Was the Hippie Movement a PsyOp?

Curating a Facebook thread

Here’s something I just posted to Facebook recently, that I decided to memorialize.

One of my Facebook friends posted:

My comment:

Where I’ve seen this theory most developed is in what I’ll call the Laurel Canyon conspiracy wherein we find thought leaders in the hippie-drug cult era were disproportionately spawn of the Washington DC neoRoman (imperialist) culture i.e. their moms and dads were from inside The Cathedral as Curtis Yarvin names it.

Frank Zappa. That Doors guy. The Doors guy’s dad, an admiral, was mixed up in that Gulf of Tonkin business. Jim Morrison’s dad.

Although a boomer, I missed the hippie experience at some level cuz I was overseas (Rome and Manila mostly), part of the Cathedral myself (dad was freelance but sometimes with USAID and USG as we flitted about the globe — good times). I was immersed in advertising (Rome) and propaganda (martial law Philippines) growing up, so little wonder I became a spin doctor of sorts myself. I’m spawn of Mad Magazine.

As a Quaker, I tend to prefer psyops and psywar over what we might call blood and guts outward war. I’d rather we play the game of driving each other crazy than the game of blowing each other to bits. But that’s assuming it’s a choice. Most psyops are about channeling outrage among the masses to make it point at specific targets, triggering mob violence or mass enlistment if need be. What I liked about the hippie psyops is they weren’t about stoking outrage so much as exploring mind dynamics, giving rise to cults like est, where Zen met Buckminster Fuller.

Anyway, long story short, I think Laurel Canyon types were disproportionately privileged because their families were pretty well off, so they could afford experimental lifestyles, and because having grown up around authority and seen what it’s like “at the top” (a dubious concept — so many tops) they had less fear of authority than average.

When your mom and dad are in the CIA (mine were not, by the way, but walked the same hallways sometimes) you grow up realizing its just ordinary joes all the way up, so why go for that “yes sir, whatever you say sir” lifestyle that they do in the military (“chain of command” right?).

“Why would I ever take orders from someone I feel so much above? Chuckle. I think instead I’ll pick up a guitar and be a rock star, yeah!” That’s my sense of the psychology. Not all bad. A mixed bag.