10. AMERICA SHIFTS TO THE HUMANIST LEFT
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| BOOMER "PROGRESSIVISM" |
Boomer Progressivism. Much had been made publicly about the
blemishes afflicting American society – and the need for deep reform. Clearly to the Boomers, the America that
their middle-class American parents lauded as the best of all possible worlds
was an idea itself that needed to be rejected as foolish – even dangerous –
blind patriotism. Thus – with
considerable encouragement from the intellectuals who commanded the university
classrooms the Boomers attended in increasing numbers – virtually in every
aspect of middle-class life that was put before the Boomers as traditional
cultural legacy they found some element to be challenged, if indeed not even
the whole middle class cultural package to be put aside in the name of serious
progress.
"Come together." But this huge emphasis on
resisting all forms of social authority did not satisfy the human heart and its
natural desire to find its basic identity within some kind of social context. Communalism thus became one of the forms – if
not the major form – this instinct took. Boomer communes were first modeled by
older members of the Silent Generation who returned from overseas service in
the Peace Corps – impacted by the
communal life typical of the villages they lived and worked in during their
two-year time abroad in Third World countries.
Hippie communes thus began to spring up among the Silents – but soon were picked up by
the rising Boomer generation as well as an ideal
social form.
The fundamental conformity of Boomer "individualism." Indeed, for a generation raised to resist all social authority and do
its own personal thinking, the Boomers turned out to be amazingly conformist –
clothing and hair styles – even the
swaggering walk – as well as music, topics of social interest and even language
styles modeled closely on the personal styles of Joan Baez and Bob Dillon – the
coolest of the early Boomer social models (soon to be
joined by other Boomer social models such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Janice
Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, etc.). This
tendency to conformity included even VW minivans decorated with peace and sex
symbols – the minivans themselves symbols of the mobility and rootlessness of Boomer life.
The Beatles – as they developed in the later 1960s
The Rolling Stones –
1965
Top center: MickJagger;
bottom left to right:
Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, Keith Richards and
Charlie Watts
Participants in a Los Angeles "love-in"
For many young "Boomer" Whites,
1967 was supposed to be
a summer of "hippy" love
(But: 128 cities were
hit by race riots in 1967)
| RELATING TO SOCIAL ISSUES OF THE DAY |
Drug usage itself became a key element of the Boomer identity. Helping to clarify the pattern was the Beatles
music group – making the transition from the innocent "Love, Love Me Do" and "I
Want to Hold Your Hand" (1962) – to the nonsensical "We All
Live in a Yellow Submarine" (1966) – to the LSD-inspired "Lucy
in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967).
Sharing a joint in Tahquitz Canyon, Palm Springs, California
A faculty member showing
support for the FSM
Feminism. Then there was the cause of feminism. In 1963 Betty Friedan published a book, The
Feminine Mystique, one that would not only announce the startup of a new
round of militant feminism, but serve as the basic Bible of young
college-educated women, instructing them as to how to combat the male
domination of the professional world.
Marriage
and the family (that is, the fundamental institution of Middle-Class America)
took a huge hit with Friedan's call to arms.
In her book she depicted family life not only as the underpinning of
male tyranny but also as terribly stifling of a woman's intellectual abilities.
Women needed to find escape from the marriage trap – and discover their real
purpose in life in the professional world.
Of course they could expect to find sexual discrimination awaiting them
there. But this was the point of the book: it was time for women to rise up
(like the Blacks) against this world of (male) domination and secure for
themselves the right to take as much control of American society as had long
been held by men. And thus the battle of
the sexes got underway.
Black civil rights. Marching in protest
against Southern racism certainly stirred the hearts of young Americans. But it was mostly the older Silents who joined the pastors,
professors and journalists who headed to the South to support the social and
political rights of Southern Blacks.
Boomers would eventually join the ongoing civil rights movement – sort
of – at least from a distance. Anyway,
by the time the Boomers had emerged on the political stage, the Black militants
such as the Black Panthers had taken over the
Black civil rights movement – and Whites were not invited to become part of
their campaign.
Against President Johnson's war in Vietnam. Boomers did, however, have one great crusade
to undertake, one that would put heroic touches to their lives: the need to end
the Vietnam War – and the accompanying
military draft that was carrying young American males off to a conflict that
was deadly – and apparently pointless.
Thus
the Boomers were beginning to voice loudly their opposition to "Johnson's war." Why should America's youth be drafted to
serve in a distant war whose morality was questionable? Boomers were beginning to identify the
motivation behind the entire Vietnam venture war as being simply
raw imperialism – American imperialism. This was pure evil: the strong
dictating their social-cultural organization to the weak – the very thing the
Boomers had been carefully programmed to resist – as heroically as possible.
In October of 1967 thousands
of American youth converged
peacefully on the Pentagon to demonstrate the proposition
that what
the world needed was more "flower power"
and less military power.
"A female demonstrator offers
a flower to military police on guard
at the Pentagon
during an anti-Vietnam
demonstration"
A "Peacenik" at the March on
the Pentagon – 1967
March on the Pentagon protesting
the Vietnam War – 1967
March on the Pentagon – October 1967
The anti-war protest at the Pentagon – October 1967
The anti-war protest at the Pentagon – October 1967
"Dirty Fascist" screams an
angry University of Wisconsin
protester at police – October 1967
| THE DEEP SPLIT BETWEEN THE VET AND THE BOOMER GENERATIONS |
And
thus it was that a vicious war of words broke out between the two generations –
words mostly of just an emotional rather than truly rational character to
them. Indeed, complex concepts such as
democracy, imperialism, Fascism, and Communism became mere slogans rallying
intense support or opposition rather than actual argument or reasoned debate
that the two generations hurled at each other.
Tragically for America, this Boomer-versus-Vet battle produced a generational
division that would never find healing – a lack of healing in part due to the
involvement in this Boomer crusade by numerous American intellectuals,
individuals who understood the Boomers as valuable allies in their own quest
for vengeance for the mistreatment they – or at least their older colleagues –
had suffered at the hands of the Vets in the 1950s.
Thus it was that the causes for this generational split were broad and
vague in nature – but at times violent nonetheless.
Dustin Hoffman starring in the hit movie "The Graduate" – 1967
He portrayed a listless
youth who was unwilling to be
drawn into the plastic world of his parents, who was
seduced by a close friend of his parents
(the hypocritical
and
scheming Mrs. Robinson), and finally found freedom
by breaking himself
and his girlfriend (Mrs. Robinson's
daughter) free from the clutches of
the shallow adult world.
Miles
H. Hodges
