Review of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

A literary masterpiece and innovative journalistic account of a group at the center of a profoundly influential social movement. Hilarious, thought-provoking, and an absolute joy to read. Wolfe captures the ironical, anti(semi)-intellectual subtleties of the Merry Pranksters, a group easily caricatured. The Merry Pranksters used LCD to open their minds to new possibilities and ways of living. Beyond reappropriating Eastern or European lifestyle tropes for an American context, the group, led by Ken Kesey, cultivated an alternative lifestyle indigenous to the United States.

The trip across America on the school bus is key to this notion. Looking back at the Merry Pranksters from the present, it is easy to identify their blindspots and inadequacies. There's discernible discomfort with non-whites. The group disavows conventional politics at a critical juncture in American political history. However, these and other deficiencies shouldn't wholly undermine the contributions of this group in particular and the hippie movement in general. Only so many challenges can be fought at one time. 

Many of their critiques of society were valid, and they proposed some radical and potentially constructive ways to contend with the anomie of modernity. Their confrontation with the square world has always made the movement a target of reactionary forces. Some of the messages they trumpeted live on today. Ultimately, I think Kesey and the Pranksters should've been more interested in conventional politics. We live in a society. Wishing away the outside world led to disaster. A dose of realism, pragmatism, and competence could've helped to institutionalize this movement in a manner that made it more amenable to the broader public and better protected against critics. Get smart. Organization and effectiveness are necessary to advance goals, even if the goal is for people to chill out.