What the heck happened to my generation?

[Skidmore]

I was born in the mid 50s. We came of age in during Viet Nam. Ours was the generation that took to the streets in huge numbers to demand peace, civil rights, women's rights, and human rights. What happened to us? How did we become more focused on things than people? We're the parents now. What have we taught our kids? It appears that all problems can be solve through purchasing a machine, something electronic, clothing, a pill.... Self-esteem comes from a bottle full of whatever you choose--medication, alcohol, perfume, cosmetics--or if you don't like who you are, just nip and tuck.

I know I talked yesterday about watching "Woodstock" on VH1. Those young people had hope for a peaceful world. Many of those same people as adults backed beating up a country that was no threat. Who did so many of them back then who sought freedom from convention become so entrapped in religiosity that they now believe they have the right to be God and legislate a narrow set of values for all mankind? How did war become a video game exercise? How did the desire to make peace and freedom a world value become corrupted into a neo-con conquest for empire?

[Wetzelbill]

1. great questions

I wish I knew. I am not of your generation, either. I cannot say.

[Spinzonner]

2. Perhaps some of us kept looking for satisfaction from the outside

whether it was drugs, sex, or other stimulations and then things.

As for the war, there are people out there with an agenda who will use and abuse whatever tactics they can to get what they want. And the strongest things they have is fear. A lot of people were willing to sell their souls and suspend their judgment over it - including and especially leaders who should have known better.

[evilqueen]

3. Quite a few seem to have lost their ideals.

But not all of us. I don't really know when the hippies (those a few years older than me) started turning into yuppies, but it seems to me an awful lot of them did. Maybe it got harder to resist the grindstone of an "establishment" lifestyle once they got married and had children of their own?

Socially, it became "socially unacceptable" to cling to those ideals, it seems.

Personally, I can't stand the corporate world of business and the suits who run it. It's like dog eat dog, and inter-office politics where anyone will stab anyone else in the back just to get ahead... maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it looks like to me.

[Skidmore]

6. I feel the same way about the corporate world.

In my life, I have never worked a retail job and never will. I just can't bring myself to sell a bill of goods. I'm uncomfortable in that world. But it is our generation that came up with the MBA as the to-have degree for the next generation. We embraced "bigger is better" in a way our parents never dreamed of. We have supersized everything, from french fries and automobiles to malls and churches. Hell, in the process we even supersized landfills--so much for love of all things belonging to Mother Earth. And now, there are those among us who tell us all that the earth is ours to do with as we please. Yesterday on Washington Journal, the guy representing the refining industry was telling the audience that oil will never run out. That every so often there is this panicky frenzy about oil running out in 20 years and we always find more, and then he proceeds to say the technology is getting better to allow us to find more. Noting that oil no longer sits in huge wells beneath the earth's surface but must be squeezed from rocks should be telling us something. If we need special machinery to obtain it, then there is truth to its growing scarcity. My generation needs to stand up with a roar, something we've neglected to do for some time now, and before it's too late. It is our children and grandchildren that have been sold short. It is our children and grandchildren that are dying for for coporate profits and we have a responsibility.

[evilqueen]

12. I've worked retail.

I honestly tried to fit into that world. Management didn't like me, though, because I would be truthful with the customers and warn them before the sales were coming up, so they'd save money. I can't help it, I'm too honest to be in retail. hehehe

As it is now, I'm poor, but I have a clear conscience. I still stand up for what I believe in. And I did serve in the military too... it wasn't all just "talk about honor" with me.

I'd like to note, for those who didn't live through the 60's and 70's, that the anti-war movement didn't start with the hippies or the Black Panthers or the Weathermen... it started with the Vietnam Vets who came back to tell us the truth. Other groups joined in, just as they're joining in with Cindy Sheehan, and though the rightwingers might try to paint us all with a broad brush and attack our stand for peace with a lot of name calling and lies, the truth of the matter is what is at the heart of what's going on down in Crawford right now.

And that is exactly it. Cindy (and the rest who understand and support what she's doing) wants to call attention to the truth. And that is exactly what Bush does NOT want.

