Levitating the '60s

"DeGroot's evil eye is particularly acute when it comes to dissecting the archetypal '60s conflation of personal liberation, murky spirituality and 'revolutionary' politics: He reminds anyone who needs reminding that much of '60s political radicalism was half-baked, self-indulgent, and almost insanely pie-in-the-sky. For example, he cites the fact that during one 1967 antiwar march on Washington, participants 'decided it would be fun to levitate the Pentagon. Quite a few hippies were sufficiently stoned to convince themselves that America's biggest building actually did rise.' But worse than that silliness, in DeGroot's view, was yippie leader Jerry Rubin's solemn belief that 'theatrics of this sort could end a war.' 'It was a total cultural attack on the Pentagon,' Rubin said. 'The media communicated this all over the country, and lots of people identified with us, the besiegers.' DeGroot comments, 'In truth, self-indulgence undermined otherwise impressive commitment.'"

In Salon, Gary Kamiya reviews Gerard J. DeGroot's The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade.

As does Jay Parini in The Chronicle Review.