Could a "Second 1960's" happen in America?

[hsher]

I'm just curious what you guys think. Do you think Gen X'ers and Gen Y folk are capable of a second, visually-imaginative, musically-relevant countercultural revolution? Or did the parade go down the street with the Boomers? Think it will happen? Want it to? Weigh in, DU: your opinions please! (And COME ON, no cynicism: dream for a moment.)

[Earth_First]

1. Not without the Grateful Dead! n/t

[hsher]

3. Sugaree!

Got to agree with you there. Lovin' me some Dead here.
Will Phish do in a pinch, if they play again?

[Earth_First]

11. I'm a Phish Gen Y'er...

as a jaded 90's Phish fan, there would have to be a major restructuring of the post-hiatus Phish in order for it to work, IMHO.

...you know that I'd be there, however!

[hsher]

31. Love to see you there!

It could happen; don't give up hope!

[AndyTiedye]

58. Psychedlic Trance

A lot of Deadheads migrated into the Phish scene, but Phish was never jammy or spacey enough for me.
I wanted something I could dance to for a l-o-n-g time.
Even longer than a Dead show if possible.
By the time Jerry died, I had been to over 200 Dead shows. I had also started going to raves.
There IS something special about dancing until the sun comes up.
This was well known in antiquity, but modern cultures tend to forget this sort of thing.

To a considerable extent, the Acid Tests of the 60's have been reborn as raves and psychedelic trance parties.
As someone who missed the original acid tests by only a few years, I am extremely grateful for this.
One thing we have learned from the 70s however, is that you're supposed to get up and dance!.

Ride the Music

[conscious evolution]

32. Check out Donna the Buffalo

One of David Gans favorite bands these days.
They are at the center of the neohippies movement.And without hippies there will never be another Summer of Love.And it is way past time for another.

Now that I think about it Our Winter of Discontent is due also.

[hsher]

43. Thanks - lemme check em out

Going Googling for them right now

[Earth_First]

51. You know...I have several friends who are Donna fans...

I've been to several myself, but you know something, they just don't to "it" for me. I've had alot of fun, and don't get me wrong they are incredible musicians, however it just doesn't fit that spot. I'll certainly continue to see them with friends, however I guess I'm just a Y'er with hundreds of hours of music and a bit of regret.

[babylonsister]

2. "If" = draft. It could happen. nt

[Beelzebud]

4. Could be if.... DRAFT

[kedrys]

5. There's been a noticeable resurgence of cool shows from the 60s and early 70s

on ye olde cable TV. We watch The Avengers pretty religiously, and happened on a 4-hour Saint mini-marathon this weekend. I think they're trying to tell us something...or remind us of something...

[misternormal]

6. '60s... done... finito... kaput... n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. My mother, a flowerchild herself, said it could never come again. The

innocence is gone and can never be recaptured. But I do hope we can find some hope that would inspire another greatness. I think it will be scientifically oriented.. Maybe another space race to colonization. Surely new technologies to save the planet.

[derby378]

8. Why the hell would I want another 1960's?

The "first" 1960's brought us two Kennedy assassinations, the Cuban missile crisis, escalation of a war/occupation overseas, and the wholesale slaughter of civil rights activists. No, thank you.

Oops, almost forgot Charles Manson. How silly of me.

[hsher]

9. "Why the hell" answered

Dope, man. Come on.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. I think this definitely ties in with my earlier thread today

about romanticizing your parents' generation: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2723547

[hsher]

18. Checking it out now - thanks for the link!

[derby378]

20. Interesting observations

I think it was Confucius who introduced mankind to the famous curse: "May you live in interesting times." Perhaps in our own way, all of us are doomed to live out the curse.

[hsher]

24. True

[hsher]

27. Read it :)

PS... I'm writing a book about just that! I wish I could crumple your post and the replies to it up and and eat them and have them manifest in my book as printed data.

[GreenPartyVoter]

33. LOL Well get permission from the post authors and use us for quotes or

interviews. :D

[madmusic]

25. Everyone you mention was outside of the 60s...

Looking in, and resenting it. Not part of it. Damn, it pissed some people off! Like Nixon. He got his revenge with the war on drugs. Ever since then any drug user could never be a good conformer, and therefore deserved prison before starting some cultural revolution.

It worked. Maybe the Internets are the new drugs.

