Beatles Revolution #5-A, A State Of Mind

"Adults were shocked by their long hair." My wife--born in 1965--said, "What long hair?"

That the Beatles' not-very-long-at-all hair was considered long says more about America than the Beatles. If we want to understand the perpetual red state retrogression in America, the Beatles' effect on this sort of consciousness frames the discussion nicely.

Before the Beatles there were only four hair styles allowed for American men--the butch (almost shaved down to the skull), the crew (a wee bit longer), the flattop (a crew cut straight across on top), and the regular (think Beaver's Dad, Ward Cleaver). Actually, Elvis' 'do, a variation on the regular, was considered scandalous by many a red stater (it's a state of mind, not necessarily geographical). By January 1964, when most people first heard the Beatles on American radio, the dominant style was the regular. What does that say about a society that would call the dominant hair style "regular"?

What it says is that the vision of Thomas Jefferson--that America needed a non-violent revolution every 20 years--never penetrated red state consciousness. In other words, red staters are conformists. When this is understood, we can see that red state consciousness and the kind of conformity we have seen in certain Communist countries have far more in common than blue state consciousness with either one of them. Unfortunately, only people used to doing more than their share of thinking can see this. They must do more than their share because the overall ratio of thinking to thinkers is abysmally low. This includes blue staters simply along for the ride. However, I am glad they are riding on the better train.

These days the cut of your hair has nothing at all to do with social and political consciousness. I live in America's Deep South and I'm outnumbered by long-haired men addicted to 19th century thinking. Ironically, some of these guys like the Beatles' music.

They play snippets of the Beatles on our local conservative talk radio. If Lennon had been buried in a grave instead of cremated, he might be rolling over in it.

It will be a long time before America weans itself from red state consciousness. When you are addicted to the big tit of convention, invention scares the crap out of you.

But nothing can stop the Beatles Revolution, which transcends hair styles and even music.

The Beatles Revolution is a state of mind.