This lack of destination seems to me the likely candidate for why the hippie rebellion petered out. They had a strong disagreement with the status quo, and chose to walk in the direction of “free love”, and similar principles instead. But this new direction mostly failed to translate into a coherent positive vision, and even when it did that vision didn’t work. Most stories I’ve been able to find of concrete hippie-narrative experiments end up sounding a lot like the Russian revolution; they ultimately collapse under the weight of reality.
The Occupy movement might be an even better example of a cultural movement that was defined in opposition to something (the rich being really rich, or if I try to be maximally charitable, returns on capital over performing relative to labor) such that it wasn’t clear how to direct the collective desires of its members (e.g. for greater income equality) into concrete actions.
The Occupy movement might be an even better example of a cultural movement that was defined in opposition to something (the rich being really rich, or if I try to be maximally charitable, returns on capital over performing relative to labor) such that it wasn’t clear how to direct the collective desires of its members (e.g. for greater income equality) into concrete actions.