Category Archives: American culture

Just what was Portnoy’s Complaint?

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Be forewarned: This essay contains references to masturbation and other sexual acts.  Once again by assignment, I examine the social impact of a controversial book first published over forty years ago, at the height of the sexual revolution.  I’ve noticed a trend among most of the short stories and books that we have considered this year in our American Literature classes: many of them contain material that would be considered to be shocking or offensive to more conservative readers.  Portnoy’s Complaint is no exception.  In fact, if Ginsberg hadn’t broken the indecency barrier with his poem Howl a decade earlier, I am certain that Philip Roth would have been charged with breaking some sort of obscenity law.  As it was, attempts were made to prohibit the distribution of the book in some countries and many U.S. libraries banned the book as too vulgar.  Of course that was in 1969.  Today it is considered an American classic.

I would like to address in this essay just what it is that makes Portnoy’s Complaint such an American classic, to discuss its universal appeal beyond the context of the Jewish culture in which the story takes place and to delve into the very important theme of religious influence on sexual thought, development and behavior.  I can’t think of any two subjects that are more a part of our American literature tradition than religion and sex.  Put them together in the same paper or book and you introduce conflict.  Make them one in your treatise and you have broken a taboo.  Roth’s book was a bestseller because he did just that.  If you aren’t familiar with the novel, it was Portnoy’s Complaint that he could not enjoy sex because of the guilt that he felt from his religious culture.  It is my thesis that the majority of American literature addressing this theme is faulty because of an incorrect understanding of the place of sex in religion.  In fact, it is my contention that Portnoy’s Complaint is deeply flawed because of the focus on guilt as a direct result of religious culture and upbringing.  But then, that’s what makes it so very American.

Alexander Portnoy understood the principle of guilt.  He was an expert at guilt.  In fact, he was a slave to it.  He lived with it day in and day out.  And where did he get it?  He tells us that it came from his parents.  After providing numerous examples he exclaims, “Doctor, these people are incredible! These people are unbelievable! These two are the outstanding producers and packagers of guilt in our time! They render it from me like fat from a chicken!” (p39)  Did they do it on purpose?  Are they to blame?  Perhaps this later observation from Alex makes it clearer.  “Doctor, what do you call this sickness I have? Is this the Jewish suffering I used to hear so much about? Is this what has come down to me from the pogroms and the persecution? from the mockery and abuse bestowed by the goyim over these two thousand lovely years?” (p40) In other words, he did not necessarily blame his parents for the guilt he felt; he blamed his religion.  He equated Jewish suffering, and in particular, his own guilt, upon his cultural religious history.

At the age of fourteen, coincidentally about the age that most boys are in the midst of puberty, Alex decided that he would no longer participate in the traditional religious practices of his parents.  He told them that he would no longer go to the synagogue with them. Since Alex has been masturbating, he has been experiencing guilt.  It is clear that he attributes this guilt to his religious culture.  In Jewish tradition, masturbation is prohibited, as are impure thoughts and sexual relations before marriage.  In the midst of a long-winded diatribe directed at his father but more generally directed at his people, he says, “… instead of crying over he-who refuses at the age of fourteen ever to set foot inside a synagogue again, instead of wailing for he-who has turned his back on the saga of his people, weep for your own pathetic selves … It is coming out of my ears already, the saga of the suffering Jews! Do me a favor, my people, and stick your suffering heritage up your suffering ass– I happen also to be a human being!” (p84)  But he could not get away from the guilt he continued to experience because of his ongoing sexual activities.

Portnoy’s Complaint is not just a novel about masturbation or the sexual activities of a young Jewish man.  It is really a very Catholic book, which means that the subject matter has universal and widespread appeal.  Every young man goes through puberty, and if we are to believe the statistics, the majority of them (90% by some accounts) will have masturbated at least once by the time they are 18, with 60% masturbating regularly during their adolescent years.  In America, the land of porn, we have the unique distinction of also being a very religious country.  According to recent statistics, 83% of Americans claim to belong to a religious organization even though less than 40% formally participate by attending church regularly.  Do you see my point?  If the majority of young men masturbate and the majority of people in America have some sort of religious tradition in their lives, then this really is an American conflict that Roth has brought to our attention in such an entertaining manner.  It is a characteristically American problem.

