Beatriz Izquierdo González 100452364 The 1960s and The New Journalism-Fall 2020 Slouching towards Bethlehem (Joan Didion) In her essay “Slouching towards Bethlehem”, Joan Didion represents US society’s fragmentation ( “atomization”) through the shift of the otherwise activist younger generations from the traditional American values and a strong family unit to a senseless, drug-dependent reality that distances enormously from the so-called hippie utopia. Didion supports her claims regarding social disintegration with stories and examples that illustrate the attempt of the hippie community to self-anesthetize in order to cope with the tumultuous political and social context and with the oppressive lifestyle of their parents. Her purpose is to emphasize the lost notion of family, home, and ultimately, belonging as well as the political potential of the youth in order to reverse, or at least mitigate society’s spiral of decay. She seems to have an adult and middle-class audience in mind since her tone although deceptively objective portrays a harsh and disturbing reality which (perhaps unintentionally) calls for the necessity of raising awareness towards the national crisis that is ravaging America´s soul.
