Perhaps some of this summer’s yet-unopened exhibits will offer this. The Summer of Love Experience at the de Young does not.

What it does provide is a bright, colorful celebration of the aesthetics of the time period, and if you are fascinated by those, as many will be, by all means go see it. Over the long, weaving course of 10 galleries -- including one selfie-ready space designed by liquid light show veteran Bill Ham -- we get psychedelic rock show posters on top of posters, a giant bedspread once intended for Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, record sleeves, book covers, and pins (so many pins). Somehow overwhelming without diving beneath the surface of the era's aesthetics, the show seems intent on proving it’s possible to have, at the same time, too much and not enough.

We’ll allow there are interesting artifacts to behold: The collection of nearly 150 posters and handbills from Bay Area music venues anchors the exhibition, and many of them are indeed beautiful. The area devoted to demonstrating the lithographic process by which they were made is also worthwhile; Stanley Mouse, Wes Wilson and their compatriots from this era of poster art deserve all the recognition they've received over the past 50 years.

But after reading a short explanation of The San Francisco Sound, one is also left with the feeling that we’re being asked (yet again) to revere this era for the sake of reverence, in the name of pure rose-colored folklore, and in the dullest kind of vacuum. Sure, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane have come to represent not just a musical moment but a tribe, a lifestyle. Can we discuss what came after? What bands they influenced, or even what they stood for? Where can their nonconformist message still be felt in present-day San Francisco, where capitalism run amok has made it difficult if not impossible for artists to survive? Put bluntly: Why are we still talking about this? If it’s for reasons other than to tickle donors and tourists who came of age during this period and will smile fondly at the memories, please show us those.

In the meantime: Right this way, please. We have Jerry Garcia’s hat.

The Summer of Love Experience does devote a considerable amount of floorspace to the era’s clothing designers and trends, a welcome bit of tangibility in an otherwise ephemera-filled exhibition. Mannequins sport customized jeans, maxi peasant dresses and Native American-inspired leather fringe; Birgitta Bjerke’s crocheted work is a standout. Behind this vitrine -- drumroll please -- we even have the companion piece to Garcia’s Uncle Sam headgear: Janis Joplin’s handbag, intricately embroidered by Linda Gravenites.

But in these textiles, another missed opportunity: The exhibition catalog mentions the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s 1960s campaign to destroy the historically black Fillmore neighborhood -- but only in the context of the boon this displacement provided to the city’s thrift stores, and hence, to the hippies fashioning creative costumes from flea market finds. Really. In the exhibition itself, this shameful "urban renewal" in the Fillmore bears no mention. (Also in the catalog but not in the show: the draft-dodging origins of tie-dye at the Haight's Free Store, explored in Detour's immersive Haight-Ashbury Walking Tour.)

The final gallery before the exhibition empties into The Summer of Love Experience store tries to sum up the politics of the era in a grab-bag of issues: the Black Panthers, the Pill, Vietnam War protests, draft resistance, sex positivity. If it's intended to be a summation, a nod to the era’s enduring legacy and a connecting thread to the present, the result is tepid at best -- especially with the wall text's vague rah-rah claim that "fifty years later, government policies resulting from such interventions render a way of life in the West that would have been unimaginable to all but the surest of sixties visionaries." This final gallery would have benefited from a few more pieces and a lot more breathing room, especially considering the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of the characters we’ve been taught to celebrate from this time period in San Francisco’s history -- none of whom receive substantial critique in the preceding rooms.

The Panthers, in particular -- who had, by the summer of 1967, opened a storefront in Oakland, published their Ten-Point Program, and garnered national attention for entering the California State Assembly carrying guns to protest the Mulford Act -- are wholly represented by a handful of Ruth Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones photographs, unless we missed something. The movement was far better represented in the Oakland Museum of California’s sprawling and comprehensive 2016 exhibit.

Back upstairs on Thursday, the party -- “anti-war protesters” and all -- was just getting going. While attendees drank lime green Midori-and-tequila cocktails labeled “battery acid” to the sounds of “White Rabbit,” we asked one of the sign-carrying protesters if he was, in fact, pulling double duty as part of the band. The be-wigged gentleman, carrying light-up bowling pins, answered, “We’re all in the band called life, man.”

Near the exit, a de Young employee handed us each a bright Gerbera daisy. Then we made our way through the rain and wind to the faux street signs marking the entrance to the building -- each one noting an “intersection” of the past and present: hippie and hipster, free love and marriage equality. A strong gust whipped the flowers from our hands right about then, which was fine. There were new notifications on our phones to check. Likely, there was something fresh worth protesting.