Psychedelic Chile

A youth-driven, transnationally connected counterculture emerged in Chile during the politically turbulent 1960s and 1970s, a period that saw the election of a Marxist president followed by a military coup in 1973. Focusing on "hippismo" and an esoteric movement called Poder Joven, the book challenges prevailing assumptions about culture, politics, and the Left under Salvador Allende's "Chilean Road to Socialism." While countercultural attitudes toward recreational drug use, gender roles, rock music, and consumerism influenced many leftist youths, most leftist leaders shared a more conservative cultural sensibility, exposing intergenerational dissonance. Public contempt for counterculture from across the political spectrum ultimately contributed to fierce repression of nonconformist youth after the coup.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This book illuminates modern Chilean history with an unprecedented chronicle and reassessment of the sixties and seventies. During a period of tremendous political and social strife that saw the election of a Marxist president followed by the terror of a military coup in 1973, a youth-driven, transnationally connected counterculture smashed onto the scene. Contributing to a surging historiography of the era’s Latin American counterculture, Psychedelic Chile draws on media and firsthand interviews in documenting the intertwining of youth and counterculture with discourses rooted in class and party politics. Focusing on “hippismo” and an esoteric movement called Poder Joven, the study challenges a number of prevailing assumptions about culture, politics, and the Left under Salvador Allende's “Chilean Road to Socialism.” While countercultural attitudes toward recreational drug use, gender roles and sexuality, rock music, and consumerism influenced many youths on the Left, the preponderance of leftist leaders shared a more conservative cultural sensibility. This exposed, a degree of intergenerational dissonance within leftist ranks. And while the allure of new and heterodox cultural values and practices among young people grew, an array of constituencies from the Left to the Right berated counterculture in national media, speeches, schools, and other settings. This public discourse of contempt ultimately contributed to the fierce repression of nonconformist youth culture following the coup.