Ted Nugent - Stoned Rock Star

Ted Nugent’s redress of the ‘Summer of Love’ in the July 3 edition of the Wall Street Journal is not without its merits, but Mr. Nugent’s perspective could use a bit of debate. Indeed, a psychologist could have hours of fun exploring Ted’s need to prance around a stage in front of thousands of stoned fans who ‘worship’ at his altar of half-naked, self-flagellating pretentiousness and egocentric guitar hero archetype, which has long since faded from the limelight, but let’s forego any further criticism of the musical innovation of ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ and explore his hippie drug culture condemnations.

First of all, for one who has never taken a drug, Ted Nugent has formed an opinion based on a bias which is missing some key data. Besides the fact that there are many more functional and successful recreational drug users than there are excessive cases such as Hendrix (for example Paul McCartney, Richard Branson, Edgar Allen Poe, Miles Davis, and on), Nugent doesn’t understand the difference between ingestion of substances and the psychological problem of addiction. Addiction is what causes drug users to OD (or megalomaniacs to invade other countries or money addicts to commit crimes in the name of greed).

Ted’s argument errs in that typically polarizing narrow-mindedness that has become endemic to our American culture. If he would take the time to read Timothy Leary’s autobiography “Flashback,” he might learn that Dr. Leary had success in rehabilitating criminals, and it was for this success that the FBI destroyed Leary’s career and reputation (because he threatened their power base - imagine a world where people didn’t commit crimes - the FBI would have its funding cut substantially). But Nugent prefers to shoot defenseless animals who, in his view, are there for his consumption. I’m sure that dead doe is ecstatic to lose its life so Ted can go “uhhhnghh!” like our primitive ancestors who had to hunt to survive. If Nugent had any compassion, he might become vegetarian, or at least accept that those who choose to ingest certain God-given plants - for whatever reason - may have reasons other than to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” Although if the current generation is any indication, we’re “turning on more, tuning in more (garbage) and dropping further out” by hiding behind our iPod ear buds, cell phone calls and internet avatars.

This is the real American challenge for the current and future generations. We have to give up this extremist black and white thinking that ignores our common ground - that the Earth is a system of life, and all of its species has a need (and should have basic “life rights”). We can debate the effects of drug use on the human race (and if history is the judge, taking hallucinogens was originally about invoking a spiritual experience, and has not always led to a useless life); we can debate the behavior of twenty-year olds and a generation which had been sexually and morally repressed for decades, with the guilt of the atomic bomb and McCarthyism trying to understand the hypocrisy of the megalomaniacs in Washington that sought global power through American Imperialism under the guise of ‘fighting communism.” But forming opinions without the experience, data or knowledge of an issue and the historical, cultural and political overtones that influence the issue is the kind of dimwitted attitude expressed with such flair by the talking heads in the media. Perhaps the next generation of Hippies will learn from the mistakes their parents made and be sober most of the time, and understand that an occasional dalliance into a recreational drug is probably less harmful that the national alcohol abuse problem. May they attain the wisdom that Ted Nugent’s peers neglected, and use it to create a world that is safe, just, and fair - even to the animals, before it’s too late.