‘The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom’: Blake’s line had become a slogan for the hippie generation. The dramatic differences between the hippies’ way of life and that of most of the rest of society at the time made them a puzzling and alarming phenomenon. Originally published in 1973, Richard Mills describes and interprets these differences in Young Outsiders.
Based on research in the Ladbroke Grove and Piccadilly areas of London, the study explores critical issues which preoccupied young people everywhere and separated them from their parents’ generation. Told largely in the words of the young people themselves, the book describes their everyday life and the ways they were led to it, and looks at some of the central elements in their culture, particularly drugs and underground music. It is shown that the distinctive feature of their lives was the search for a special kind of intensified experience which they felt could give a greater sense of wholeness and identity than the conventional roles and routines from which they were alienated. Richard Mills examines some of the dilemmas into which this search could lead, and questions how far it provided the basis for a viable way of life. Today it can be read in its historical context.