[Mmmike]

Long before the feel-good 60s you had the creation of public schools to harvest up-and-coming generations for purposes of money and ideology, by men who saw themselves as gods. Meanwhile the rest of society was carefully conditioned to look at this as normal, as "no big deal", as "our shared civic project".

Look at what happened just before the feel-good 60s: the Space Race was on, and the Mighty State was gung-ho instrumentalist about the "crop" that it was "breeding" for engineering and science. But the very practice of institutionalizing and "breeding" kids was de-Americanizing them. The adults were encouraged to cheer this on and many did. Straightforwardly coercive strong-state dynamics all the way.

[sparklite2]

In my 1950s, as opposed to yours, we were taught patriotism, and that communism was evil. Living together unwed was termed “shacking up,” hence undesirable. Atheism was not discussed in polite society, being less that alert when under prescribed meditation was somehow shameful, and nuclear war was always in our thoughts.

I disagree totally with your views of that time.