The issues of civil rights and desegregation, the environment, sexual liberation and freedom, drug use, religion, attitudes towards war, gay rights and just a general tweaking of the nose of the power structure all found their birth in the sixties cultural revolution. Dies were cast and lots were chosen and there has been little consensus or equilibrium since. The calico cat and the gingham dog of the left and right continue to tear each other apart in a latter day war of the roses.
In the ensuing decades, the excesses and dangers of unfettered freedoms became clear with the advent of herpes and then AIDS, twelve step programs and Affirmative action and then quotas. It was an inevitable counterbalance. The two sides are now very evenly matched. The 64 dollar question is where do we go from here? Is there a new post cultural revolutionary paradigm lurking out there that in the words of the great eared sage will allow us to rise above the rancor and "all get along"?
I don't think that the unleashed genie can ever be firmly placed back in the bottle. And those that long for the supposed innocence of the Eisenhower era are dealing with some pretty significant anger issues these days. Wreak god's vengeance on the fornicators, brownskins and sinners in general.
What momentous issues have we had to wrestle with since Watergate and the final curtain fell on the sixties? That is, besides running injuries and the low carb diet...
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I know that psychologists are in general agreement that our psyches are pretty much formed between the ages of 4 and 7, if not earlier. Most probably our tendency to go liberal or conservative is germinated deep in our gestating psyches. I don't know if we get it from our parents or some internal genetic coding. I know that physiological and psychological testing has shown that the liberal and conservative brain has significant differences in terms of dealing with the issues of personal security and fear. Saw some interesting data on the subject last year.
Of course you do see the occasional exception, where an individual sheds his conservative or liberal skin and takes up with the other side. David Horowitz, Hitchens, Dennis Miller, that ilk. What is interesting to me is that these folks that end up as reactionary right wing ranters never came from the middle or the political center. They were always communists at Oxford or something. Not Miller, he was just an unfunny opportunist who saw an available target audience. But the radicals seem to stay radical on either side of the axis, which looks more and more like a horseshoe with the wacko tips practically touching at the bottom.
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Of course we can be pretty much isolated in our protective cocoons these days. Red State, Blue State, bi-coastal or bible belt, liberal or conservative, we tend to congregate with folks that reinforce our internal directive. We can listen to rabid talk radio or Fox News or seek solace in the wicked mainstream media. We yell our epithets in a vacuum, clearly, we have long since stopped speaking to each other. We may pretend to listen and nod at each other's invective but it is for the sake of decorum and the pretense of fair mindedness, our minds have been long since made up.
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I read an interesting piece yesterday about the long symbiotic relationship between Gulf fishermen and the oil industry. The author said that one should not expect these people to rise up in an angry or political way, they have mostly always had a boot in both camps. Take the five grand and shut up. If the scale of the devastation is as bad as the pessimists insist it could be, with the fishing industry destroyed for years, it will be interesting to see if they remain so forgiving and compliant.
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And so, the civil war is never truly over. We are back to discussing if businesses should have the freedom to discriminate. Or if ethnic studies should ever be taught in our schools, or evolution. Things never get really settled, do they?
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