. Speaker 4 00:06:38 No, from what I understand, perhaps there are what you might call some hangers on some who are going along for the ride. Why do you think the glory secrets, um, what it out there is happening or what is happening in society, uh, uh, which you feel may lead to this, uh, after all, as you well know, the hippies are rather unpopular. Uh, why would, uh, so many people move in to go along for that kind of ride? Speaker 3 00:07:16 Well, these, these people see the, the, one of the big things in the hippie philosophy, I guess, would be what Alan Ginsburg says, this, this love type thing. And these kids will see, you know, like, you know, what would you rather do, you know, love or hate? And if you know, these, these, these kids have trouble with law, not only in their home, but everywhere they go and they, you know, they come down here, you know, hoping for some kind of understanding, but they, uh, do not want to, they can only see, like they can only see and feel the, the, uh, uh, outer fruits of this, you know, such as, you know, uh, you know, loving everybody and the Digger type thing. But there's, there's something under it because like the kids down here, uh, they don't work because they can't get jobs. A lot of them can't get jobs where a lot of kids at work though, but they have, you know, they come down here trying to, you know, run, they're running away from their homes and they want a place to stay, you know? And they, they seem to fall in with the people who don't have that much money or any, any ways of supporting them much less themselves. Speaker 5 00:08:29 People always give you this stuff about, um, we're trying to escape from responsibility. Um, it's a lot harder to be responsible for yourself when you have, for example, no job, no money. Um, maybe you don't have a high school diploma. There's no way for you to get any higher. If you work within society structures, you're, you're a lot more responsible for yourself when you're working with yourself and you're using yourself as your, as your own tool, instead of expecting people to provide for you because of Speaker 3 00:08:55 Whatever you've done for them, you know, what play their games. People are trying to form a counties, sort of travel type assistance, or, uh, a bunch of people that have the same idea, the thing, they actually have a right to live the way they want to live, to believe what they want to believe. Um, check it off by themselves and start like living for themselves and realizing that things that matter are not things that matter to other people. They, because they've seen so much on the outside, uh, materialistic values that, uh, they're finding once they get a taste of aesthetic values, uh, and what art really is, uh, in both music and, and any other forms, uh, they find that there's, there is something here that is very strong and very holding, and they stick together for these things. And, uh, if they were able to build a complete society on, on their own tract of land, it would be a very materialistic and very, very, uh, strong on the art lines and self-expression, and, uh, uh, doing your own thing. Speaker 1 00:10:29 Basically then the hippies are a group of young people who want a new community and community, which is based on different values. They are searching for values, which will allow more individual expression values, which have, which have more relevance to their own personal existence. Certain key words are important and understanding their behavior, feeling, seeing meaning belonging, nonconforming, and the past two years, their ranks have grown at an amazing rate. At recent time magazine article estimate their population to be in the neighborhood of 300,000. This may be a conservative estimate in any event, they are here. The following dialogue suggests some of the reasons why they are here, Speaker 3 00:11:19 Materialism. That's where the kids are. You know, that's, that's one of the big gripes is that, you know, like while Johnny has to go to college, Johnny has to get a good job. Johnny has to have a good car. Johnny has to do this. Johnny has to do that, but Johnny doesn't have to grow up in that, in that, in that, that environment that doesn't, doesn't have to just involves money, money, money, because money is nothing. It's, it's a curse is what it is. It's a curse that the government is, is thrown upon us, you know, and it's sick. It's really, it's mentally sick to see people base basis, uh, you know, spiritual values and, and values of love on money. Thing that's doing is, is these kids who have grown up in the apathetic environment, you know, where nobody really cares about anybody else. I mean, you know, like I grew up in suburbia and I just, the only thing I have to do is keep up with the Joneses. And, you know, like if, if the Joneses Jones does have a problem or something, I don't, I don't, it's not on my concern. It's not on my business. That's, that's a lot. What you hear in suburbia is it's none of my business, let me stay out of it. Speaker 3 00:12:27 This is the race though. Due to the film, society has gotten so narrow minded. And I, if, if, if I could, you know, if it meant me getting on my knees and begging him, please listen to what I had to say. You don't have to agree with it, but just, just try and see my, see what, I'm, what I'm trying to tell you. You know, I'm not gonna, you know, like you were saying, shove a Bible on probably in front of you. And well, here it is, you know, this is what God says, you know? Well, this, you know, I'm not saying that because I don't know what God says, but I want you to listen. I want you to listen. I want you to open your mind that minds, the minds of society in this, oh, ever since the post-war post-World war two, it seems they've gotten sold. So closed up, you know, they're so tight. They want