Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

Hoffman denied the very existence of the Yippie movement. “There never were anyYippies and there never will be,” writes Abbie Hoffman in Revolution for the Hell of It(1968), “it was the biggest put-on of all time” (121). In Do It! Scenarios of the Revolution(1970), Rubin argues that “the secret to the yippie myth is that it’s nonsense [sic]” (83). 11Much of what they wrote was a joke, in keeping with the exuberant and nonsensical spiritof YIP. The Yippies infused a sense of joy and light-heartedness into the serious politicsof 1968, but their flippancy leaves them as untrustworthy narrators of their own story andthe historical moment.Both Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of It and Rubin’s Do It! Scenarios of theRevolution are a mix of memoir and political philosophy, iconoclastic ramblings, andurgent calls to action. Writing for an audience of activists already disenchanted with thepolitical system of the United States, Rubin and Hoffman describe their activist histories,rail against the Establishment, and offer advice for future protesters. Both authors use aconversational style and contemporary activist slang to build rapport with their readers:there is plenty of “shit” and “fuck,” the police are called “pigs,” and the United States isreferred to as “Amerika,” signifying a Leftist skepticism of the political establishmentand also marking the contradiction between the traditional American rhetoric ofprosperity and the material reality of many of the nation’s underprivileged. Rubin’s DoIt! is a collage of a book: a hodgepodge of memoir, free-form poetry, photographs andcartoons, accentuated with bold fonts, capital letters, and exclamation points. Hoffman’s11 Rubin writes “yippie,” while Abbie Hoffman uses “Yippie.” Both spellings are common. The word alsoappears as “yippee” in some articles in the underground press. In the popular press “yippie” sometimesappears interchangeable with “hippie” to mean a non-conformist. I use “Yippie” throughout this documentto signify persons associated with the Youth International Party.24