Portnoy’s answer to his complaint of guilt was to disassociate himself with his religious practices, a common solution for many young men in America who experience their own crisis of faith.  In his case, he continued to have a very difficult time with guilt because being Jewish is more than just a religion.  It is also his cultural heritage.  He simply could not get away from the terrible feelings of shame and remorse he experienced even though he had renounced his faith.  As he so eloquently exclaimed, “Doctor, I can’t stand any more being frightened like this over nothing! Bless me with manhood! Make me brave! Make me strong! Make me whole! Enough being a nice Jewish boy, publicly pleasing my parents while privately pulling my putz!” (p 40) Even many years after his vow of non-participation, he still felt like he had to be a nice Jewish boy to please his parents.  Even though he had graduated first in his law school class and was a very successful government lawyer, he could not free himself from the control of his parent’s beliefs, especially his mother’s ability to manipulate his feelings after so many years.

That was the wrong answer.  Instead of rejecting his faith, maybe he should have listened to his father and embraced it, or at least the good parts of it.  Alex went to Israel in a spontaneous attempt to find himself, his roots and some peace to his predicament.  Unfortunately, he did not approach his quest with the right attitude.  To him, it was purely an intellectual exercise.  “I set off traveling about the country as though the trip had been undertaken deliberately, with forethought, desire, and for praiseworthy, if conventional, reasons. Yes, I would have (now that I was unaccountably here) what is called an educational experience. I would improve myself, which is my way, after all. Or was, wasn’t it? Isn’t that why I still read with a pencil in my hand? To learn? To become better? (than whom?) So, I studied maps in my bed, bought historical and archeological texts and read them with my meals, hired guides, rented cars—doggedly in that sweltering heat, I searched out and saw everything I could.” (pp284-285)  In the middle of his travels, he hits up on the local Israeli girls but finds that he has suddenly become impotent.

Alex concludes that he has been cursed by God, or at least by some sort of all-powerful judge because of the way he treated the women in his life.  He resolves nothing and returns to America to a long session with his psychoanalyst, which results in the book we have read.  Of course this is a fictional account but it so aptly describes the typical intellectual approach of some to finding answers to the really big questions in life – like how to be free of guilt.  I have read the writings of a good rabbi who advocates the need to feel remorse and make amends.  If Alex had looked deeper into his faith, I am convinced that he could have found an intelligent way to eliminate guilt that is both rational and practical.  Guilt is a universal part of the human condition.  It is something that we all feel when we have done something that goes against our own moral beliefs.  In Alex’s case, he knew that it was wrong to masturbate, or at least to take it to the level that he did.  He also knew that he had hurt each of the women he introduced us to in the book.  If he had studied his own religion even just a little bit (how did he ever get through his own Bar Mitzvah?), he just might have learned the true meaning of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, one of the holiest days of the year for his people.

To me, guilt is an indication that you still care about something that you once valued.  If Alex didn’t care about these girls and their feelings, why did he keep bringing them up?  If he didn’t really believe deep down in his heart that masturbation was wrong, then why did he feel so guilty after all these years?  Alex was a good man, an intelligent man, but a confused man.  He was confused by the idea that sex was something only meant for personal pleasure.  If he would have considered that maybe, just maybe, what his faith taught about sex was worth considering, then maybe he could also have accepted the idea that he could be forgiven for whatever he has done that has caused him so much guilt.  In Judaism, sex is reserved for marriage.  It is intended to draw the married couple close to one another and to bind them as partners in their family.  It is not just Judaism that believes this, so again this is a very catholic book with universal appeal.  Alex did not want to get married, because to him, marriage was all about lust.

“Look, at least I don’t find myself still in my early thirties locked into a marriage with some nice person whose body has ceased to be of any genuine interest to me.  How much longer do I go on conducting these experiments with women?” (p114)  That’s pretty shallow.  People do get old.  Bodies change.  Yet they stay married.  Why?  Because they are comfortable and happy together.  It’s not all about sex.  Marriage is more about a relationship, helping each other find happiness, learning and growing together.  It’s not an experiment. It’s a commitment to one another.  “I have affairs that last as long as a year, a year and a half, months and months of love, both tender and voluptuous, but in the end-it is as inevitable as death-time marches on and lust peters out. In the end, I just cannot take that step into marriage. But why should I? Why? Is there a law saying Alex Portnoy has to be somebody’s husband and father?  I simply cannot, I simply will not, enter into a contract to sleep with just one woman for the rest of my days.” (p116)