to, they'd done. They just want to see what, you know, you have the freedom to do, to, to do and be as I, you don't want to, you know, you don't have the freedom to be yourself. You have the freedom to be as I, Speaker 6 00:13:30 Well, like I was going to say before, it's not only that they're so narrow wide, that it even goes deeper than that, that they have practically no mind at all. It's just probe programmed into them until they're like, become a machine like a computer that just shoots these things out automatically. Wow, man, it's, it's not even a human reaction anymore. It's just a mechanical reaction that they do this thing. Speaker 3 00:13:53 T T take, for example, color. Now we like color because of what it does to our eyes. When we see it. And, uh, in society, they see, uh, like an extremely loud shirt. And the first thing they see, or the first thing that they sense is all this color. And if they'd stop and enjoy seeing the color a moment, instead of coming up with a reaction that good Lord, that's loud, and it's so different that I can't like it because the people around me will think I'm funny if I do. Speaker 6 00:14:28 And you know, another crazy thing is you'll get a guy and he'll go into a bookstore and he'll be looking for a book to read, okay, you'll pick up a magazine with the craziest loudest cover on it. And you know, advertising, people will tell you this. If they want to sell a product, what do they do? Package it. So it hits your eye, right? They go to work every day. And I had a gray flannel suit, and they looked like 7,000 other people. So who cares? You know, it's really silly the why the magazine, but they won't buy you. Speaker 8 00:15:01 Um, yeah, there are people you're wrong. you be drenched. There's phone Time saving. Then you better stop swimming. All your thinking. I guess, other times a G Speaker 8 00:15:37 Um, writers and critics the chance will come again and don't speak too soon. The wheels still in span and there's no Speaker 8 00:16:15 And it is Congressman V he the calm , uh, uh, oh, he did get hurt. He installed sad region. Check your windows and hereto. Yo, whoa. Other times they are changing, Um, mothers and fathers throughout the land and on criticize. What you can understand your sons and your daughters have beyond your command. Your own road is a rapidly aging. Please get out. Speaker 8 00:17:31 You know what? I ain't, it is drawn the curse. It is cast this slow bit fast as they present now will later be as . I don't know, first one hour later, all the time, Speaker 3 00:17:55 Uh, average E Speaker 1 00:18:03 The hippies field at the spiritual or soul qualities of American life leaves much to be desired. They feel at odds with their environment. They want a more meaningful and sensitive environment, which we'll see, feel, and hear them as significant persons with creative energies and potential. It is a reaction against mass ness and the impersonal forces, which are a product of a rapidly changing industrial society and technical specialization. They are reacting against pressures to achieve, to strive and obtain material wealth. At the expense of other human qualities. They are very aware and are troubled by the numerous contradictions in our values, concerning human dignity and equality. They are very aware of the land of promise and where it falls short, what to do about conditions and how is still being studied. And there is not total agreement. However, in the following discussion, they do suggest some of their strategies are for the creation of a more humane society. Speaker 3 00:19:14 The whole thing is to show people what, what we feel are the realities and the things that are important. Yeah. But as you can see, they're not, they're not buying once. You're once you're trying to tell them what they are. No, they're not, they're not there. You know, you walk down the street and you know, like somebody is going to say, well, here's a comb, buddy. Come your hair, but you got, you got up, you got to go, you've got to lean to society. You can't, you can't be stubborn with them. You've got, you've got to do a little bit their way without actually changing what you believe in. But you gotta, you gotta show them that, that, you know, like you're doing this wrong because, and you have to say this in a nice way, not just, you know, turning your nose, how to write, well, what, what are you speaking of religion or, uh, the hippie philosophy, uh, you can't just push something on somebody and say, here's the Bible. Read it. This is the way to go. This is your salvation. They won't buy this. They have to find it themselves. And, uh, this is what's happening here. People are finding, uh, a way to live and in a way to be themselves by not by somebody grabbing him by the arm and saying, come here a kid do this. But by seeing it happen, uh, it, it forms a change. It makes a change. The only strategy that we can possibly have or obtain it's like what happened in San Francisco. Speaker 2 00:20:47 Now, the only way that they achieved what they're starting to achieve as far as hippie schools, hippie stores and so on. So forth is, uh, when it is when the hippie hippie movement, like in Frisco, it got so big that the people could no longer fight it, but it had to start accepting it. And that, and therefore, since they can't fight it, they have to accept it. And that leaves way for a new strategy to, uh, get things done. Speaker 3 00:21:14 Like the term, a dropout, you know, don't drop out from society standard fight. It is, is not, not in a non, you know, an actual non-violent means, but you know, not where you go out. And while we shoot the policemen and everything, not, not like that, but is it as though we could get involved. And just to just the things they're doing and get into the jobs they're doing, where this is, this is in a way the