Firing Line With William F. Buckley: The Hippie Generation (1968)

Source:The New Democrat

I find this whole show very interesting if for no other reason and there might not be any other reason why I find this episode of Firing Line interesting, but the contrast on it. You have Bill Buckley who was as Anglo-Saxon and preppie and perhaps even square as an American can get, interviewing hippies and an expert I guess on Hippies. Why Buckley would let Jack Kerouac go out on his show drunk, I have no idea other than maybe to make fun of the man and make him look like a joke.

The hippie movement was a reaction to the 1950s and every other conservative establishment decades before it. What the Hippies said was that there were multiple ways for Americans to live their lives and be productive people and good Americans. That they didn’t have to live the lives of the parents and grandparents. The Baby Boomers who probably made up most of the Hippies were giving this message and living their life differently. That they didn’t have to live the lives of their parents and could live the way that they wanted to and still be good productive people.