Page 182 - Constructing Craft
P. 182
Chapter Nine: Turn on, Tune in, Drop out
In 1966, when Timothy Leary, an American academic and writer, called on young
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people to ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ he appeared to be offering new guidelines to a
generation that had become increasingly dissatisfied with the post war ‘affluent
society’ . As the craft writer Peter Gibbs later observed, ‘the time was ripe to drop
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out, buy a potter’s wheel and become self-sufficient’. The hippies – as the
supporters of the new movement were often labelled – fervently believed they had
discovered something new. They were rejecting the past, a new consciousness was
emerging – it was the Age of Aquarius. The hippies believed they were the advance
guard of a revolutionary movement that would change the world.
Timothy Leary. ‘Turn on, Tune in, Drop out’. Photo: Meher
Baba.
In New Zealand many of the ideas and concerns that hippies held received some
official attention when a new Labour Government was elected in 1972. Its
charismatic leader, Norman Kirk, recognised that New Zealand society was
Constructing Craft
