I was born in the WRONG decade.

Oh, sorry dude. I mistook you for someone a little stronger.
You know... like the way you waltzed in and started telling us all how much better you are, because you're an individual and wouldn't denigrate yourself by following someone else. If you know there are multiple paths up the mountain, why are you so sure yours is better than anyone else's?

It's that attitude that is a useless excercise. Discussion is a two way proposition. You have to listen as much as you talk. If you don't want to listen, then it truly is useless.

 

I'm strong enough. I have just spent enough time on the internet to know when I'm talking to a wall.

You've assumed an awful lot of things from the simple, personal preferences that I have stated.

And no, as much as it may sound like it, I don't think my generation is superior to those of previous eras. It has it's obvious problems.

I'm just trying to point out the positives, as far as I'm concerned. The positives are all that is really important.

EDIT: No, I'm actually kind of lying. I do believe that this is a far better time to be alive than the 60s. I just didn't really want to get into that with you because I see it isn't going to fly.

Do you seriously not see a huge contrast between this age and that of 40 years ago? A widening of values?

 

Okay, now this is starting to sound more like conversation...
I don't mind that you think now is a better time to be alive than then. Hell, this is your time. My time is pretty much over.

However, I don't think you are in a position to make an accurate judgement. You weren't around back then, so you can't possibly know what it was like. And, believe me, you can't get it from a book or a movie or a documentary or even the music. You had to live it... which I assume is why you prefer now. This is your time.

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by a "widening of values."
Back in my day, all we knew was that we weren't going to live the way society expected us to live, so we threw it all out the window and created a new way. You have no idea how repressive it was to live in that time, because that repressivness is pretty much gone, now. The hippies wrote the *new* book on race relations, sexuality, individuality, equality... you name it. If you've got a better book, I'm sure we'd all love to read it, but I'm not really hearing you say much of anything, so far.

So tell me, what have you got goin' on that's so much better?

 

I totally understand that and agree. I don't really have a full, accurate idea of the way things were back then, and I was hoping for an excuse to bring that point up.

Because we take almost everything you fought for, for granted.

The old, stuffy, racist, conformist ways are still about. I imagine however, that if it were possible to make some sort of statistical analysis of current attitudes, I think that you would find that there would be a larger proportion of people among the general public with a willingness to accept a cross-section of values.

One's colour, religion (or lack thereof), social standing, way of life, sexuality etc. is of less importance than it was when I was born. I can see the way the attitudes of my parents, distant family and friends has changed over time. Although you might fail to see it, due to your own cynicism, thanks to the efforts of your generation, there has been a gradual widening of values over time. In layman's terms, that simply means that less people give a shit what other people want to do with their lives.

I would argue, that the only drawback of being a hippie in the new millenium, is that a hippie going to have a harder time finding those with the same stylistic preferences. However, I have a feeling that overall public attitudes would be more sympathetic to one that chose to be a hippie now, than one that chose to be a hippie when it was a "movement".

What I currently see, is a confused generation, moving in infinite directions. Exploring, deconstructing and embracing facets of a number of movements that have occured over the centuries...not just a single one.

Just look at the vast, chaotic sea of information that we call the internet, and the way people are using it. The way we're using it right now to share ideas. Surely you can see the potential in such a phenomenon, and the way it has already changed millions of lives.

Given our more tolerant attitude and the vast amount of information available to us, I think it is far easier for a person to be whoever they want to be, than it has been in all of human history. With hope, it will get easier.

While I speak a lot of the freedom available to this generation, I do recognize that there is the problem of blind consumerism - but was the 60s really that different, overall?

I have a suspicion that to you, "freedom" comes in the form of an ideal shared by a mass of like minded people wearing tie dye and waving placards. It doesn't have to be that way.

It also pays to remember that the rest of the western world isn't necessarily like the United States.

 

I hope you won't mind if I break this up and respond in a point by point fashion. I've also spent considerable time on the internet and I know that this is the kind of thing that usually happens when discussions break down into closed-minded arguments. I assure you, I'm not doing that, but there's a lot of information to cover, here. Thanks for the detailed response.