[derby378]

39. ???

Please review my post and explain. I didn't even mention Nixon back there.

[madmusic]

44. I know, but everyone you did mention...

Was not really into the 60s.

[proud patriot]

12. There will never be another "sixties"

It was and always will be a special time .

I am a child of 2 hippies , I have lived most
of my life longing for another sixties. The mixture
of the music , the civil rights , the drugs , the
innocence will not be repeated . I'm pretty sad about
that too . I think America could use another cultural
revolution . Too many mistakes were made durring that
time . Whatever does occur hopefully will be a bit
different in that we have learned from our mistakes .

[porphyrian]

13. I think some patterns repeat themselves while others don't.

Thus, there's no way to recreate a past event, if for no other reason than we would be attempting it in a world in which it has already happened. What part of the 1960's are you talking about? The open racism and segregation against Blacks? The Viet Nam war? Or are you talking about the good things, which may or may not have manifested? I'm not trying to be cynical, but I'm afraid you may be ignoring what sucked about the era.

[eridani]

14. It's already happening, but in a different way

The newest generation is asking the next questions--they already know what went right and what went wrong back then. That knowledge base in and of itself makes it different, not to mention those internets tubes.

[Ouabache]

15. But it probably won't be found on YouTube

nt

[hsher]

34. But... but... I thought the revolution would be televised

YouTube might just. That's a very good suggestion.
(puts on devious thinking cap)
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[clichemoth]

16. It's already happening.

It's just mostly happening online. When the first wired generation gets old enough to vote, they will be motivated and things will change for the better.

[BadgerKid]

26. Well, they're the 1st wireLESS generation

But I agree. :hi:

[omega minimo]

66. Already too corporatized

[Stargazer99]

17. I'd prefer an American French Reveloution

[hsher]

19. Oho... ! ;)

"Bonjour, Monsieur Guillotine... your services are again required..."
Heh heh heh :evilgrin:

[pearl]

22. Graduated High School in '68

Saw Janice and Jimmi at Newport Beach Pop Festival in '68.
This has the potential to be the 60's to the tenth power because these are headier times and
Oh yes, we're just getting started, Baby.

"Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living" Mother Jones

[Zomby Woof]

21. I hope not

Too many assassinations, and too many hippies.

Next time, no killings of good people, and more soap.

[Berserker]

36. too many hippies more soap.

WTF was that post is that you dad?

[Jed Dilligan]

23. No, and not because of the mystical greatness that

Baby Boomers universally ascribe to themselves.

It's because of fragmentation. There is an enormous amount of visual and musical creativity right now, as well as radical political thought, but it will never reach the mainstream. It's too many little local cells. Anything like Woodstock today would be commercialized out of existence before it happened. The really creative people of my generation have turned their backs on mainstream culture; we don't even bother to send our stuff to the big galleries, publishers, recording companies. That being said, there is still good shit out there. You just have to dig to find it. This is not entirely a bad thing--it filters out the jackasses, who apparently showed up in large numbers for the "sixties."

[Odin2005]

55. I've found many boomers too preachy for thier own good.

[Irreverend IX]

28. The next progressive cultural renaissance...

Will look different from the 60s. Social eras don't repeat themselves, and the 60s left a lot to be desired besides. The hippies were naive and weak-willed, and failed to create any meaningful social change. With any luck the children of the next revolution won't grow up to be Reagan-voting consumers. I think the next wave of transformational thought will be based in large part on the rejection of consumerism, a change that society will have to make if it is to survive.

[Mythsaje]

29. A universal cure/vaccination for STDs...

I've said it for years. If HIV and other STDs were eliminated, we'd have a second sexual revolution. I think that, in many ways, birth control in the 60s contributed as much to the atmosphere of permissiveness as anything else.

[hsher]

30. Agreed

Man, the whole world would be different if we could just get rid of those. I know MY life would be different! :7

[GreenPartyVoter]

35. Yes, my mom said between the lack of danger from sex and the lack of majorly

heavy designer drugs.. it was a very innocent time. But sad to say we Baby Busters are a very cynical group. I don't think we can reclaim that innocence.

[Mythsaje]

38. You're not the generation that will see it.

Not first hand, anyway.

