Woodstock Generation
Posted by Steve Welzer on 08/24/07[The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held 38 years ago this month in Bethel, NY. The movie came out the following year.]
1970. It was before home videos and many of us went to the theater to see the movie over and over again. It begins with scenes showing members of the tribes trekking to the festival. In the background plays the song that might be considered the anthem of the generation. The key lyrics go like this:
Wooden Ships on the water, very free and easy
Easy - you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline ... let us be
We are leaving, you don’t need us
“Silver” meaning metallic, rigid, hard, cold; also signifying preoccupation with money. We perceived their culture (those on the mainland, in the mainstream) to be hard, cold, repressive, materialistic, preoccupied with money. Their culture was anathema to us. In spirit, we were leaving - to dwell, rather, in “Woodstock Nation.” We would create a sane life, a warm, vibrant, egalitarian life, “the way it’s supposed to be ... very free and easy.”
- - - - - - - - -
1980. The Big Chill had set in. We would not succeed in creating a countercultural alternative. We had been naive about it all. We would have to make a life here, in Reagan’s America.
We had sensed that the problems ran very deep, but trying to engage them was intimidating. Our alternative vision lacked clarity - and we learned that a culture can only be changed incrementally.
Most of us had to back off. To proceed with life in the common culture, many needed to forget what we had felt back then, needed to accept the conventional wisdoms: reality is what it is, people are limited, repression is necessary, life is hard, it always has been and it always will be.
Those who remember need to keep insisting otherwise.