No, Alex, there’s no law, but you are missing out on wonderful things that come from marriage and in no other way: a sense of security and belonging that lasts.  People get married because they love each other.  They get married for love.  And because you love another person you agree to be faithful to them and to do all you can to help them want to be faithful to you.  But he continues, “For love? What love? Is that what binds all these couples we know together– the ones who even bother to let themselves be bound? Isn’t it something more like weakness? Isn’t it rather convenience and apathy and guilt? Isn’t it rather fear and exhaustion and inertia, gutlessness plain and simple, far, far more than that ‘love’ that the marriage counselors and the songwriters and the psychotherapists are forever dreaming about?” (p117)

No Alex, love isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength, but then you’ve admitted that you know nothing about love.  You don’t understand that love involves sacrifice and giving and caring.  Actually, Alex, love is not convenient at all, it is often very inconvenient.  Love is the opposite of fear, it is faith.  One doesn’t enter into a marriage relationship at the end of a long series of exhausting sexual escapades, but at the beginning, when sex is a novelty to be discovered together by two people who are committed to each other and want to please each other for a lifetime.  I think we can safely conclude that Alex is against marriage.  He does not want to be married.  He does not want to be faithful to one woman.  He seems to think that a marriage will only work as long as there is a strong lust element.  Yet, he also complains over and over that he is not satisfied with his lustful, perverted life.

He won’t marry because he doesn’t believe he can or will be faithful.  He justifies dumping these girls because he says he knows that he will just tire of them and that he doesn’t want to cause them grief or pain down the road.  He tells us that he knows he will have a mistress a few years into the marriage, and asks why “… my devoted wife, who has made me such a lovely home, et cetera, bravely suffers her loneliness and rejection? How could I face her terrible tears? I couldn’t. How could I face my adoring children? And then the divorce, right? The child support. The alimony. The visitation rights. Wonderful prospect, just wonderful.” (p117) He’s already decided that marriage will never work for him.  He does not want to get married and probably never will.  He does not see that it brings him anything that he is not already getting, because apparently all he wants is sex.  Oh Alex, that is such a small part of marriage.  You have no clue, you have no idea what joy can be found in a marriage relationship that does not involve the bedroom.  You idiot!  You’re so smart, but you’re such a schmuck!  Grow up!

Get rid of that guilt by forgiving your parents, forgiving yourself and getting on with your life.  Decide that you’re going to change your approach to sex and marriage into something much more wholesome.  Get a clue from your religion.  Talk to your rabbis again.  Maybe you should study your theology and discover what it really teaches about how to overcome guilt.  You’re not the first person to ever experience this you know.  And Alex, thanks for the entertaining novel and for contributing greatly to this very American literary tradition of religion and sex in such a unique way.  But couldn’t you have done it without so much obscenity and vulgarity?

Roth, Phillip, Portnoy’s Complaint, New York: Bantam Books,1969

Getting Past Prejudices with the Musical Rent

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The warning signs outside the theater were ominous: “Adult content not suitable for children.”  Looking around as we entered, I had to remember that the college-age students there were not children.  That’s hard to do when you have offspring older than most present, including the actors performing the show.  Carol and I were there by assignment to see the musical “Rent,” the Tony and Pulitzer award winning rock-opera drama about life in New York’s Lower East Side in the late 1980’s.  It takes place in the neighborhood known as Alphabet City, an area primarily inhabited by bohemian young people wanting to break into theater, TV or music.  Sadly, the area also had high levels of illegal drug activity, violent crime and HIV/AIDS.

Undoubtedly the themes of homosexuality, AIDS, drug addiction and homelessness prompted the warnings about the adult content.  The characters include a gay male couple in which both partners have AIDS, an on-again/off-again lesbian couple, and a straight couple in which both partners have AIDS and both have a history of intravenous drug use.  It’s not exactly “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and was written intentionally to shake things up, but also to address the concepts of love, loss and community.  Those are the themes that I would like to address in this essay.  If we can overcome bigotry and be compassionate towards people living with AIDS for a few moments then we can be uplifted by some beautiful elements of Rent.

I’ll admit I was a little put-off when I read some of the articles and reviews of the play in advance of witnessing the production.  I wanted to know more about the story before I saw it.  I like to think I’m not homophobic but from what I had read in some reviews, the lifestyle went beyond mere portrayal; it was celebrated, endorsed and flaunted in your face.  I didn’t want to see that.  I’m old-fashioned in that I believe that some things should be left private, and sexual activity is one of them.  However, the production that we saw must have been a tamed-down version because there was only occasional gay kissing and touching, nothing too disturbing.  I was more bothered by the decibels of the musicians, which sometimes drowned out the singers.

