Do you think some of the people who attended Woodstock didn't even care about the politics and music?

Question

I've seen clips, and it seems that some people may have just gone for more egotistical reasons (s*x, drugs, meeting famous people, etc.)

Discuss.

Answer 1

You would have had to be alive at that time to understand.

Our brothers, boy friends and any poor farm boy.  Not the rich kids was being drafted.  It was very unfair.  Those who could afford to go to college was exempt.

56,000 and some web sites say 60,000 men died in that war in Vietnam.

At that time there was no internet some homes didn't even have a TV.

We were not as educated about other countries and what was happening on the other side of the world.  Every home lost someone to that war and it was continueing for some strange reason no one fully understood.  Look at the fuss made over 4 or 5 thousand in Iraq.

Our fathers faught in World War 2 and many households were widow women.  Maybe this was their oldest son.  More men died in WW2 than women so we already knew the hard ships of war.  That it left a lot of widows and fatherless boys.  Some do not realize 14,000 nurses were sent to Vietnam.  So it was affecting everyone in the USA.

The boys and girls of that time said, "what's the use of an education?"  We are going to kill ourselves with nuclear weapons, in 20 minutes bombs could wipe out all life on the planet.  It was an age of hopelessness.  Nightly we saw pictures of what the bombs did to Japan.  We had drills of hiding under our school desks from bombs.

Like that would really work.  The president had the country convinced we would all be nuked by communistic countries and we were all going to die in this mushroom cloud.

Some people just gave up.  Hundreds were wounded and lost arms and legs they are the street people of today.  Vet's were disgarded like yesterdays newspaper.  They came home all messed up.

My brother never came home at all he died in that stupid war.

Woodstock was an attempt to show the adults of the time our flustration, our hopelessness and our anger that they called a war but we were the ones who had to die.  Not much has changed.

Answer 2

Discuss? What is this? If you're asking my opinion I'll give it, but I don't 'discuss' on command.

Woodstock was not billed or promoted as a political arena. It was strictly a music festival, so at a guess, most of the people who were there were not there for political reasons.

Most were there to enjoy the music. Some of the other activities - s*x, drugs, meeting famous people etc., were simply serendipitous events.  

Answer 3

Are you kidding me, of course a lot of people went for egotistical and shallow reasons. I would say a huge portion went for s*x drugs meeting famous people or just going because every single other person seemed to be going and it was the in-thing to do. I wouldn't say a lot of people now would say they went for the right reasons!

Answer 4

Course they went for shallow reasons but s*x and drugs was serious then. Just one big continuation of the summer of love. I didn't make it there although I was old enough to drive.

Being a rural youth, I thought it was in Woodstock, Illinois. Didn't matter since I had my Ripple wine right in town.

Answer 5

Yes.