The Hippies represented what was the Present and what was coming. The Pat Boone kids, with their clean cut hair-doos and their Ah shucks, the Lord is my Shepard attitudes were doing their best to resist the tidal wave of the rampant hedonism of the Anti-American Pinko Commies who many perceived to be overrunning college campuses coast to coast. Free Love had been invented, but getting laid was still a crap shoot on any given night down to the Rathskeller.
New ideas and concepts clashed with the old tried and true Leave it to Beaver ideals Americans had been convinced were what had made America the greatest country on the planet. Blacks were flexing their muscles. Future draftees were burning their draft cards while women began burning their bras and gays were slowly leaving their closets. The stodgy what used to be was being replaced by the hip new what is coming.
The only common thread tying all the college kids together was they were all horny and looking to occasionally step away from reality or hedge their bets for an overnight lay by ingesting copious amounts of the Demon Rum or Satan's Weed; oftentimes both.
Post created from a very rough draft from February, 2009
Flash forward to today.
I cannot say the populations of college campuses break down now in similar demographics as they did back in the early 1970's. I can certainly attest to the notion that similar mindsets have bridged the five decades since I wasted time in college getting wasted. The issues of then are still not settled business among many citizens now and continue to be thorns in the side of the American experience.
The dates have changed. The mentalities have not. The Left still pushes us to tomorrow, the Right wants to hold us back. The Left likes Capitalism to a point. Most see it as a necessary evil. The Right seems to love Capitalism and its captains more than they love the country. These truths are a constant that have been with us since our beginnings over 200 years ago.
A noticeable difference between the conversations of then and now are the levels of intractability our opposing views have attained. We used to have heated discussions and when people tired of arguing, they often found consensus or they walked away. Today, we don't have conversations, we shout at each other and seldom find common ground. Instead, we dig our heels in even when the facts tell us we are wrong.
Yes, the biggest difference I notice today is the lack of respect we give facts. We have begun favoring our own interpretations of facts or ignoring them completely. It seems our political realities are being framed by our political faith that all too often leaves little room for the facts we should be using to frame our plans or views in the first place. This leaves us with fewer workable bipartisan actions and more built up partisan acrimony. The one reality almost all of us used to live in has now had to make room for other realities that only exist in the minds of the beholders.
The words my high school English teacher wrote in my junior year yearbook seem so, so more prophetic now than they did when he wrote them in 1969:
" These are critical times. Degeneration is around the corner. ....... WATCH! "
I think it is safe to say we have entered the times of Degeneration, yet many of us fail or refuse to see it.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ..............................................
_______________________
I had narrowed my musical choice down to four songs, three by Buffalo Springfield and one by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. One group provided members for the later group, so the musicality is very similar. It was a tough choice. I listened to all four several times each.
What I did was, post all four. "Ohio" and "For what it's Worth" may be be the most famous of the four. All four are great and always take me back to those days of upheaval in the 1960s and 70s that sadly seem to have reared their ugly little heads once again.
- "Ohio" - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- "Four Days Gone" - Buffalo Springfield
- "Special Care" - Buffalo Springfield
- "For What it's Worth" - Buffalo Springfield
2 comments:
I was on campus 65 to 69. Farm boy. First time away from home. My classmates were much the same. For
some reason reason I got
involved in student politics
And started hanging out with people who thought differently than I did. About the Vietnam War and much else. Learned to
Appreciate other points of view and it started me on the road to being left wing instead of following my families politics
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