Love and peace

People still think fondly of the sixties as a time of personal liberation, progressive politics, supportive communities, the crumbling of the "old guard", and new directions in art, music, books, movies and theatre. Suddenly all the stuffy old social rules were being torn up and everyone was doing their thing.

To a degree, this was true. Homosexuality was decriminalised, abortion was legalised, there was a resurgence of feminism, the American civil rights movement was fighting racism, CND was pressing for nuclear disarmament, and so on. It was a period of enormous optimism, hope and creativity.

But this was only one side of the picture, because in other ways the sixties were very negative. I know people who found these years frustrating, damaging, hurtful.

The idea of "free love" that just meant women were treated even more blatantly as sex objects. The reckless drug-taking that led to overdoses and death. The squats that turned into disorganised, hedonistic squalor. The fashionable political causes that couldn't be challenged - the IRA, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Marxism, the Soviet Union. Men still undervaluing and belittling women. Trendy cults and therapies run by money-grubbing, womanising charlatans.

Because people loved the image of freedom, of progress, of cultural flowering, they overlooked the unsavoury aspects and pretended they weren't happening. Or they saw them as the actions of a few bad apples who were latching on to the "counter-culture" for their own selfish ends, spoiling it for everyone else.

Personally I found the sixties (and early seventies) far more positive than negative, maybe because I was too sceptical and too self-protecting to get involved in the seedier and crazier fringes. But I didn't always escape the chaotic squats, mind-bending drugs, dotty cults and political dogma. It was hard to avoid the wilder excesses entirely.

It was certainly a more optimistic time than the present, with its relentless austerity and elitism. Love and peace, man. Just do your thing, man.

Wild child

My blogmate John says he would never have guessed I was pretty wild in my late teens. Clearly he sees me as a sedate, well-behaved individual who would never have done anything seriously outrageous or shocking.

Well, as I told him, my wildness was a predictable reaction to the very authoritarian boarding school I attended from thirteen to eighteen. While I was there, every minute of every day was tightly scheduled by those running the school, and deciding for yourself what to do was simply not an option.

There were precise times for getting up, having breakfast, going to classes, having lunch, doing homework, and every other routine activity. There were strict rules about what clothing to wear. There was a long list of prohibitions, like visiting the town centre or befriending the locals or writing to the papers. You were told what to do and what not to do, and woe betide you if you stepped out of line.

Not surprisingly, as soon as I left school and stumbled on the counter-culture of the late 1960s, with all its libertarian beliefs and emphasis on doing your own thing, I was hooked. Suddenly I could think what I liked, do what I liked, wear what I liked, go where I liked. After such regimentation, it felt utterly euphoric, and I got pretty carried away by my new-found freedom.

I grew a beard, I grew long hair, I wore gaudy clothes, I went around barefoot, I dabbled in drugs, I played rock music at top volume, I supported every left-wing cause going from gay liberation to easier abortion, cohabitation and equal pay. I went on protest marches, I chanted "kill the pigs", I took part in sit-ins and occupations. I lived it up and explored myself in a big way. Strangely, I was in no hurry for sex, and was unaccountably celibate till I was 22.

Of course inevitably once I got the freedom bug out of my system and felt confident I could be myself without being rapped on the knuckles, I simmered down and got a bit more laid-back. My tastes were much the same but I pursued them in a quieter, subtler fashion. I lost the beard and the long hair, got more choosy about my protests, decided drugs were not my thing, and so forth. And the rest is history.

Mistaken identity

People who know a little bit about me tend to stereotype me as a way-out left-wing rebel who's totally against conventional attitudes and happy to indulge all sorts of wacky lifestyles and beliefs.

In which case they've got me all wrong. Yes, I'm relaxed about a lot of unusual behaviour that most people tut-tut about, but in other ways I'm quite a hard-liner with a strong sense of moral righteousness.

I'm not the least bit bothered by homosexuality, cross-dressing, nude beaches, blasphemy, atheism, legalising drugs, equality for women, the right to abortion, euthanasia, asylum-seekers or vegetarians.

On the other hand I'm firmly opposed to most plastic surgery (unnecessary and dangerous), all prostitution (most prostitutes have post traumatic stress disorder), binge-drinking (unhealthy and anti-social), yobbery and vandalism (frightening and intimidating), rape (whatever the bogus and self-serving excuse), and quasi-anorexic models (who encourage eating disorders).

I won't turn a blind eye to behaviour that's seriously destructive to individuals or the rest of society. I think we should all condemn it forcefully and persistently. I'm not a well-meaning libertarian who thinks people should be free to do whatever they like without outside interference. If we're convinced something is genuinely wrong, we should have the courage of our convictions and say so.

I'm absolutely not one of those clichéd long-haired hippies who spends all day smoking dope and saying everything is cool, indifferent to whatever misogyny or dogma or selfishness or emotional violence is going on under his nose. We can't solve the world's problems by wishing everyone peace and love, we have to get our hands dirty and tackle vested interests that rely on people's woolly indulgence.

Yes, one part of me is a left-wing rebel, but the other part is a no-nonsense maiden aunt. So please leave your stereotypes at the door.