I have always wondered how it ever got started and for what reason. In the early 1900's, and even through the 17-1800's everything and almost everyone was conservative, following a certain way of life that was the norm for everyone. Take for instance the show, Leave it to Beaver. Why then were the 60's the opening to democracy and rebellion. Was it the drugs? the war? and was it actually a change for the better or worse. I have heard both sides. Was it an act of the evil one or God. Peace was found by many, but many died in the journey to find it. It baffles my mind. Let me hear some of your opinions because this is something I have been wondering about for awhile.thanks
The rebellion of the 1960s was the result of many different influences all converging at once. It was the "coming of age" of the post-ww2 "baby-boomers", a HUGE generation which had not lived through things like a world war, or a depression. They had very high expectations , and a very high economic standard of living. The propaganda these young adults were being taught in schools about the limitless freedom of America ran headfirst into images of blacks being firehosed, beaten and killed in the American south. The younger generation quickly learned that much of what they once accepted as gospel truth was bullshit.... The development of the birth-control pill helped remove much of the risk from premarital sex, and was the sparkplug for the "sexual revolution". Entheogenic drugs like marijuana and LSD produced a spiritual awakening, and a newfound respect for experiential religion, as oppoesd to the more common types of passive religious experience. The war in Vietnam provided a focal point for the anger of the youth movement, and the mass media images of the war helped magnify the intensity of the situation. The media also seixed on the "shock value" of the emerging counterculture, and created a "positive feedback" situation, where thousands more participants were drawn in because of what they saw in the media.
basically like the other dude said, it was just everything was in the right place at the right time for something like that to happen. Now as for the question for better or for worse, thats all personal opinion. Nobody can really state if this movement is a bad thing or a good thing. I like to think myself that its good but there are people that say its bad. My only question is why did it all of a sudden die and a lot of the values were forgotten about or reversed by society? like why couldnt the movement have continued in the form it was then into todays society? There are a lot of things in this world that need chaning and its time to change them but nobody seems to have the mindset to change them because there all of afraid of what authority will do to them. What is it going to take for people in the millions to stand up and say this isnt right, we want change! and then force it. Because its not enough to believe it, you have to go out and do what you beleive and hope others follow you. Hopefully thatll happen soon, or there may not be a world left for change to occur in.
1. The fear instilled by the government in the 50's, that the Russians will bomb us. 2. Rock and Roll 3. Drugs 4. Sex 5. The VW Bus 6. The Beatles 7. Tie-Dye 8. The Vietnam War
I think it didn't really start in the 60's, it was rock and roll that changed the style. It's all about free-thinking, and loving the earth. We are children of this earth, and we choose what to do. It's just conformed society see's this earth as being there for their pleasure, which is it to just a small extent. We are here to provide for others and the mother earth. It's not so much VW bugs and Sex. It's the joy it brings others and yourselfs. It's just the style that changes.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Ghandi if you want revolution, it has to start with yourself. all that "well, i'll protest, but only if they do it first." i think one of the main reasons people aren't standing up is because they are afraid to stand up. "what if i start protesting and nobody supports me?" first you have to change yourself, then you can start working on the rest of the world. i know a big factor with me is the lack of support from people around me. i'm only 15, a soon-to-be sophmore in high school, and i know my parents wouldnt support me, nor my friends or anybody else. and i can't live on my own or anything. when i get out of high-school, and on my own though, i plan to try to change me, then try to change humanity. once again, you have to be the change you wish to see in the world.
Two little pills - 'the' pill and LSD had a lot to do with it all, at least in America and the UK. As far as much of the rest of the world was concerned, it never happened at all. My pet idea is that the 'baby-boomers' of whom I am certainly one, were educated to a level en masse that was previously unknown - to a level where we could begin to think for ourselves, to see through the web of conditioning etc. to which we had been subjected. There was to be no new world war to go fight, as had been the case for the two previous generations. Expectations were high, as was a spirit of optimism- an optimism which was to prove somewhat niaeve given the forces that were ranged against change. Expectations were to be dashed. If people took acid and so on and had visionary or spiritual experiences, it was at least partly because they were programmed to respond in that way to those agents. To-day's young hippies seem to me to react quite differently. They have come of age under very different conditions. Here in Britain, education has been 'dumbed down' - it's as though they want a population of easily controlable idiots. A sad reflection perhaps, but one that I fear is all too true. The sixties was a time when much emerged into the mass consciousness which has now become everyday and fully assimilated into the mainstream 'culture'. Other stuff they don't want you to see, and this has been largely forced back underground.
It wasn't simply a lot of things happening at the same time coincidentally, but one thing leading to another, such as the civil rights movement helping to spawn the women's rights movement, the anti-war movement bringing together many different types of people in a common cause, etc. All the factors previously mentioned in this thread came together to bring incredible momentum to the counterculture.
Of course you can never forget about the foundation of the Peace Corps . And every Kennedy did in general. If it wasn't for him, where would the 60's have gone?
i wonder why the 60's as well.. but i put it down to everything that happen the baby boomers cuba jfk getting killed mission to the moon vietnam wasnt going the war they thought it would.. women rights.
TV shows are rarely a good place to get information, unless it's an honest-to-god documentary or the History channel or something. I don't think it was actually as bad back then as a lot of people think it was. I think most of the people who think it actually was that way and lived during the 50's as adults are more likely remembering how they wished it could have been rather than it actually was.
In the early 1900's, and even through the 17-1800's everything and almost everyone was conservative, following a certain way of life that was the norm for everyone. There was the gay 90's,the flapper era just to name a couple.How about the workers rebellion.It just not much info about these times in our history books.Even the civil war with it's slavery stigma was about personal freedoms.Except for the slaves of course.The Quakers were communal.WW2 had it's anti-war protests.The pope drank coca wine.War protest,drugs,alternative lifestyles,communes have been around forever and are not exclusive to the 60's.This conservatism started after ww2.Short hair became popular and nationalism was the rage.Conservatism is new,not the hippie spirit.After all the hippie spirit is really just the human spirit.
Excellent point gate, i was going to mention the 20's, the Jazz age, actually maybe even a wilder time thatn the 60's (maybe, I wasn't alive for either) what about the French revolution?
Actually,I thought Frank Sinatra was pretty hip.Anybody see him in the movie"The Man With the Golden Arm".It was about a trumpet player with a heroin adiction.