Outstanding Music

The songs in Rent are the first of the beautiful and uplifting elements that I noticed.  The entire play is a musical.  It seemed like there were very few lines spoken that were not actually sung.  Even the hilarious little phone messages peppered throughout the play were delightfully sung to us, adding much entertainment to the dramatic production.  Who hasn’t heard “Seasons of Love,” especially since it has been playing in some TV commercial lately?  Although not particularly uplifting to me, La Vie Boheme was immensely entertaining.  Other enjoyable songs included Your Eyes, Goodbye Love, Light My Candle, Tango Maureen, Out Tonight, One Song Glory, I Should Tell You, Take Me Or Leave Me, No Day But Today, and Living in America.

I can’t think of one thing with more universal appeal than the idea of love.  Who doesn’t want to be loved?  I have met people who have said no when I asked them if they wanted to be happy in life but I have never met someone who said no when asked if they wanted to be loved or at least accepted for who they are.  Of the three major themes I saw in the play, the idea of being loved came across the strongest.  Although they had a lot of emotional handicaps and baggage, these were people dealing with building relationships.  I can’t identify with being a drag queen but when Angel was dying, I found myself shedding a tear for Collins’ loss.

Living with Loss

These people lived with loss every day.  That’s why one of the recurring songs was entitled, “No Day but Today.”  How they dealt with that loss teaches a lot about the idea of community.  They came together in their grief.  They comforted one another.  They took care of one another the best they could.  Mimi was not judged for her drug addiction but was encouraged to live without it and find something better to take its place.  Since so many of their friends were dying, they adopted the motto to live for the day and to reach for their dreams one day at a time.  How hard it must be to make plans for the future when you are living with a disease like AIDS.

It was love and loss that built their community.  They only had each other.  Rejected by so many outside their world, they had to give each other strength, and they did.  Although the ending was a little hokey with Angel becoming the angel who told Mimi to go back when she was dying, the love that developed between Roger and Mimi was delightful to witness.  How can you not love a happy, feel-good ending where the main characters find happiness in each other?   Except there’s one big problem – they still have AIDS and will die someday.  But then, so will we all.  See, it really does have universal appeal.  The play mirrors life that someday will end.

After seeing the play, Carol read the script and I read dozens of reviews.  I was fascinated by the dichotomy of opinions expressed.  It seems that most reviewers either loved it or hated it.  One said she had never walked out of a play before in her life but walked out on Rent.  She must have had a family member in our audience because a couple in front of us walked out at the first encounter of affection expressed between Angel and Collins.  Were they homophobic?  In all probability, yes they were.  I mean, the music was loud and the show could be confusing if you weren’t paying close attention, but it was obvious that they didn’t like what they were seeing.

Reviews from Viewers

Here’s a quote from one of those reader reviews I found in the NY Times about the time the show was closing after a twelve-year run:  “If you want homosexuality and drug addiction rubbed in your face, then this is the play for you. I basically hated it, if you haven’t figured that out yet.”  In contrast, “Rent is a fabulous roller-coaster ride of emotion. The characters are extremely real, and so are the troubles they face. The songs are beautiful and the energy and electricity of it is so wonderful that you are a complete moron if you don’t like it. The only reason anyone wouldn’t like this show is if they are homophobic, intolerant, and weak.”

But my favorite had to be, “So let’s see… a group of drug addicted promiscuous squatters are the heroes and the one person who breaks from the group and becomes successful and buys the building (which they live in illegally) is the bad-guy because he wants rent… hhhmmmm… and let’s see, we have loud screeching that we’re supposed to call singing but it’s “cool dude” ’cause the lead is just so hot looking and has the teeny bopper girls squealing in delight.  This is a show for the MTV-Put-Upon Generation… pure junk.”  Opinions of performances are one thing but this reviewer was obviously passing judgment and commenting on the lifestyle choices.

The Composer

Part of the impact of the show is the death of the composer and writer, Jonathan Larson, who died of an aortic dissection, believed to have been caused by Marfan syndrome, on the night before the play opened off Broadway.  In spite of his death, the show went on.  Glowing reviews began to appear. The six-week run sold out immediately.  In the months to come, Rent moved to Broadway, won four Tony awards, including the prize for best musical, and Jonathan Larson won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, posthumously.  The show went on to become one of the longest running productions on Broadway and is now enjoying a second life in local theater.

