Well, I was fooling around with YouTube after making the previous post and this little gem of a video tempted me to see Jerry before his beard.

I was too young to have seen this and understood it at the time — 1967 — but it certainly was the kind of media treatment I had in mind in my prior post.

It is apparently part of a TV special titled “Hippie Temptation” — presumably broadcast on CBS.

The benefit of time allows us to see how much stronger the voice of the media was back in the day of limited TV channels.  Harry Reasoner carries an implied majoritarian authority that we simply do not confer on talking heads today.  He would certainly be laughable to a younger person seeing it now.  At the time, he was a standard “straight” media guy, and “straight” wasn’t referring to sexual orientation in those days.

The tone of the piece itself seems to justify the hippies becoming anything but what Harry Reasoner seems to be representing.  Harry seems to be taking it personally, maybe he had a couple of teenagers at the time and was upset with the loud, strange music and partying . . . .

Yet, with the perspective of hindsight, we can also see that the hard questions about making a better world were too easily deferred and derailed by the blind faith put into drugs.  No one seemed to have any idea whatsoever that there could be a downside.

If nothing else, watch the last minute for Harry’s most scathing commentary.