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Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek
True, and I see what you’re saying, carnation. It just seems like with Vietnam going on, and all the really important leaders in the US at the time were being assassinated, it just appeared to be really chaotic. I wish I could have lived back then and lived that history, the music especially. It just seems like music from that time period (the late 60s into the early 70s) had noticeable overlaps? It just seems like the transition back then seemed to reflect changes in societal moods. I mean, you’d know better than I would, but it just seems like the Vietnam War was a huge factor in the late 60s. I also think losing Bobby Kennedy was a major turning point. And then the hippies and the experimental generation of the early 70s seemed to have calmed things down. The music in the early 70s compared to the late 60s just seemed like it reflected that.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrozen Sands
I wasn’t around in the 60s either, but the differences I’ve notice between the chaotic mess of now vs. back then is folks started movements and not moments. A moment last a few days to a week, and then as soon as folks start losing something of value, they stop protesting and go back to their everyday lives.
Back in the 60s, folks protested and kept protesting until they saw changes. For example, I’ll use these mass school shootings. As soon as a shooting on a large scale happens, students do these short-term walkouts, but then come back to school two days later. If you’re going to protest, don’t come back to school until they do something about the damn guns. I’d even go as far as not paying property taxes to add to a movement. Yeah, you could lose your property and you might have to homeschool your kid, but if a movement like that was done on a mass scale, it couldn’t be ignored. They’d have to submit. But the downside of it, sacrifices would have to be made. You’d have to give something up. Folks won’t make sacrifices like that today. They would in the 60s, though.
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See...a lot of those protests, probably most, petered out or were just for show. Friends at northern universities would get really mad because a big group of protesters would block a campus building or cause classes to be canceled because of the danger. After a few days, the cops would clear them out and arrests would be made and it would be discovered that most of the protesters weren't even students there.
A lot of times, they were for ridiculous things, like "students shouldn't have required courses" or "this campus should immediately be replanted as a forest", etc., and the media bought into it and filmed it. Some turned out to be very dangerous; my husband's cousin was caught on the Kent State campus in the middle of those shootings.
However, I would say that there wasn't any more "dedication to the cause" than there is now. Most people weren't going to sacrifice their homes or lives to a cause any more than they do now. I know what it seems like! The media have recreated the 60s and 70s as romantic times when anything was possible and huge causes were followed and youth prevailed.
In reality: it was no different from life today.
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