New Left vs. Psychedelic Left

New Left vs. Psychedelic Left

Please forgive the long quote… but how else am I supposed to get you to read it?

So I wrote “An Open Letter to John Lennon” which was published in the October 27 issue of the Black Dwarf… In my letter I pompously pronounced: “Perhaps now you’ll see what it is you’re (we’re) up against. Not nasty people. Not even neurosis, or spiritual under-nourishment. What we’re confronted with is a repressive, vicious, authoritarian system.” …

To our utter amazement at the Black Dwarf, Lennon wrote back… “[I] don’t remember saying that Revolution was revolutionary - fuck Mrs Dale… You say: ‘In order to change the world we’ve got to understand what’s wrong with the world. And then - destroy it. Ruthlessly.’ You’re obviously on a destruction kick I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the world - people - so do you want to destroy them?” …

These letters were syndicated round the world and were described by Richard Neville, the editor of the hippy magazine Oz, as “a classic New Left/psychedelic left dialogue”. They summed up a tension between two tendencies in the counterculture - the hippy strand that had come to the fore in the mid-60s and embraced self-expression, spirituality and “love”, and the leftwing radicalism that was sweeping the world in 1968 and was concerned with changing structures. These weren’t necessarily exclusive positions; they were more a question of emphasis and a lot of people had a foot in both camps. But there was still a tension between them, and the “Dear John” letters epitomised that tension.

Interesting article, save the obligatory blog-age autobiography that leads up to the important parts. I’d say the argument certainly still has some relevancy