This month marks the 40th anniversary of perhaps two of the most referenced events of the 1960s: the Manson Family killings in Los Angeles and Woodstock. Both have been reflected as the actions of out of control youth in a decade marked by cultural upheaval.
There has been an absence of discernment when it comes to categorizing Manson with the countercultural youth of 1960s. Despite sharing seemingly similar ideals on paper, what needs to be realized is that the 1960s were a time of upheaval because they were a reaction to the circumstances presented to myriad of young Americans. Manson’s murders must be understood apart from the general age if we hope to see the ’60s clearly. I understand that the actions taken in the name of counterculture were not always the romanticized version of what we see on VH1 and in films like “Across the Universe.” The “styles” and “trends” of the era’s youth that are all too often ironically splashed across the walls and racks of overpriced department stores fail to reveal what was ultimately a tumultuous and uncertain period of our nation’s history.
The last year of the ’60s, and the uncertainty that had so closely been associated with it, was perhaps one of the most memorable years of our nation’s history. Though the moon landing is often cited as the most revolutionary development of that year, cultural events like Woodstock no doubt are now as much a part of Americana as the 1980s conservative resurgence that would come to counter it.
Manson gets swept into the bundle of joy, dreams and activism that is the ’60s. Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor in the Manson case, said to the LA Times, “he’s got this image, almost a glamorous outlaw type … like Dillinger or Jesse James, but (kids) really don’t … know how evil he is.”
Manson had spent a good portion of his life in correctional institutions before the murders even occurred. Marked by the laxness of sexuality and experimentation of the era, Manson’s commune gained a reputation in Los Angeles. It was perhaps the willingness of the group to go against the grain of cultural and lifestyle norms that brought such comparisons with student protestors. The struggle for franchise and the simplest of equality in the South similarly proved that civil rights had to be fought for.
With Manson’s own adoption of skewed anti-establishment rhetoric, what no doubt arose were generalizations from many about all such groups.
As President Nixon’s declaration of Manson’s guilt served to cement the association between him and the countercultural youth of the era in the minds of the “Silent Majority,” most Americans seemed ready to leave behind a decade marked by such strife.
The then-teenaged and twenty-something Baby Boomers of post-WWII America responded to an environment that was too often intricately linked to the maneuvering and games of a seemingly wholly unsympathetic Washington. As David Farber describes in “the Age of Great Dreams,” a chronicle of America in the 1960s, the war in Vietnam “represented not the will of the people but the interests of an interlocking financial, technocratic and military elite ““ the “˜system.'”
With the draft looming over so many young men at the time as well as a seemingly unending civil rights battle in the south and demagogic college faculty across the country, what arose from these groups were actions prompted by authorities that seemed apathetic to their cries.
With such sentiments of inevitability and susceptibility, such revolts proved to be a necessity in the face of such odds. American institutions, such as the free speech fought for by Mario Savio in Berkeley or voting rights demanded by Dr. King in Birmingham, were upheld and strengthened as the necessity to respond to attack on civil liberties was realized.
In a 2008 interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” Bill Ayers, a member of the radical 1960s Weather Underground, summed up such sentiments: “The content of the Vietnam protest is that there were despicable acts going on, but the despicable acts were being done by our government. … I never hurt or killed anyone”
To this day, it is a matter of debate as to whether many of the movements of the era brought any sort of significant change. As Americans, I feel that we will permanently have a mindset of skepticism that surrounds the actions and policies of our leaders, perhaps the most patriotic thing we could have gained from the period. We are indebted to members of the counterculture who had the audacity to stand up to what had too long been the comfortable status quo, and it would be a dishonor to lump together their legacy with a sociopathic murderer.
E-mail Gharibian at cgharibian@media.ucla.edu.