Oh, I agree with you entirely. Some people say that the hippies didn't really accomplish anything, because repressive attitudes still exist. What they fail to understand is that change is a gradual process. It takes time to become that repressive and it takes time to undo it. It's like a pendulum; once things become too repressive, people, like the hippies, will revolt against them. Once things become too liberal, others will revolt against that and send the pendulum swinging the other direction.

One has only to look around to see that the general public is becoming more accustomed to a wide variety of values and ideas. In the 50's and 60's, you only saw the tattooed lady at the circus. Now days, you can find her working anywhere and everywhere, including popular TV shows. The military has accepted Wicca as a recognized religion in the chaplain's handbook.

I'm not sure that modern day hippies are having that much trouble finding each other, and probably less trouble than we had in the 60's. There seems to be a sort of organic rebirth of neo-hippies, these days, and they're finding each other on the internet, if not in their own neighborhoods.
While I appreciate the new generation of open-mindedness, I'm thinking that it doesn't really have much of a cause to get behind, since, as you say and I agree with, the public is generally pretty accepting of it. I rather think that the general attitude towards the "neo-hippies" is something on the order of, "Awww, isn't that cute?" They certainly don't have presidents worried about them like Nixon was in the 60's-70's.

So, what you mean by "wider values" is a more accepting social attitude. I would agree that the social attitudes of today are much less repressive than they were in the 60's. (It sounded like you were saying that the youth of today had wider values than the hippies of the '60s.) I would also agree that in order to effect any kind of meaningful change, a movement has to shake things up. I don't see hippies shaking things up so much, these days. What they're better at, now, is getting into the system and promoting their values from the inside. The neo-hippies do serve one purpose, though. They are living confirmation that the values are still alive.

Others have said that the hippie movement isn't really anything new. You can see facets of it in various movements throughout history. It's a pendulum that swings back and forth, or left and right, if you prefer.
There was much confusion in the 60's, as well. The hippies were a relatively small cross-section of youth, back in the mid to late 60's. You had hippies, yippies, radicals, anarchists, black panthers, The Weather Underground, and more. They all shared facets of the common movement, but they were all vastly different in their methods. There were as many different ideologies as there were groups. Their various paths up the mountain all contributed to the collective view that we have today, though. I see the current variety of ideologies as part of a larger collective, in much the same way that it was back then.

The internet is a double-edged sword. While it abounds with information and allows isolated people access to others of a like mind, too much information can be the cause of confusion. The potential is to splinter the groups into even smaller sub-groups. In that respect it has the potential to become divisive rather than collective.

The 50's spawned the aged of consumerism in the modern era. At the end of WW2, there was a glut of economic growth that generated a lot of wealth. The wealth led to indiscriminate consumerism and more economic growth. The generation of the 60's was probably the first generation in the modern era to recognize that "blind consumerism" was a problem. The current bursting of the so-called "economic bubbles" is part of what we recognized as the inherent danger of unbridled capitalism. Many people see the problems today, because today we are suffering from the downside. In the 60's we were still riding the wave of economic growth, so the dangers were much less evident. That's the real difference between the views on consumerism in the 60's and today. It took a sort of visionary "forward looking" to see that there was going to be a problem down the road.

You may be right about my concept of freedom, although I'm pretty sure that it's not the bad thing you seem to be implying. It extends way beyond tie dyed clothes and placards, though, thanks to the social movement of the '60s. Those "like-minded" people actually came in all forms and a variety of ideologies. They only seem like-minded now, because we're looking at them from a higher place on the path, 40 years later.

 

:cheers2:

What Trigcove said.

 

I totally see what you're saying. You were part of a movement comprising of a large number of philosophical, religious and political ideologies, but you were mobilized, and what you had in common was a hope and a desire to change the world. It must have been an incredibly exciting time to be alive.

This could just be looking at things through rose coloured glasses, but I would like to think that there is some sort of growing awareness among my generation and that it is happening on a very subtle, fragmented, individual level, and that the internet is the biggest vehicle for such a change. Or perhaps not...

Either way, I think it would be a tragedy for a young person to give up hope because they have failed to see the myriad of opportunities open to them in their own era.

 

I was born in the right decade.

