There are some great posts and lively commenting going on at Chicago Boyz on the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson and the lessons of the Sixties. Start here if you're into in such things, and be sure to check this post by Lexington Green. Here's a taste of Green's HST:
...he is a significant figure in American culture, and is way beyond political ideology...His late ravings were not worth reading, but that doesn't take away from his achievement. His first book, and my favorite one, Hells Angels, is at least as much a warning about violent anarchy as it is a celebration, and HST's ruthless accuracy in depicting it, including his own foolhardiness getting involved with them, is the key to the book. He loves the Angels because they don't give a damn and they do whatever they want, and live lives of total licentious individualism, and they drive their bikes at death-defying and death-inducing speed because they want to, man, you got a problem with that? And, but for pure luck, one of them would have literally bashed his brains out with a rock. And he rightly says that they need to be exterminated. He doesn't bother to resolve all this. He just gets on his motorcycle, and goes 100.Posted by dan at February 27, 2005 10:53 PMThere is a pathologically extreme version of American individualism and freedom, and HST personified that, and this is captured especially in his Fear and Loathing books. That was a subcurrent in hippiedom which I cannot entirely detest since I feel its appeal. Most people outgrew it. HST never did.