I have a love/hate relationship with the ‘60s. It is still, by far, my favorite era for music. Even a lot of the drug-inspired music is very interesting to me; I love its inventiveness and unpredictability.
But I hate the damaging ideas that came out of that decade:
Drugs. I think we’re still dealing with a lot of moral ambiguity on that subject.
“Free love,” i.e. casual sex with no sense of responsibility or commitment.
Women’s lib, which is OK in concept to a point, but morphed into a world where both parents usually HAVE to work in order to support a family. Nannies or day-care centers take care of small kids while the parents work, then they later become latch-key kids. Not to mention that it spawned an insufferable group of militiant feminazis that have taken the concept WAY overboard to ridiculous extremes.
People like Malcom X and the Black Panthers.
The Great Society, which produced anything but.
The socialism of the “New Left.”
...and so on.
We are still reeling from the changes that were put into motion in that decade.
(Now, excuse me while I call up “Brown-Eyed Girl” from my iTunes list... >:)
“Women’s lib, which is OK in concept to a point, but morphed into a world where both parents usually HAVE to work in order to support a family.”
Exactly. In order to have a decent standard of living, one of the wage earners has to pay for the huge tax burden.
“But I hate the damaging ideas that came out of that decade:”
There were no new ideas. The ideas had been around for decades.
Marxist rebellion since Manifesto published 1848.
Unions and increased socialism in America clearly since the 1930s.
Womens’ rights ongoing, since voting (1920)and flapping (1920s).
Many civil rights which blacks had previously been promised weren’t fully realized until the 1960s.
Drugs were not introduced in the 1960s. Cocaine was used long before, as was marijuana.
As a 1965 HS grad, I know we were NOT all alike. We were NOT all druggies, did NOT all have shoulder length hair, did NOT all listen to music 24/7, did NOT all protest the war in Vietnam, etc.
Always, always, always remember in 1972 McGovern got obliterated by the Silent Majority who re-elected Nixon.