[acmejack]

17. You are right on all counts

Material world overcame many, including many of the people that one would have thought immune to the siren's call. I have been distraught over some who abandoning the great ideals of that era.

I have sworn to myself never to work in another cubicle farm or wear a suit to work again. The corporate world is as you described it, people who one counts as friends will gladly do you in if it is to their advantage.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. A lot of the "Woodstock generation" men were only in it for the free love

A lot of men were also in the movement just to keep their own butts out of Vietnam. Once Vietnam no longer became a pressing concern, people of that generation started looking inward. They didn't call the '70s the "Me Decade" for nothing.

[LaurenG]

5. They drank the self righteous Kool aid

I have many friends, upper middle class who feel their money and their religion are all that matters. We were brought up as younger children in a pretty conservative time. I guess that is what makes them feel safe. A great many of them wouldn't question authority for any reason, (obviously- right).:shrug:

[mopaul]

7. things they do look awful c-c-cold, i hope i die before i git old

[Dynasty_At_Passes]

8. One reason: It happened after narcicism.....

Karl Rove staked the whole thing out...... Lets get rid of Karl Rove permanently for treason, and make him go down hard so that this lie called "aristocracy" goes down too.....

[punpirate]

9. I have thought about this...

... because I am about a decade older than you, and the people who were leading those movements were my contemporaries.

Over time, I've realized that some of that bunch (I would use Jerry Rubin as an example) were no less power-hungry than the people in government they sought to overthrow. And they did expect to overthrow the government--they honestly thought they had that much power and skill.

In fact, they got their asses handed to them. The demonstrations helped end the war (but no more so than the single-handed actions of people like Daniel Ellsberg and the release of the Pentagon Papers). When the war ended, so did those major movements. Many people retreated into themselves or into New Ageism and the like. But, those who sought power just retrenched, and decided that trying to destroy the system didn't work, so they went back to school and got MBAs and joined it, possibly at the beginning thinking they could change it from within. The system, instead, assimilated them and corrupted them.

Perhaps the best example of that is the number of `60s intellectual leftists who, having failed at grabbing power from that side of the political spectrum, suddenly shifted far to the right, joining the neo-cons and the New Right--people like Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, David Horowitz and Irving Kristol.

My best guess, anyway.

Cheers.

[annabanana]

22. Once again, punpirate, I think you've nailed it

I'm a '49er, so I think I must be a bit younger than you (;-) ) and I remember that heady feeling that let us really believe in the Age of Aquarius. When the war ended people who had been part of the Woodstock Nation got very insular. The music reflects it perfectly. EST came along, and the fitness craze, etc. Part of it may have been exhaustion, the rest distraction. It was a relief not to have to be saving the world.

I don't believe that most of them (us) feel like they've (we've) sold out. It was just "different priorities". That's why I believe that the hardest part of fixing things amounts to getting their attention, you know, like the donkey and the farmer with the two-by-four.

[punpirate]

23. Some have suggested that I'm...

... talking about everyone here. But, the original question, paraphrased, was why this generation seems to have sold out, and that was what I was trying to address. I certainly wasn't trying to paint everyone with a very broad brush.

But the business of some wanting political power very badly is a valid one, I believe--the children of those `50s-`60s heavyweight leftist intellectuals and their friends are now running the government or are power brokers in this far-right government we now experience--Elliott Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz and Podhoretz's son, John, was a speechwriter for Reagan and is now an all-round right-wing media pest, William Kristol is Irving Kristol's son and served as Dan Quayle's chief of staff, etc., and some of the worst examples of corporate globalization are run by people who came of age in that time.

Cheers.

[Q]

10. The people you're talking about didn't go to Woodstock...

...or today make fun of the 60s and 70s as a time that took our nation down the wrong path...to love and peace. Most of the generation you refer to have dropped out...just holding on in a world gone mad. They are the 'slumbering giant' that needs to awaken and take us back to a time where love made peace possible.

[dobegrrrl]

11. I often wonder the same thing.

I was in high school as Viet Nam wound down, but the attitude was so different. I teach and see it every day.

