The curious career of Jerry Rubin, ex-campus activist, ex-yippie, ex-yoga guru and ex-Wall Street entrepreneur who died last week at age 56, in many ways paralleled that of the Baby Boomer generation whose attitudes he epitomized. Mr. Rubin was famous for warning his disciples never to trust anyone over 30. But once he turned 30 himself, he amended that admonition to age 50.
He was an inveterate rule-breaker, iconoclast and political impresario.
In the 1960s, when the country was deeply torn over civil rights and the Vietnam war, Mr. Rubin rode the crest of protest by being both theatrical and outrageous as one of the defendants in the notorious Chicago Seven trial.
In the self-absorbed '70s, he discovered est, yoga, bioenergetics and a smorgasbord of self-awareness programs. In the '80s he emerged as a Gucci-loafered Yuppie and Wall Street venture capitalist.
Depending on how you look at it, he was either a principled man who continually reinvented himself to follow the dictates of a stubborn but quirky social conscience, or a cultural windsock reflecting the country's decennial mood swings. Whichever, he was one of America's great salesmen, and his main product was always himself.