From a talk given in 2017, all the more pertinent today.
In dark times, where does hope come from? When societies experience stress, what do they put their hope in? The deeper story of the ’60s is that when tensions rose, so many simply lifted away. Abandoning any ideal of working for change, they pressed escape and disappeared into ecstasy, into the heavens, into space.
Fifty years later, in similarly tumultuous times, we face the same temptation. A resurgent Russia, an anxious America, violence against minorities, racism, sexism, all this political tumult—the nuclear winter thawing, maybe, but in its place anyway, the specter of global warming. A whole world, it seems, in peril.
And in times such as this, what will we put our hope in?
…just like [with] drugs, the danger is that we drop out. We gaze at icons, hoping for profound visions. This high technology to which we offer almost spiritual levels of devotion—from crowded carriageways and around dinner tables—when times get tough, we open a tab of LCD and simply trip away to other worlds more funny, less screwed up than our own. And of course, like the be-ins and the gatherings, these things are awesome and do have the power to create great change. But if we’re brutally honest, most of the time—many times each day—we use them simply to lift away.
Just as in 1967, if our hope is vertical, then the change we will see will be minimal. In a culture of rising nationalism, we need a new counterculture. With a mood of separation in the UK and of wall-building in the US, we need this summer to be about love. But I urge you, in these tough times, when you look for what to put your hope in, do not press escape. Do not trip off into high heavens.
Forgo high technology for action in rooted community…