Previously:
According to Timothy Leary, Turn On meant to
go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end.
In my reinterpretation of his famous slogan, to Turn On means something completely different. In our quintessentially American way, Turning On means that Americans are becoming actively engaged with their governance in ways that have not been seen since the 1960s. The difference is that in the 1960s, most of the protesters were fairly narrow minded in their objections tot he various "evils" of Amerika and the vast majority of the counter-culture was primarily focused on personal hedonism. The attacks against the constraints of bourgeois middle class American mores were essentially expressions of the desire to have access to "drugs, sex and rock & roll." Only the most ideologically committed, Leftists of all stripes, were interested in actually doing the work involved in changing society. The rest of us simply went on with our lives (often after a fascinating sojourn through the counter-culture) and/or entered into the ranks of those who actually maintain our functioning society. The committed ideologues found their way into politics and education with the goal of moving the country to the Left.
[Few would question that the President's friend, Bill Ayers, qualifies as part of the Left; the jury remains out on how committed a Leftist Barack Obama is, but it is clear that he has at the very least been infused with sympathy for the Left and is doing his best to move the country as far Left as possible during his time in Washington.]
In many ways the 1960s radicals on the Left have succeeded; they have become the Establishment. One need only consider the progress of our Media, Academia, and the Democratic Party to appreciate how liberal ideas and overtly Left-wing ideas have become incorporated into the weltanschauung of those establishment structures. This means that rebelling against the man, speaking truth to power, and all the other slogans that the 1960s protesters once took as their own, are now being used against their interests.
They once chanted "2...4...6...8, Organize and Smash the State." Now they are the State!
Even as the Liberal blogosphere attacks the Conservative blogosphere for "epistemic closure" it is hard to miss that the Left side of the political divide is much more concerned with political/ideological litmus tests than the Right, with its mix of Social Conservatives, Economic Conservatives, and Libertarian Conservatives (among whom are included many people who once were members of the counter-culture when it was more Libertarian than the Statist Establishment it has turned into.)
It is the Tea Party movement that has picked up the mantel of change from an increasingly reactionary and sclerotic Establishment.
[Interestingly, often the same people who accuse the Conservatives of "epistemic closure" also accuse the tea Party Movement of incoherence and lack of policy proposals. What makes the tea Party Movement so large and multifarious is that it is composed of a great many people who appreciate that we cannot continue to spend money we don't have while promising ever more goodies to people who now expect to be taken care of by government in perpetuity; see Greece for real time examples of what we face down the road.]
Americans have Turned On in large numbers. They have organized, with the hope of, not smashing the State, but slimming it down and curbing its voracious appetites. Professor Reynolds describes what is going on in our communities, organizing that is terrifying the Establishment:
Tea Party movement likely to have unglamorous but effective future
But rallies without follow-through are just rallies. And the Tea Party movement is now following through with the grunt work of politics: Organizing precincts, waging primary battles, registering voters, and compiling mailing lists.
None of this stuff sounds exciting. It doesn't look exciting, either. At my blog, InstaPundit, people e-mail me pictures from organizing meetings. The pictures aren't visually interesting -- they generally show a lot of people sitting on folding chairs in a meeting room somewhere. But when I post them, I always get mail from readers who are excited to see this sort of thing going on.
And, really, why shouldn't they be excited? This is democracy in action. If we're not excited about that, what should we be excited about?
The next two election cycles are going to be of the utmost importance. If we do not reverse the trends toward an all-encompassing and ever-growing State, our freedoms will become increasingly fragile. Yet, electoral failure would not mean the end of the line for the Tea Party Movement. Failure in November, 2010 or failure to redirect the ship of state following a Republican victory at the polls (either because too many Establishment Republicans remain too ready to belly up to the trough or because the President is able to forestall change) will lead to the next great dynamic in America, as a growing movement of people, descended from those pioneers who in the past pulled up stakes and effectively Dropped Out, will themselves Drop Out, but in ways only dimly imagined at this point.
My further speculations will appear in a future post, describing what it might look like after we Tune In and Turn On, and, finally, decide to Drop Out.
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