Social Impact

Rent has had and is still having a social impact.  While the play is now a little dated with the use of pay phones, answering machines and clunky old cell phones the size of a brick, it is still attracting younger crowds wherever it plays.  Of course, that was probably inevitable in our case, given that our venue was a local community college.  Wherever it opens, it is reviewed by the local theater critics.  The comments posted on those online reviews demonstrate that some of the same prejudices and bigotry are still alive and well in America today.  Rent is a wonderful example of American creativity that reaches to the very heart of our lives through love and loss.  I hope our community has changed and become more tolerant in the years since it first opened.

I haven’t included a lot of quotes from the musical, because frankly, they aren’t very deep.  For example, here’s one from the song, Light my Candle: “I didn’t recognize you without the handcuffs.”  And from Angel, the transvestite, “I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be and more of a woman than you’ll ever get.”  From the song Will I, about dying from AIDS: “Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care? Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?”  I suppose my favorite has to be “There will always be women in rubber flirting with me…”  That last quote is from Maureen, one of the two lesbians.  Some of the stuff is really quite funny, if you can just get past the idea that these are people looking for love in unorthodox relationships.

Unorthodox Relationships

And that is the point of the play and the impact it has had on America.  How do we view the lives of those who are not in orthodox relationships?  Do we view them as sinners, in need of repentance and salvation, who will suffer in hell because of their poor lifestyle choices?  I am confident that there are millions of people who will voice that very opinion without hesitation.  Or do we love and accept them, making an effort to help them find happiness and success in life?  That is one of the toughest choices in life, especially for those who have family members living in a lifestyle that is contrary to the moral principles that they value.  Rent helps us see past the pain and sorrow of rejection and loss of those who live with AIDS and still manage to have hope.

It’s that final scene of hope that I find most uplifting and inspiring about the play.  They found hope because they loved and supported each other through their loss and sorrow.  I think Jonathan Larson would be pleased to think that his play has helped us to become more loving and supportive of each other, especially those who deal with AIDS on a daily basis.  And in the end, the millions he earned posthumously from the play helps others pursue their writing careers.

Note: Carol saw the play with me and shared an excellent review on her blog.

The attitude of mocking

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californiajam

California Jam 1974

I met my friend Kurt in 1965, when I was eight years old, while digging a hole in the backyard of my neighbor, Tommy Strutz.  Tommy’s dad didn’t like us digging holes in his yard so he made us fill it in.  What is it with boys and digging holes in the dirt?  I was forever building tree houses or digging holes which we called forts.

Kurt was cool.  He said his dad would let us dig holes at his house so I and other neighborhood boys started hanging out with him.  Kurt was a little older than me and so I looked up to him just like an older brother. He was a major influence in my life for the next ten years, or until at least 1974 when I went away to college. 

The influence of friends

My dad didn’t like Kurt at all.  Looking back now I can’t say that I blame him but I didn’t understand it at the time.  Kurt had long hair and he looked sideways at you because he had one bad eye.  He seemed to have a general disrespect for authority figures in society.  That showed openly in the way he interacted with other people.

Kurt was a rebel from the word go.  He wore a denim jacket with “The Mighty Quinn” embroidered on the back.  I had no idea what that meant.  I think it may have had something to do with the underground drug culture that had spilled down from the Bay area to Southern California in the late sixties and early seventies.

Comparing parents

Kurt’s parents seemed very easy-going and laid-back.  Mine were very strict and were often uptight, or at least I thought my mother was.  Kurt’s mom worked at a bank and my mother taught at a local elementary school.  I didn’t interact much with Kurt’s dad but he seemed very permissive and gave Kurt a lot of things.

I don’t know why kids compare parenting styles but I guess we all do.  We usually don’t realize how much our parents do for us until we get older.  For the longest time I wanted my parents to be more like Kurt’s.  They gave him cool stuff and he would share it with us.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t stuff that my parents liked.

Introduction to vices

For example, one day a bunch of us were hanging out behind the local department store.  There was a little spot between the school and the store where they kept the trash bins.  We used to sit on the high brick wall around it from which we had a good view of all the kids in the schoolyard.  It was our cool place to sit and talk.