[teach1st]

13. The slime culture envelops quickly...

...and catches us unaware. It happened gradually to many of us.

But I know of many who didn't slip into the jello mold. We're out here in the belly, hanging on, hanging low, being as subversive as we can, when we can.

You can point out the Jerry Rubins, but they were the ones who were never on the bus. Some, the Abbie Hoffmans, fell victims to the poison, but there are many of use who never strayed, or who have fought their way back from the abyss, either cultural, personal, or political. We still are everywhere. We have been awaiting an awakening in the young, nudging them when we can. It's been frustrating.

But now we see an awakening, most recently through Cindy Sheehan. Perhaps, just perhaps, the times they are a-changing again.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Two people, two outcomes that are indicative of our generation.

Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were two sides of the same coin, working via political theater ("terrorism" by today's standards) to educate and change society (stop the war, less corporatism, go back to the farm, start a commune, and more).

Abbie gave lectures with G. Gordon Liddy and eventually went on the lam under the guise of Barry Freed to all over the country but eventually ended up as an environmentalist in upstate New York. His depression unfortunately overtook him. It isn't clear whether the depression was based on how little this country progressed or whether it was his inner demons. But he was consistent in his views.

Jerry went Wall Street. He embraced the center from which he had previously and mockingly thrown dollar bills onto the floor to see brokers drop and scurry to scoop them up, making his point. He died from getting hit by a car before we could see whether this change of attitude was temporary or permanent. But he didn't stick the message.

These two men show that under the circumstances, you follow what you think is the ultimate truth FOR YOU. I believe that our generation had a truth for their times. I'm not certain without an illegimate war in Vietnam, we would have seen the same energy, the dedication, the marches, etc. You saw a similar divide in the 1930s with youth who were ready to go to Spain to fight in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against Franco. Some grew up to raise "red diaper babies" and others retreated to their Cape Cods in the suburbs. I'm beginning to believe this is endemic to some generations who were caught in a national crisis.

[Skidmore]

16. It seems as those we have homogenized the world our young live in

to the point where, in the middle of another illegitimate war, have taught them not to question authority. I read an article last year which posited that overprogramming children for sports and other competitive group activities has lead to a general predisposition to group think among the youth. Can that energy be captured again? I think it derived from the fact that military service was mandatory then. You knew you had a number and there was little you could do to get out of it if your family didn't have money. Woodstock was three days of respite from a world full of violence and poverty. It was an interlude without guns and when the threat of nuclear annihilation was tuned out. It also was a glimpse of the possibilities of large groups of people living peacefully without focusing on the crap that normally divides them--class, race, gender, orientation. It saddens me that we have lost that sense of possibilities. I'm not sure we've passed much of it on to our kids.

[no_hypocrisy]

19. I'm not sure we can "teach" it to our children (CSN&Y aside).

It may be something you just have to live through in order to understand it, if at all.

[evilqueen]

21. I saw Abby...

...a few years before he died. My impression was that he hadn't really lost that fire in the belly, but that he was trying to talk to people who really didn't "get" what he was telling them (the younger college generation of the 80's).

I enjoyed seeing him, though.

[HeeBGBz]

15. I'm about the same as I ever was

Non-materialistic = no money, no power. Still believe in the same stuff, but feel like a non-entity.

[SoCalDem]

18. We grew up, and took on ordinary responsibilities.

I was born in '49, and was 18 in '68.. We had the luxury of "doing our thing" back then, but once we married and had kids, most of us had to shift focus.. It's just what happens..

When we are young, we think we will NEVER be old, but you know what?..Time stops for no one..

Look at your own life. How much actual TIME (or extra money) do YOU have to devote to "issues/advocacy/marches etc"?

If it comes down to spending your few spare hours and bucks on your family or other things, the family will usually win out..(as it should be)

The torch gets passed to the ones with the time, energy, and the fire in the belly.. It's just the way it is. If the young ones are "too busy" or don't care to take the baton, they will be the ones to suffer the most..

[tsuki]

20. I've asked that same question myself.