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Psychedelic Flip-Out. The ultimate weapon of the alienated young remains the same as that employed by Goethe's Werther: oblivion, either physical (through suicide) or psychological (through drugs). Usually it is the latter, though suicide rates are rising through much of the world in the 18-to-25 age group. In Iran, for example, fully 95% of the suicides are in the Now Generation; in the U.S. nearly one in ten. More often, the flip-out is psychedelic. Acid-heads and pot smokers feel that they can ease the weight of the Sisyphean stone by drug use. "LSD is like Ban deodorant," says a University of Michigan acidhead. "Ban takes the worry out of being close; LSD takes the worry out of being." The National Student Association's Chuck Hollander, 27, who has written extensively on the subject, estimates that 20% of college students use drugs, ranging from pep pills to marijuana, the amphetamines to the psychedelics (LSD, mescaline, and Psilocybin).
In the two major population centers of California, the use of marijuana (alias "boo," "grass," "tea" or "Mary Jane") is so widespread that pot must be considered an integral part of the generation's life experience. Insiders say that no fewer than 50% of Los Angeles high school students have tried marijuana at least once, and that 25% use it regularly once or twice a week. At Berkeley, marijuana has given way to acid, which costs $2.50 per trip v. $2 for a milder marijuana kick. In fact, though, the great majority of Now People shun the traditional opium derivatives—heroin and morphine—because they represent a passive withdrawal from experience. They want their "now" heightened and more meaningful.
The Core of Love. The generation shows the same empirical approach to love as many do to drugs. Says Billie Joe Phillips, 23, a Georgia coed who writes a twice-weekly column for the Atlanta Constitution: "For most of the girls in my age group who are married, it would have been better if someone had given them a gross of prophylactics, locked them in a motel room for two weeks, and let them get it out of their systems." Boys and girls together reject the post-Renaissance notion that passion, like a chrysanthemum, blooms best when vigorously pinched off. Says Sybil Burton Christopher, who married 25-year-old Bandleader Jordan Christopher after Richard Burton left her for Liz Taylor: "They're breaking away from the unrealities of romantic love to get at the core of love."
Esoteric as that may sound to the adult ear, what it means to the young is that they have exorcised sexual inhibitions. They are monogamous only if they choose to be; they claim to find the body neither shameful nor titillating, and sneer self-righteously at the adults who leer at "topless" waitresses. "Hung up on sex," is the putdown. Ironically, the revolt of the teeny hoppers on the Sunset Strip last November resulted in the demise of discotheques and the rise of "topless" clubs.
Many adults fear that the long-hair kick among boys, the pants-suit fancies of girls, indicate a growing transferal of roles. Max Lerner warns darkly that homosexuality is on the rise among the young