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The Legacy of the Sixties

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Foto: La Jornada Maya

We rebelled against the stifling conformity of the fifties, began and lived the sexual revolution, came of age when excellent music was exploding around us, and were present at the genesis of what Canadian communicologist Marshall McLuhan called “the global village”. 

Radio and television transformed our societies as never before. Radio ensured that the music of our generation made a global impact and television brought the world into our living rooms. Indeed, many observers believe that the war in Vietnam was not lost on the battlefield but in the world’s living rooms.

The introduction of the birth control pill liberated women from the threat of pregnancy at the end of a sexual adventure and accelerated the sexual revolution of the sixties. Women were now free to explore their sexuality free of the constraints of nature, and this new-found freedom fueled the feminist movement.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court decision to allow abortions and give women in America full control over their bodies led to today’s deep schism between those Americans who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. This also defined the culture wars in the United States and many of the current political divisions in that country.

A woman’s right to control her body versus the rights of an unborn fetus are once again under debate in the U.S., led by a determined Republican Party and a conservative Supreme Court.  

This while hundreds of millions of women around the world continue to be considered chattel, with no rights at all. Indeed, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan demonstrates that in many places, the women’s liberation movement has had no impact whatsoever. 

The protest music of the sixties –songs like Bob Dylan’s Blowin in the Wind and The Times They are a Changin- fed and reflected the civil rights movement, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the first steps towards attaining real equality for minorities in the United States. Yet, sixty years later, minorities still face prejudice in that country as Black Americans continue to fight for the right to vote freely in many states and as police in many cities seem to have a different set of rules for Black Americans.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, global and regional powers seemed bent on destroying the nascent Age of Aquarius. 

The Six Day War in 1967 brought upheaval to the Middle East fueling “Liberation” movements such as Black September, Bader Meinhof, the Brigate Rosse, Action Direct, ETA, the IRA and the Japanese Red Army. They were oftentimes supported by the USSR and its allies and, as a group, made terrorism a mainstay of modern life.

Many of us sought a more spiritual life in the sixties rejecting the materialism and religious orthodoxy of the post-war world of the fifties and a search for the more esoteric teachings of the East and, in many cases, of native Americans and their focus on respect for the environment. Yet today, after all this time, we nevertheless see a fragmentation of values, a blurring of lines between right and wrong best illustrated by political “spin” and, most concerning, a major climate crisis with little political will to take the drastic steps required to save the environment for future generations.

So, where did the idealism of the sixties go?

In short, many of us grew up, and had to face the realities of life such as having to support families and pay bills while many others lost our ideals and were coopted by a system that many believed they could change from within. 

The thought-provoking protest music of the sixties was replaced by the hedonism of disco, and the idealism of that decade was replaced by the materialism of the following decades. Few of my generation remained true to the ideals that they espoused in the sixties and are now left with nothing more than nostalgia that, looking back, lasted more in our minds than in reality.

Baby boomers may still like to think that we were unique and that we have left a lasting impression on many societies. Today, the sad truth may well be that were just a historical blip in many ways limited to Western cultures. 

As we question our youth who seem disillusioned with our institutions and our leadership as adults, who face the threat of climate change, who see home ownership out of reach, who see less possibilities for a decent future even after obtaining university degrees, who are harder to reach even though they are more connected that ever and who feel similar frustrations against those who rule we must ask ourselves -has anything really changed?

But hey, we did have great music, didn’t we?

Edition: Emilio Gómez


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