4/9/98. Revised 4/8/98.
*aim of presentation is (1) to assess 1960s cause and consequence;
and
(2) more narrowly to consider relation of culture and politics,
cultural change and social reform
a. NOT the role of artists in society OR the direct impact of
counterculture on reform Steigerwald: "Those who confused cultural
rebellion with political change misunderstood the nature of both..."
(p186)
b,.Rather highlight "political" role of "culture" and pattern of
cultural protest/reorientation in major periods of reform
|
Jacksonians 1830s-40.
working class
radicalism
Transcendentalism Progressives 1890s-1910s
Immigrant Labor Left
(Debs) Realism
(Howells,Riis) [Social Gospel]
New Deal 1930s
CIO Old Left (CP)
Modernism New Frontier-G.
Society 1960s
Civil Rights New Left
Counterculture
[Christian Right]
|
**thesis: to understand social "refrom" and "cultural" change must
look at underlying factors (social, economic) which first produce
activism and typically end in cycle of "conservatism" both culturally
and politically
For online materials on the WWW see
"The
Sixties Project"
I. The New Left (see
class #18b)
II. The Counterculture
*1994 election of Republicans revived debate over "counterculture."
Gingerich used "countercultural as all purpose pejorative in election
campaign; and got answer from Roszak (NT 12/3/94) [ popularized term
in]
**Interpretations
a. Roszak, Making of a
Counterculture 1969 saw as "minority
within the protest. movement" with antecedents back to late
18th-early 19th romanticism. Richard King, Party of Eros similar, sees as
"new transcendentalists" coming at end of same urban-industrial era
that Transcendentalists saw beginning."
b. as became identified with everything from drugs to break down of
the family seemed like destructive adolescent rebellion--, this view
set to animus in David Horowitz/Collier, Destructive Generation. Milder
in Matusow, Unraveling. Farber, notes that it is everywhere and nowhere, but puts
positive spin.
c.. rather today propose to explore as first stage of a significant
cultural reorientation of American culture from "modern" to
"postmodern." ( David Steigerwald, The
Sixties and the End of Modern America
(1995)
*** CC and New Left (brief history of the NL) (3) periods using
Swarthmore as example. : (1) 1960-64 when Civil Rights dominated and
New Left arose; (2) 1965-67 (spring of 1968) when both coalesced with
a larger movement of "counterculture"; (3) fall 1968-72 gradually
breakdown , with counterculture cooped by consumer capitalism, and
New Left fragmenting and going underground.
****both had roots in writings that set the agenda of the 1960s
1959 Norman O. Brown, Life Against
Death
1960 Goodman, Growing Up
Absurd (1960)
1962 Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoos
Nest
1962 Michael Harrington, The Other
America
1963 Friedan, Feminine
Mystique
Glazer, Beyond the Melting
Pot
1964 Marcuse, One Dimensional
man
McLuhan, Understanding
Media
1965 Autobiography of Malcolm
X.
A.. Cultural Roots
1.. Dyonysian cross currents from late 1950s
a. Beats
b. Norman O. Brown et al.
2. also the "exhaustion of modernism" (i) early modernism had radical
edge; but (ii) gradually became domesticated. See Morris Dickstein,
Gates of Eden. .
Steigerwald echoes: "By the 1950s modernism was wearing thin. (p.
156)
2. Hippies
3. Drugs
a. early experiments (see Michael Halberstam, The Fifties
b. Timothy Leary
c. Ken Kesey
4. Rock Music
5. Communes and Fringe Groups a. Diggers b. Yippies: Jerry Rubin,
Do It!; Abbie
Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of It.
III. Social/Political Context
*immediate context was Vietnam war and protest. But important to
realize that both counterculture and New Left antdated.
A. The Boomer generation.
**note recent talk of "Generation X" has focused attention on
concept. Cf. class," "gender" ethnicity." Is it any less valid?:
1. population figures tell much of the story.
a. numbers.
b. median age of U.S pop reached 30 in 1952, the highest in History.
BB reversed trend and by 1968 media 27.7. By 1975 back over 3 28 and
projected by 1990 over thirty.
2. consequences of numbers alone: a. work and job opportunities
(Morris, p. 73); b. crime rates (Morris, p. 74); and c. divorce
3. "Generation" as category of historical analysis
As "cohort generation" (based loosely on William Strauss/Neil Howe,
Generations
(1991),
(I) difference between "family generation" and "cohort"
generation
(ii) . Concept of "generation" historically considered. (see
Schlesinger, "Cycles")
(iii) . U.S. Generations (see Appendix)
B. Techological:
1. automobile
2. television
a. one one hand "nationalized" violence (cf rr 19th c. See Farber
opening on "images") as key to decade). Basis for fragile Black/white
alliance.
b. also undermined authority--many sources of news?
3. the "pill" (see Halberstam, The
1950s
4. automation
* affected Black and white differnetially, but for both threatened a
type of obsolescence (see Goodman, Growing
Up Absurd).
C. Economic: consumer
revolution
sense of possibility, choice
Quote Rubin, Do It (see photocopy)
Todd Gitlin, The Sixties Days of
Hope, Days of
Rage , p. similar point.
