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Show Anting Alone Page 183 post-hippy esthetic of their time - Jung and Hesse and Castaneda and Levi- Strauss and corduroy and wool, natural fibers of natural earth colors, never a single silver astronaut parka, you know - all the sorts of spiritual things that were supposed to have vanished from the hearts of mainstream American youth, completely vanished at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 1969, to be replaced by the crass materialism of seventies "me" youth - according to the decade mongerers. The CIA's top agent, Tim Leary, succeeded in his mission to destroy the Love Generation with LSD, and it was all dissolved among mainstream youth when the sixties ended. But, see, in Utah, in the Apiary State, things were a few years behind schedule, like always, and Utah kids - even rich Jewish ones - still read Jung as late as '72. Yes, a soft gentle backsliding into mystical Jungian ways of thinking and dreaming - (the Marxists really were in deep rebellion at this time, and would later repent of this rebellion as abashedly as Sam would repent of his Beach Boys albums). And Sammy and his pals had dreams, not jeeps with CBs (though a couple of the boys had those, too, hidden in one of their garages). Sammy and the boys shared contempt for all the things that now bring prestige to teenagers, and they shared a real compassion for one another, a mutual understanding of genetic mutants; and they shared, just generally, the process of early personality disintegration together. And now they were the only people Sam's age in all of Reagan's America, it seemed, who weren't wearing knit ties and fostering obnoxious career objectives. They couldn't foster career objectives; for soon the bloody barricades were going to burst, the American Personality was going to |