The pop generation
Sir: You say in your admirable leading article (much the best public comment so far) on the 10AV jamboree (5 September) that the participants themselves were not decadent even if the whole phenomenon bore a resemblance to the an- tecedents of decline and fall. How does one qualify as a decadent? First of all let us take the delinquent aspect. Evidently the vast majority were not of the 'bower' breed but there were drug-takers 'in large numbers' and there was 'an incredibly large amount of looting' to quote from a nineteen-year-old correspondent of the Financial Times whose fifth festival it was.
A more valid criterion of decadence, however, is the 'anti', negativist-defeatist drop- out frame of mind which, as you say, is behind the weirdie, ragamuffin slovenly appearance of the young migrants. For the first time the normal frustrations and inadequacies of the young have, thanks to mass media publicity, 'idiot adult idolatry' and the absurd deference paid to the young generally, become ex- ternalised and elevated into a respectable, or near-respectable, movement, a process that is, I submit, the very opposite of sublimation on which the development of mature personality depends.
No less important is the frantic disproportion between energy expended and prime purpose. None can deny to the Aldermaston marchers their quota of idealism even if their thinking wasn't very deep. The Isle of Wight crowd were purely and simply on a pilgrimage of din.
G. Reichardt 12a Mount Pleasant Road Poole
Previous page