D. Sociological /Institutional
Factors
1. Suburbs
a. immediate consequences
i. separation of classes, races
ii. absent father
iii. loss of sense of place and history
*result. "romantic personality: antiinstitutional, antihistorical,
belief all the world and nature an extension of the imperial self
2. Ghetto and Urban Crisis (see Steigerwald, pp. )
3. Universities
*increases unparalleled . 1945-1965 % of Americans to college from
22% r to 45%
a. staffing. As as radicalizing elements
b. also faculty result of bureaucracy/professionalism
c. mixing of ethnic and racial groups
d. students living together away from parents
IV. Decline and Fragmentation
*disappeared quickly, ironically when three books summing a up as if
permanent: Roszak; Charles Reich, The
Greening of America (1969); Philip Slater,
The Pursuit of Loneliness;. Also Jean Francois Revel, Without Jesus or marx.
A. New Left
B. Counterculture
V Legacy the balance sheet
A. At time (and since among defenders) apears to have heralded
important changes
1. popularized antiwar and ultimately helped end Vietnam
2. transformed manner and morals
3. altered university curriculum
4. demystified authority and moved mainstream left, not only Civil
Rights (tomorrow) but a. women's movement, b. gay and lesbian rights;
environmentalism; disabled
B. without denying accomplishments of later, also number of
negatives/unintended consequences (cf. New Deal)
1. elected Nixon, prolonged war and cemented Republican political
power
2. manner/morals coopted by capitalism and led to various problems
(war on drugs, women, Ehrenreich, Hearts of
Men, family
3. University
(a) "Radical academy" and resulting attack on university
(b) possible change in entire structure of "knowledge" Lyotard, "What
is PostModernism" examines altered "structure" knowledge" with
cybernetics, computers and all the related fields concerning computer
languages etc.
i. as language is translated into "quantities" of info, certain
things that can't be so communicated are dropped out; no longer count
as "knowledge" (p. 140)
ii. nature and situation of "knower" changes as relation becomes one
of "commodity producers and consumers" (p. 140)
iii.. in future nation states may fight for knowledge and its control
just as one for territory
iv. but also will erode states as they seen as "noise."
Multinationals one example.
v. learning will circulate not for "educational value," with
distinction no longer between "knowledge" and "ignorance" but
"payment knowledge" used for practical everyday purposes, and
"investment knowledge" (longer term).
4. Postmodern America (according to pomo analysis) quite opposite to
"power to people" and continuing social activism. (For details ee H47
#21. Defining Postmodernism)
1. markets/consumerism etc. , destabilizing role of capitalism,
consumerism both to community and sensibility.
2. destruction of community
* Kalaidjian, American culture
(using Berman) notes directions of
traditional working communities, in Levittown, Cross Bronx Expressway
etc.
V.. Conterrevolution.
*contemproary debates aimed at the dual legacy of the 1960: Great
Society "reforms" and countercultural revolution in manners and
morals. Explains the tension within the Republican party betwen free
marketeers and and Christian Right.
Appendix:
U.S. Generations: 20th
Century
(1) Progressives (a) 1840-1859 (19 years): included the intellectual
pioneers (James, Holmes, etc.) (b) 1860-1880 (20 years). (a)
"institutionalizers born in the 1850s through mid-1860s (these
include WW and TR, Addams, Dewey); and (b) the
popularizers/activists.
(2) Post-progressive 1880-1899 (19 years)
(3) G.I. (Civic) 1901-26: two phrases: (a) 1901-15; (b) 1916-26
(4) Silent 1927-1941 (with those born 1940-146 bonding either with
previous or later) "cusp"
(5) Boomers (1946-58) and 1959-69 (Boomlet)
*for these three can see skipped 'generation" by looking at leading
politicians
Presidents
Skipped
Boomers
Eisenhower 189 Johnson 1908- Reagen 1911- Nixon 1913- Kennedy 1917- Carter 1924- Bush 1924- [Dole 1923-]
Mondale 1928- Dukakis 1933- Kemp 1935- Ferraro 1935- G. Hart 1936- Bannister 1935-
Clinton 1946?- Gingerich
-(6) "13th"1969-1981: Generation X.
(7) New "Civic" ??
Bibliography
Counterculture
Dickstein, Morris, Gates of
Eden (1977)
Gitlin, Todd The Sixities Days of
Hope, Days of
Rage
Roszak, Theodore, ,The making of a counter
culture; reflections on the technocratic society and itsyouthful
opposition (1969)
Whitmer, Peter O., Aquarius revisited :
seven who created the sixties counterculture that
changed
America : (William Burroughs, Allen
Ginsberg, KenKesey, Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, TomRobbins, Hunter
S. Thompson) (1987)
Postmodernism
Berman, Marshall, All that is solid melts
into air : the experience of modernity
(New York : Simonand Schuster, c1982)
Gergen, Kenneth, The Saturated
Self (1991)
Harvey, David, The condition of
postmodernity : an enquiry into the origins of cultural
change (Blackwell, 1989)
Jameson, Fredric, Postmodernism, or The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Jencks, Charles ed, The Post-Modern
reader (New York : St. Martin's Press,
1992)
Natoli , Joseph and Linda Hutcheon A
Postmodern reader, (1993);
Smart, Barry. , Modern conditions :
postmodern controversies (London ; New
York : Routledge, 1992
Written by Robert Bannister, for classroom use in History 47,
Swarthmore College 1/5/98. May be reproduced in whole or part for
educational purposes, but not copied or distributed for profit.