 

Yes, gayness is embraced by the general public now.

 

It was at times exciting, chaotic, boring, funny, sad, uncomfortable, comfortable, magical, mundane, happy, angry... pretty much just like now. Mostly, it was just more intense, but I chalk that up to the vigor of youth.

I've heard a lot of the younger people say that they want to get a movement going and change things and make stuff better... but I haven't really heard what they're looking to change or fix. In order to have a revolution, you need a cause and everyone needs to get mad as hell about it. There is no such thing as a mediocre revolution.

There's still war, so that's always a good one, but no one is being forced to go... yet... There's political reform and that's big, in my opinion. Seems like dems and repubs are all a bunch of lyin' bastards, these days. There's still social injustice, although not so much as there was back when. Whattya think? What's going to be the unifying cause that everyone will get behind?

Too many opportunities, maybe. I like the way Harry Nilsson put it in his story/album "The Point." "As we all know, a point in every direction is the same as no point at all."

I hope it works out, too, but what I mostly see is a lot of Bohemian kids with no real cause or purpose other than wanting to live a more natural lifestyle, not that there's anything wrong with that. And you know, maybe that's all you really need for now. It's keeping the ideals and the values alive, so we can be ready when it really is time to make a difference again. What would scare me worse would be if I saw the kids trending towards starched shirts, ties, corporate ladders, 3 martini lunches, cocktails after work, and smack the wife around for burning the meatloaf. That would be a step in the wrong direction and something to really fear.

 

Hello Free Spirit :]
I am 15 going 16 and I feel exactly what your feeling, I hate this decade. I love the 60's. People were so free and happy. And the power for peace and unity, so powerful... I really wanted to go through that, just to let go of everything

 

You seem to have forgotten which generation is currently holding the cards in society (politically and financially).

 

I hate to rain on anyone's enthusiasm, but you must look at the whole pic of that time. There were the flower children and the change in attitude toward personal freedom and sexual exploration. There was the beauty of the period the acceptance by us of diff races and sexual orientations.

But there was an unpopular war that took the lives of over 58K American men and untold thousands more disabled either physically or mentally by it.

The civil rights movements both racial and gay was meeting quite uncivil opposition.

Possessing grass was a felony, getting real prison time for "gleanings," the little leaf particles or seeds found in your pocket.

So, just remember no time or era is ideal. The Greeks called it Utopia, which they admitted was unobtainable.

 

Dead on the money.

But in every decade there was the subsequent negatives along with those positives. I think there was an equal amount to be unhappy about in the 60's, but potentially more to be happy with. The 2000's have been a little politically correct for my tastes, so I sort of agree with the OP.

Well my dreamy side does at least . However, the cynic is me can't help but agree completely with Shale's comment, he holds similar opinions to that of my parents.

 

Spoken like someone who truly doesn't remember what it was like before the social revolution that allowed people to let down their hair.

IBM used to have a strict policy of White Shirt, Black Tie. It was practically a uniform. Relatively few companies are that rigid, anymore. The generation that currently "holds the cards" is enjoying much greater freedom of expression than was allowed in the 50's and 60's.

 

Shale - you are quite right that there were many horrors of that era - however that is why we were put there. To end the war, moderate racial and sex based prejudice. To make certain drugs less demonized. It was bad - yet it was good. We were united in wanting change. The feeling of togetherness that bound many of us together was the joy of the era.

For all the horrors, I can't help but look back fondly.

 

Yeah...You have no idea what I am talking about.

Goodbye.

 

Nor do I particularly care, anymore.

See ya.

 

It seems like everyone who wants to make a change is kept seperated these days. Like everyone says it in the forums, 'I wish we could start something but there's no one around here' It's crazy how I'm the only one in a school of way over 2000 that even has some kind of ideas for change. Bloody insane if you ask me. But I'd still rather live in my time, now time. I really feel bad for all the kids these days, We just got to open their minds is all.

 

I was born in 87 and me to feel that maybe I grew up in the wrong time. BUT, what I've learned is that we are here now , this minute, for a reason. Use your time wisely, and every minute of it.

BTW, freespirit, where in ny are you? I'm downstate.