I’ve never really liked the “baby boomer” description. Besides, I think there’s a major barrier between the early experiences of those born before ’47 or ’48, and those after. Around ’48, my wave, was when TV sets were present from the very beginning of our exposure to the world. We can’t remember ever not having one at least somewhere in the neighborhood. (Suddenly, I remember being three or four and having the Sullivan brothers show up to watch “Howdy Doody” with me. They didn’t yet have a tube of their own.)
Every year as our class advanced, our new round of teachers was baffled. All they knew was we were “different” from the previous ones. So to some extent, the TV influence feeds into the hippie outbreak. We were, in effect, wired differently from our seniors. Still are, for that matter.
But the other big shortcoming in the boomer classification is the way it ignores the huge fissure within our generation between those who supported the Vietnam Conflict and those of us who opposed it. That’s something that’s never fully healed, and it’s certainly crippled our ability to come together to advance the ideals some of us, at least, so passionately embraced. I suspect there are many politicians and corporate executives – the dreaded Establishment, that is – who actively worked to keep the wound festering.
So here I am, calling for a renewed vision of our legacy. That’s been one of the promptings of the novels in my series Hippie Trails. You’re welcome to come along on the trip.
Jnana's Red Barn 
And then there are those of us on the tail end of the boomer generation (we’re sometimes called “Generation Jones”), who came of age (as it were) not only after the end of the Vietnam war but who were never subject to even registration for the draft…
And those of us born at the beginning of WWII, who were late bloomers, and came into their own during the “freedom” wave of the 50’s and 60’s, opposed Viet Nam, because we saw it for what it was, yet had the maturity to accept the returning warriors as wounded heroes in a hopeless battle that was started to redeem a mistake made on another side of the world. It only kept alive a chain of terror that continues to this day, and will continue until someone realizes that killing the young people of the world is not the way to keep Earth alive.
It’s a very American-centric view of the question. Here in Australia television arrived in 1956, and in South Africa 1976 (and that’s just countries with which I’m familiar).
But I also have the impression that the hippie movement never made much inroads in South Africa, so perhaps there is some connection there?
Your two dates certainly add to the consideration.
Europe, on the other hand, seemed to produce its on wave of hippies, and many from America found hitchhiking there delightful.
By the way, did Australia and South Africa have their own version of Baby Boomers?
Australia certainly did. I’m having difficulty finding reliable information for South Africa; compounded by their obsession with dividing their statistics by racial group. If I am making any sense of what I’m reading, probably not to the same extent?
My expectation would be that in South Africa, the hippie energy went to fighting apartheid instead.
Meanwhile, you’ve certainly broadened the scope of the vision.
That gives rise to a question for me; is the hippie movement predominantly a white phenomenon? Or did/does it transcend racial boundaries? I am having difficulty picturing black South African hippies, but it could be my ignorance!
What I saw was mostly white. Blacks, at least the ones on college campuses, were increasingly more into Black Power, with its political and economic agendas.
There was some overlap, as well as distinctions. On my campus, for example, we elected a Black Panther as student body president — despite an ugly campaign by one candidate who turned out to be backed by the FBI. We knew who was cool and who wasn’t.
In addition, the idea of voluntarily “dropping out” made a lot more sense if you had a sense you could always drop back into a job, career, larger mainstream existence or whatever than if you were never in it in the first place. I always had a nagging feeling that many of the hippie leaders were from professional families where “Daddy could get me out” (legally, especially) if things turned really difficult.
But these are all thorny issues we usually ignore in looking at all of the upheaval of the time or the ways various strands continue.
Thanks, that’s really interesting.