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

the Conference for New Politics in the summer of 1967, and the organization of thePentagon March by the coalition Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, Idemonstrate how the Yippies conceived of their own network organization in response tothe networking and cooperative challenges faced by various peace movement groups inthe late 1960s. Because the quick arrest of Pentagon March leaders and subsequent doyour-own-thingactions of the other protesters foreshadowed the Yippie vision of aparticipatory mass movement without leadership, I then explore the New Left concept ofparticipatory democracy within a history of the New Left and an exploration of itsphilosophy, including its influential “Port Huron Statement” manifesto. Following with abrief investigation of the hippie counterculture, I demonstrate how the Yippies adaptedthe do-your-own-thing individualist philosophy of the counterculture to fit their ownhippie-like desire to create an alternative society within the United States.The second part of this chapter explores the theatricality in the Yippie movement.Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s literary theory of the carnivalesque, I demonstrate how theexorcism of the Pentagon worked as a performance that both celebrated the zany energyof the hippie movement and attempted to argue for the need for political and culturalchange. I argue that the Yippies relied on the carnivalesque tool of theatricality tohighlight contradictions in the capitalist system and American Establishment. Finally, Ialso analyze audience responses to the Pentagon March, using as my archive letters sentto the White House from ordinary citizens moved to express their outrage at or supportfor the activists waging war on the Johnson administration. I ask how audiencesresponded to these performances, and if the Yippies were able to successfully convey51