What the 60s Generation Lost
Published December 4, 1994 in North Shore Sunday.
Recently I took a ride and found myself at the college
where I graduated more than a few years ago. I
hadn't been there in years, so I took a walk around. It looked pretty much the
same, yet something seemed off.
Then it hit me. The clock
tower...that great gray phallic symbol we all made fun
of...was gone. Someone Bobbitized
the campus.
But more than that has changed since my college days. We changed –
the once brash, insufferable rebels on college campuses all across 1960s
America. The generation that
America now loves to hate, the generation that was going to change the world –
we changed radically.
Sure, we matured, got jobs, had families, settled down. And it's no longer fashionable to dress
like a cross between Geronimo and Che Guevara. But those aren't the changes I mean.
Our ideals changed.
It's now "in" to make fun of the naivete of the 60s. But there's nothing naive about
believing in social responsibility – an ideal we were particularly committed
to. We might have been brash and
insufferable about it, but it happens we were right.
Our shared ideals, naive or not, bound us together. There was an almost overpowering sense
of togetherness back then. It's
what made the 60s a special time, and gave it such promise.
Then it changed. I
can't say when. I only know that I
slowly began to feel like I once did while waiting for a train in Germany's
Black Forest. An announcement came
over the station's PA, but I understood nothing after Achtung! But the 50 or so natives waiting with
me understood, and began grumbling with Teutonic pique. Suddenly, everyone
grumbled off to another track, leaving my wife and me standing alone and
feeling pretty dumb.
What event announced that it was time to abandon 60s ideals? That our professed commitment to social
responsibility was pretty shallow?
That our feeling of togetherness had the substance of a drug high? Was it the end of the Vietnam war? The draft? The catharsis of Watergate? Disco?
It was many events.
Here are two:
Rise of self-interest groups. Women's rights, gay rights, rights for
racial and ethnic groups of all kinds – each overshadow human rights. Unless you fit the profile, you might
sympathize but you really can't belong.
A realization that social responsibility
costs money. It's paid for by
the dreaded T-word – taxes. Ronald
Reagan's anti-tax, "Let 'em eat ketchup" revolution never could have
happened if the throngs of 60s-types just said No. But we gladly bought the myth that you can get what you don't pay
for.
But some good did come from 60s idealism, like:
Socially responsible investment funds (high-yield, low-guilt).
Women today may still be paid less than men, be harassed on the job and abused at home. But what man in his right mind is going to compliment the way a woman looks these days? And in writing, don't we celebrate our PCness with cute tricks like s/he?
Sure, blacks still die younger than whites, are more often victims of violent crime and have higher unemployment. But don't we call blacks African Americans now, as though being willing to say all those extra syllables proves our lack of prejudice?
Then there's Bill Clinton, the 60s president. His push for universal health care proves he's socially responsible. And criticizing him for trying to get away with leaving millions of people uninsured while still calling his health bill "universal" is just being – well, brash and insufferable.
Hmmm...if a clock tower is a phallic symbol, what does a missing
clock tower symbolize?
