One Cheer for the Hippies.

The hippies are happening. They know a lot of things the squares don't. They know that marijuana is mildly pleasant and doesn't give you lung cancer; that it is better to make love than war; that most things taught in college must be unlearned later in life; that it is healthier to be spontaneous, communal and tolerant than repressed, materialistic and bigoted. All this being eagerly granted, the point must now be made that the hippies have been overrated. Their ultimate vision is in no way superior to that of the New Left. The hippies will not change the U.S. because change means pain, and the hippie subculture is rooted in the pleasure principle. They have an intellectual flabbiness that permits them to equate an original talent with a put-on. For this reason they are vulnerable to the kind of exploitation symbolized by the Jefferson Airplane commercial. They lack the energy, stability and private pain to serve as the "new proletariat" that some in the New Left perceive them to be.