You'll most likely be the generation tearing its hair out watching the kids doing it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

45. Could be. Could very well be.

[graywarrior]

37. I'm still in the 60's.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. IMO millions of fundie and Wall Street kids are going to rebel, and

when they do, they're going to make quite an impression on the world.

Just imagine the pressure their parents have them under to replicate their "values" of greed and religious hypocrisy.

[Alcibiades]

41. Yes, it's underway

if what you take to be the defining element of the 1960's (which didn't end until sometime in the early 1970's, anyway) a progressive politics. No, it won't happen in pop music (all crap), sexuality (we really are freer now than back then, if you take the average person as the exemplar), the drug culture (in order to turn on and drop out, there has to be something worth dropping out of, which there is not), or even the academy (which is all about credentialism today, anyway). But politics, there's an area of life wherein I see some hope, precisely because things have gotten so bad. It takes a Herbert Hoover economy to create the politics of the 1930's, a Johnson/Nixon War/scandal to create the politics of the 1960's and early 1970's, and so the Bush legacy of (long list of horrible stuff here) will create a liberal backlash that will enable us to govern for a generation.

[Odin2005]

56. And * is the new Herbert Hoover.

[Alcibiades]

64. Caligula's my favorite stand-in for Bush

But folks then didn't have a chance to vote him out of office, so Hoover works.

[hsher]

42. May I quote any of you guys in my book about this?

I posted it out of curiosity, not the book - I never dreamed there would be these many answers and so many f*cking GOOD ones. Please let me know somehow if it's okay to quote. You can be anonymous... unless you wanna be KNOWN!

[AngryOldDem]

46. The difference between now and the 60s....

...people had more of a social conscience, they saw beyond their own self-interests, and they did not revel in their complacency and comfort.

[WinkyDink]

47. The 60's were sui generis. There will never be another combination

of musical innovation, assassinations, introduction of mass birth control, Baby Boomers sent to war, the BEATLESFERGAWDSAKES!

Glad I was young then.

[jlayson]

48. Let the big wheel roll.. nt

[sutz12]

49. If you wanted no cynicism, why did you list "It's over?" nt

[hsher]

50. Because

Because I knew if I didn't, somebody would have said it anyway!

[jokerman93]

52. Everything Is Nostalgia Now

It's funny, I think something strange has happened to our civilization this past decade or so. It's like we've hit some kind of time barrier and right about now "the past" is crashing up behind us all - like a giant accordion. What's going on? Who can say? Seems like it depends on who you listen to and which cultural channel you're on. Think about it. In the past ten years we've actually done the Roaring Twenties; the Fascism of the thirties; the patriotism/jingoism war-chaos of the forties, and most certainly we've gotten force-fed the "Leave It to Beaver" aesthetic of the fifties until we choked on it.

I'll get back to the sixties in moment.

Now let's see. Seventies? Mmm. Guess not. No Saturday Night Fever. :-( Too bad. The seventies we're fun - even if they made us wear leisure suits.

The Eighties? Well, we all know how big that "Greed is Good" thing has gotten...

Now I doubt anyone could argue that the Nineties weren't unique in history. O.K. I'll skip the joke about Al Gore, but the Internet as we know it really did get wired in the nineties, and the world went virtual like opening a world-wide dimension portal. Every has to admit that was cool!

Now back to the sixties. Could a second "sixties" happen in America? Sadly, I think that particular parade is over. I say sadly, because no one loves a parade more than me. But I have to admit, I get a feeling lately something novel and different is bound to happen in America, maybe sooner than later.

Sometimes on a quiet day... I think I can almost hear a bit of John Philip Sousa wafting over from the other side of that barrier we've just hit.
:hippie:
J

[SoCalDem]

53. Nope.. It was a snapshot in time..

We boomers were the first LARGE group of kids who had "everything".. Most of us didn;t even have to work.. We had cars, music and free time..and stuff was cheap..

Our parents were the beneficiaries of the post war boom, and most of them lavished us with everything they would have loved to have had at our ages.

Most Moms did not work, so we were well fed, but eager to "get outta the house" and "do our own thing"...

and we did :)

Sometime in the late sixties, reality hit hard when older brothers and boyfriends started dying in Viet Nam..and we "reacted"..

I don;t see kids doing that these days..

