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Leary seemed to have been much more public, radical, prestigious and famous. He had the authority as a popular Harvard professor, so when he began to influence
by ipnon 4y ago
Leary seemed to have been much more public, radical, prestigious and famous. He had the authority as a popular Harvard professor, so when he began to influence the counterculture on matters of policy and action it was duly noted by the mainstream media and governmental establishment. President Nixon called him "the most dangerous man in America." Nixon rightly recognized that Leary personified every force opposing him: anti-war, anti-authority, anti-consumerist. He was the head of the snake to be culled, and Nixon was so successful we are still grappling with the aftermath more than 50 years later.
- pengaru 4y agoYou're probably right. I just have the impression that Kesey was the reckless one performing "acid tests" en masse on an unsuspecting public. My perhaps misinformed impression of Leary was that he held the view psychedelics were best used by the intelligentsia who should then pass on what they learned to the general public. Maybe it just shifted after Leary was ostracized by academia and pushed into the same camp as Kesey in the fullness of time. It's not something I've spent much time researching.
- jdkee 4y ago"I just have the impression that Kesey was the reckless one performing "acid tests" en masse on an unsuspecting public." Speaking of tests on the unsuspecting public... See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra#Experiments_on_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra#Experiments_on_America...
- pengaru 4y agoRight, which included Ken Kesey as a subject!
- vajrabum 4y agoHmm. "Tune In. Turn on. Drop out." - Timothy Leary's most famous quote.