One day Kurt popped out a hard pack of Marlboro cigarettes and lit one up.  We all watched in amazement.  He did it so nonchalantly like he had done it many times.  OK, we were all impressed, including me.  Remember, I looked up to Kurt like an older brother.  I wanted to be just like him.  What he did, I did.  That was the rule.

The cultural influence

I can’t tell you how many times my parents banned me from hanging with Kurt.  Apparently, every time I got sassy with my folks it was after I had been with him.  I didn’t get the connection then, but it was very obvious to them.  Without doing anything, Kurt was blamed for a lot of my teenage rebelliousness growing up.

You see, Kurt was a product of the sixties.  He was just doing that which came naturally as a result of growing up in a society that promoted cultural dissent.  We were on the tail-end of the Hippie movement.  Hippies criticized the middle-class values that my parents exemplified and rejected established institutions we upheld.

The Hippie movement

Hippies embraced Eastern religions, championed sexual liberation and promoted the use of psychedelic drugs and psychedelic rock.  They opposed nuclear weapons and war, and even nuclear power in general.  They opposed political and social orthodoxy and rejected doctrinal ideology while seeking new meaning and value.

They favored peace, love, and personal freedom, perceiving the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives.  For hippies, it was “whatever” and “anything goes” as long as you don’t hurt anybody else.  My friend Kurt epitomized this culture and I absorbed it from his influence.

Sex, drugs and Rock ‘n Roll

Kurt introduced me to music that I had never heard before.  I was so sheltered that I didn’t even have a TV or radio in my home growing up.  Now I was listening to groups like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd and Yes.

You can argue that these bands made some great music and I won’t disagree.  But what went along with that music was the promotion of illicit sex and drugs.  I think you can also call it the great American party scene.  It was prevalent when I was in high school and it still is today, but most powerfully expressed in the rock concert.

Great and spacious building

If there is anything that helps me visualize the great and spacious building as it was described by Nephi in the vision shown him by the angel, it is the rock concert.  Of course, not all bands or songs at a rock concert fall into this category.  But from my experience, the large crowds and abundant drug use constitutes vain imaginations.

In my case, I discovered it firsthand on April 6, 1974, the date of the California Jam and the last rock concert I ever attended.  If you think about the date, you would be right in pointing out that it was the Saturday that we sustained President Kimball as the Lord’s prophet.  Yes, I should have been somewhere else that day.

A lost generation

As I wandered around the festival that day I was overwhelmed with the number of young people that I saw wasted on drugs and so totally out of it.  I had an awakening there and slowly came to realize that I no longer wanted to be a part of this great and spacious building.  My eyes were being opened and it was not a pleasant sight.

I saw so many young people burned out and losing their ability to focus because of the drugs.  So many lost their virtue and with it their desire to create things that are good or lasting.  They went on to be has-beens and dropouts.  Some made it into mainstream society as they got older but the glory days of their youth were gone.

Turning away from the world

The ideals and idealism of the hippie movement had never been realized and never would be.  It was all a big lie, perpetuated by the biggest liar of them all.  That was the feeling I had as I left this group and entered into the world of living the gospel and preparing for my mission, temple marriage and a life of service in the church.

My repentance was not easy.  I had only been away from the church for less than a year but it felt like forever.  I had to work for years to overcome the effects of that world.  I still bear some of those scars today.  Some of the music from those days brings back painful memories that I don’t want to relive.  I had been badly burned.

Deception of the adversary

In the great and spacious building are found many people who are in the attitude of mocking those who have partaken of the fruit.  I’m sure you have seen this attitude firsthand.  I know I have.  When I left that building and found my way back to the iron rod, the attitude of mocking became more visible and much easier to discern.

While some are very direct in their mocking, labeling believers in God and Christ as fools or worse, it has been my experience that most are just going along with the crowd.  The entire hippie cultural movement of the late sixties and early seventies was nothing more than another attempt by the adversary to deceive God’s children.

Summary and conclusion

I know this isn’t a particularly uplifting or inspiring essay but I’ve wanted to write it for a long time.  I was greatly influenced by the American pop cultural of the late sixties and especially the early seventies, when I was in high school.  The hippie movement simply did not deliver the promised enlightenment that so many sought.

Unfortunately, the influence of those days has been integrated into our culture and society.  It is hard to be in the world and yet not of it when so much of our world has been corrupted by the false values of the hippie movement.  The attitude of mocking followers of God is just one of the more blatant results of that movement.