Running with Scissors, by Agusten Burroughs - I'm reading this book with my jaw dropping

[bemildred]

5. Pretty much.

"Do your own thing."

There would be occasional attempts to impose order, but they would be ignored. Not saying that worked very well, mind you. It's difficult to describe how different the mindset and attitudes were from 2012. Post-WWII the USA was very conformist, to be a corporate "organization-man" was the goal of life, and sexism, racism, and any other kind of -ism you can think of were the norm. There were pejorative names for everybody, and it was a great laugh-getter to use them.

The hippies etc. said fuck all that, radical anti-authoritarianism, radical acceptance of people who did not "fit", anarchy in the sense of lack of any controlling order. Of course, that didn't work much better than the current "we've got to watch all the time and control everything" model.