....what were the 70's like?

We know what it was like in the 60's from the countless threads and articles and everything, but i know there were alot of hippies still around in the 70's but nobody ever talks about them. Did anything go on at all in this decade. I mean, what year do u think the movement died out in the late 70's. My parents graduated in 1973 and 1976, they were hippies and when i look through their yearbooks i know i'm basing this on looks alone, but it seemed at least 80% of the kids in their school looked like hippes, and my parents have some quite crazy stories and did alot of the things that are talked about from the older hippies. So were the 70's cool at all for hippies and when did the whole movement die. (or at least uno, make its way to how things were in the 80's)

 

I wasn't born yet. Dunno.

 

The 70's were a lot like 'That 70's Show'.

There were always movie cameras around, and whenever anybody made a funny joke, mysterious laughter would come out of nowhere.

 

Imagine being spanked by Mrs. Roper off "Three's Company" - including the medallions, caftan and hair.

Now you see why most of us repress that horror.

Carob birthday cakes, puke brown shag carpeting, being born at a time when having children was considered a criminal waste of resources....

 

In retrospect, the worst thing about the 70s is knowing the 80s are on their way.

 

The 80s weren't that bad. The fashion sucked, but the music was OK. If you were into alternative stuff like punk or Goth or the rockabilly revival you can still look at your yearbook photo. It's those who dressed like Kirk Cameron or were mulletheads that had to burn theirs.

Sure there was a lot of manufactured BS like Debbie Gibson, but it also produced Black Flag.

 

There were an awful lot of trousers.

 

Literally hundreds.

 

The only good thing to come out of the 80s was me.

 

You've never played any Commodore 64 games I take it.

 

Alot of kids at my school look like hippies... but they arent (emo, skater, goth, mosher bla bla bla)

 

The 70s were very daggy, but looking back, it had its charms. As time goes by I look back with more and more fondness. Life was a lot easier then... perhaps that's because I was just a little kid.

 

Everyone looked really dirty in the 70's. Especially when wearing long straight hair, a scum 'stache, and a tank top.

 

Yeah. And what about Trash-80 games?

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The hippie movement was pretty much over by the mid 70s. The movement melded into the countryside with some living in communes and others living agrarian lifestyles. The militant groups of the 60s fizzled out by the mid 70s for the most part. There was a back-to-nature movement in the early to mid 70s that shared some of the spirit of the hippie movement. Some of it was reflected in TV and music (John Denver, Yule Gibbons, The Waltons, Little House, etc).

The women's rights movement continued through the 70s. It culminated with the push for the Equal Rights Amendment which came close to passing but which died when the Reagan administration came on the scene. In contrast, today we hear the President calling for a Constitutional amendment to ban freedoms related to sexual preference.

There was still a 'male vs. female' battle of the sexes that was going on in the 70s that is no longer seen today. I think it was partly a way of dealing with the rise of woman in business and elsewhere. It too was reflected in TV and music (the great Bobby Riggs vs. Bill Jean King tennis match; 'I Am Woman' and 'You and Me Against the World' by Helen Reddy; etc).

The federal government was promoting the switch-over to the metric system during the 70s with public service announcements. That movement also died when Reagan took office.

There were a lot of public service announcements by the government trying to get people to conserve energy after the two oil shocks in the early and late 70s. Some cities experienced gas shortages and gas lines. Carter issued an order that prohibited people from lighting up Christmas lights in their yards. Nixon tried to do a quick fix on energy one year by staying on daylight savings time all winter, which caused children to go to school in the dark.

Inflation and interest rates were double-digit by the late 70s. You could literally see prices going up each week at the supermarket.

There were political problems between the U.S. and Iran in 1979, a feud that continues to this day. That problem which culminated with the hostage crisis, in part, fueled the back-to-patriotism movement of the 80s.

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Thankfully. I don't care for Reagan, but at least he did something right.

 

Take the movie "Dazed and Confused" add some of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" subtract anything that happened on the Brady Bunch (except the bad clothes) and add the near impeachment of Nixon. Add to it, that if you were a teenager in the 70s, your parents were born in the 1930s or earlier, so they had NO IDEA what pot smelled like, and there you go.

I was in late grammar school and in High School in the 70s. (Graduated in 1980.) It was a fun time.

Worst thing that happened in the 70s: The invention of the urine drug test. Opened the door for many privacy abuses. If McGovern had won, this would be a different country.

 

Even Britain has switched over the the metric system. The U.S. is the only industrial country left that hasn't. It would make things a lot easier in an international community, as it would save time and reduce errors associated with converting from one system to another.

The U.S. likely won't make any significant changes on more complicated issues if it can't do something as simple as switch to the metric system. The atmosphere in the U.S. has become increasingly conservative and traditional in the past two decades and increasingly nationalistic since 911. It's a very different atmosphere compared with the 60s and 70s.

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Britain is far from fully metricated, and the same is true of Canada.

Conversion errors could be eliminated by rejecting the metric system as well. It goes both ways.

But is metrication necessarily a worthy endeavor? Could the rejection of the metric system actually be a positive reflection of America's capacity to deal with issues?

 

The conversions wouldn't be needed if the U.S. were on the metric system. I didn't follow your logic there.

There aren't any really compelling practical reasons for not converting to metric. It's mainly a passion for tradition that keeps people from supporting the change. That appeal to tradition seems to be stronger today in the U.S. than it was in the 60s and 70s.

I just find it interesting how something as trivial as switching to metric can invoke such a heated and passioned debate over tradition. It's not as if we are trying to do away with religion, yet some people almost feel that way.

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