hippie movement, shouldn't this, this, this movement, I guess you would call it the love movement shouldn't have dropped out and made its own colonies. You know, it should, uh, it should spread. It should have spread. That's where I think it went wrong was in, that was in dropping out. It's, uh, it's no, I tend to differ with you there because whenever you have a, uh, uh, something happening in a certain place, it changes all of the things around it. It has to. Now you're finding art, uh, like the, the psychedelic type art, uh, moving into advertising. And, uh, you're finding it, moving into music very, very strong, uh, about 50% of the music that's written today, I would say is written by hippie groups or by people who are associated with the hippies. And, uh, just this in itself is affecting a change on the outside. Uh, this, this movement I'm certain will last for years and years, and it'll go through many, many changes. Speaker 1 00:22:46 One of the controversial aspects of the hippie movement is its use of drugs rather than a mere kick. The hippies tend to view the use of drugs as an integral part of changing the world around them as another dimension of strategy for change, Speaker 3 00:23:02 We would like to see more of the establishment turn on with drugs. There's no two ways about it now, uh, to give you an idea of what it can be like. Uh, let's, let's put it in terms of seeing things. Uh, if you only open one eye, you have no depth perception. The only way you can tell how far away an object is, is by its size. You open the other eye and immediately you have depth perception because you're looking at it from two different points. Each eye is separated from, from the other, and you're looking at it from two different points. Thus, you can judge distance, uh, turning on with the drug can be like getting a third eye, getting a deeper, a much deeper understanding and a perception of what is going on because a lot of times, uh, like if, if I'm, uh, on, I feel that I'm still myself, but I'm in a different place. Speaker 3 00:24:05 I F I feel that every everyone is stoned in, uh, in a sense, and this just sets me in a different place where I can see a little bit differently. I don't think quite the same way that I did before. I have different reasons for reaching conclusions than I did before. And with this, you get a deeper understanding of the things that you're saying. Now, they may just be trivial items that you're, that you're delving into, and they can be again, very, very deep things. Most of the time, there are things that aren't materialistic, they're in a spiritual vein, or, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, running along aesthetic values. Speaker 6 00:24:50 Like when we say a person is straight, you know, not high on anything, but what you call that reality, the things he sees and feels there. Well, I've always felt this sort of like, it's a whole big plane of reference thing, you know, like, where are your are? How do you know that just being straight is the real reality. You know, you really can't, you really can't say that. So that like being high on drugs or something gives you just a different perspective of the whole thing. Speaker 1 00:25:19 Some final thoughts and reflections on hippie philosophy, Speaker 3 00:25:25 Man, must always try to strive for this utopian state. You know, he must always try and achieve the perfect happiness. You know, he must always try this. He must keep doing this because if he doesn't, he's going to lay stagnant and he's going to become nothing. Okay. Speaker 6 00:25:40 And let me just say, that's watching, closing that the people that would be listening to this stop fighting us and just dig it Speaker 1 00:25:49 As with a selected group of delinquent youngsters heard on last week's program, the hippies are anti-authority angry, confused, and alienated. They tend to view social responsibility mainly in terms of their own needs, their various social experiments with drugs Levin's and tribal type colonies suggest a kind of protest that is aimed both at their own identity and roots and external realities in today's world. They're asking for more meaningful participation and acceptance more human dignity and equality. However, the very nature of the movement with its attempt at isolation and disengagement from the pressures of society and the driven is toward smaller type tribal units with an independent set of conforming values and codes tend to contribute to their sense of alienation. There is some suggestion that use of drugs may become a cult and itself. If this happens, all of the creative potential expressed in some of their art forms and humanistic philosophy may dry up for some, the movement has already become a senseless, dysfunctional ritual. Speaker 1 00:27:00 The delinquents discussed last week, and they hippies her tonight form the basis of a very large and seriously discontented segment of rebellious and disenchanted. You who are in conflict with society today. If these groups are not reached and brought into the larger mainstream of American life, the consequences in terms of loss of creative productivity, future strife and social disorganization may be catastrophic and tragic. It is doubtful that they can be brought into the mainstream until there are some basic reforms and America's traditional ways of meeting human needs and solving human problems. Next week, seeds of discontent takes a look at the sub culture of poverty. You will hear the voices, the concerns and problems of the poor as they attempt to explain their position in today's world. Speaker 0 00:27:56 You have just heard Hartford Smith, junior assistant professor in the school of social work. Wayne state university seeds of discontent is produced by David Lewis and engineered by Dave Pierce. This is Wayne State University radio.