[Odin2005]

54. According to a book I've read we'll have to wait untill the 2040's

I recently read a book called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_%28book%29">The Fourth Turning, the main thesis of which is a that there is an cyclical pattern in national mood that results from generations cycling between 4 archtypal temperments, Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. The book has the the last 2 cycles as:

Progressive: Artist, born 1843-1859: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Clarence Darrow

Missionary: Prophet, born 1860-1882: FDR, William Jennings Bryan, Douglas MacArthur, Herbert Hoover, Margaret Sanger

Lost: Nomad, born 1883-1900: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Patton

GI: Hero, born 1901-1924: JFK, Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney, Walter Cronkite, Charles Lindburgh

Silent: Artist, born 1925-1942: Colin Powell, MLK Jr., Walter Mondale, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Woody Allen, Nancy Pelosi

Boomer: Prophet, born 1943-1960: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates

X: Nomad, Born 1961-1981: Barak Obama, Michael Dell, Tom Criuse, Kurt Cobain

Millenial: Hero, born 1982-(?)2002

New Silent: Artist, born (?)2003-



The national mood also shifts in a 4-part cycle caused by where each generation is age-wise (phases of current cycle in parentheses):

Highs (Pax Americana, 1946-1963): old Nomads (Losts), middle-aged Heroes (GIs), young adult Artists (Silents), child prophets (Boomers)

Awakenings (Consciousness Revolution, 1964-1983): old Heroes (GIs), middle-aged Artists (Silents), young adult Prophets (Boomers), child Nomads (Xers)

Unravellings (The Culture Wars, 1984-2004): old Artists (Silents), middle-aged Prophets (Boomers), young adult Nomads (Xers), child Heroes (Millenials)

Crises (?????, 2005- ): old Prophets (Boomers), middle-aged Nomads (Xers) young adult Heroes (Millenials), child Artists (New Silents)




We are entering a crisis period, My generation (the Millenials) are the equivalent of the GI generation. Prophets are the bulders of religions and ideologies, us Heroes are the builders of great civic institutions inspired by the ideologies created by Prophet elders.

[bluedogyellowdog]

57. There may be, way in the future, but

Gen X and Gen Y are not capable of it. I mean that in a good way, not a bad..we're too pragmatic. (I'm a Gen Xer)

Besides, I don't see why we would *want* another 1960s. Wasn't that the decade when JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X and others were assassinated, there was this major war thingy going on in Vietnam, the draft was still in effect, our postwar streak of prosperity hit its first real decline, Nixon was elected, dogs and firehoses were turned on blacks trying to register to vote, sicko cults like Manson's proliferated, the pre-Church Commission CIA and national security agencies operated completely out of control and public oversight, COINTELPRO, Nixon's enemies list and wiretapping...it wasn't a good decade.

The other reason is because anything good that came out of the 1960s has been turned into such blatant commercial kitch by corporate America that it lost its authenticity long ago.

[0rganism]

59. Leave the 1960s alone, the important parts have been assimilated already

Let the reactionaries waste time plotting to return us to a time when blacks barely had rights, liberal leaders were gunned down, women didn't have the choice to abort pregnancy, the closet door was locked for the LGBTs, humanity hung in a balance of nuclear terror, and young men were drafted to die in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Let it be.

We've done that already, we broke free, it was painful and hard. We won that game. We don't have to play it ever again.

The defining mark of the modern conservatives is their inability to reconcile their worldviews with post-60's progress. Step around them, move forward, progress. We have much to do, new threats to overcome, new cultural and scientific frontiers to explore, time is of the essence, and gratuitous nostalgia will gain us nothing. The parts of the '60s you long for never stopped, they IMPROVED.

[Golden Raisin]

60. Right after the Roaring 20's reappear.

There will be new epochs and eras that (for better or worse) stand on their own.

[Raine]

61. No and I wouldn't want it to

I lived thru that period and it was an awful time, it's been romanticized to death. The only part of the sixties I would relive is being young again and I'm now that I think about it I'm not even to sure about that.

[rman]

62. It happened once already, why not again

It's just that it won't be called the 60's.

[mmonk]

63. We would have to have a free press.

Not the connected corrupted one the MSM is.
Right now, most of the free press is on the internet.

[omega minimo]

65. CORPORATE MULTI MEGA MEDIA CONSOLIDATION KILLED IT ON PURPOSE

Gutting education finished it