What happened to our culture in the late 60s/early 70s?

[AdamI]

It's a question I've asked many people, so I'd like to ask it here...

The post-WWII era seems to have been an era of incredible optimism. In the 1950s we were trying to go to space and talking about zipping around the planets with nuclear rockets.

If you go back and read scientific publications and especially more popular scientific writing back then, you see not only a lot of optimism but a lot more open-mindedness than today. Carl Sagan is a great example... back in the early 60s if I remember correctly he was talking about the likelihood of finding ET artifacts (crashed probes, etc.) on the moon or planets.

Scientists in psychology were talking about re-imprinting human consciousness to cure mental illness and empower people. In physics they were talking about energy "too cheap to meter" and anti-gravity. In medicine they were talking about life extension and artificial organs.

The mood in the culture seems different too. I was not alive then, but I've always been fascinated by the era. Two things have always struck me: the rate of cultural innovation and the rate of technological innovation. I find it hard to name a technology that I use on a daily basis that was not essentially invented in the 50s or 60s. (Maybe a few in the 70s...)

To see what I'm talking about, just take a look at what was being done in the 60s:

Here's, well, most of what's in the computer in front of you:

Doug Engelbart: The Demo

Users of Adobe Illustrator, AutoCAD, etc. will recognize this, from 1963:


Stuff like this was getting built in the early 60s using mostly 50s technology:

Wikimedia Error

... I could keep going forever.

Sure, a lot of the wild optimism was hype. I don't find it that surprising that a lot of it turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. But that's not what I'm getting at...

It's been clear to me for years that something "happened" to us around 1970. It seems like we entered a minor dark age.

Technological progress in many fields has virtually halted. Music got stale and stagnant. Cultural experimentation slowed down or stopped. It seems like something "happened" at a deep almost parapolitical or "Jungian collective subconscious" level. Some door slammed shut.

Bold, visionary thinking became verboten. Science adopted the demeanor of rigid dogmatic ultra-materialist skepticism, while equally rigid dogmatic religious fundamentalism swept through the culture at large. A similar fate befell the optimism, with optimistic visions of the future replaced by (among the scientifically-minded) malthusian ecological doomsday hysteria or (among the general public) religious or conspiracy doomsday hysteria. The "can-do" mentality in engineering gave way to curmudgeony pessimism.

Think of Carl Sagan again, and notice how his opinions seemed to go from fearless speculation and optimism to stodgy dogmatic skepticism and doomsday prognostications.

Even the optimism that remains seems... well... different. Contrast the informed, scientific optimism of the 50s and 60s with the silly almost cartoonish "singularity" cult of today. Then it was "we will make a better future, and here's how." Today it's "the singularity will just happen (lots of hand-waving)." It's like a parody of optimism.

Later on in the thread I'll reveal some of my thoughts and some of the answers I've received from people I've asked, but I'm curious about what the Paracast crowd thinks:

What the heck happened to us?

 

[Red]

Perhaps it was the realization for many that even science has a dark side. I think a lot of people had bought into the "world of tomorrow" mentality which presumed that science was going to make our lives easier. Only it wasn't that easy. That world of tomorrow mentality also caused birth defects from thalidomide use; nuclear proliferation; species extinction from pesticide residues; lead paint; and the list goes on.

Edited to note: Thanks for sharing the footage on the sketchpad. That was very interesting.

 

[Jose Collado]

The reality is, people can dream. Making the dream a reality is another thing entirely. You just have to be realistic and understand the limitations of our technology.

Beam me up Scotty!

Damn it...I guess I'll walk.

 

[Double Nought Spy]

Ha! Synchonicity... I just got through watching the movie Vanishing Point. Never had seen the whole thing. It was made in '71. That movie fits neatly in here. It seems to have had a point, but, uh, what were we talking about, anyway?

The movie and this thread remind me that I have long thought of the '50s and '60s as Friday and Saturday night. The '70s seemed like a long hungover Sunday after too much fun. The '80s? Damn Monday.

Lots of things are worse but most things are better. Males my age will recall wondering if we were going to be shipped off to that pointless meat grinder of a war, or be blown to smithereens in our hometowns for that matter, or die a slow painful death from "fallout." That feeling is hard to describe. You had to be there, I guess, Those issues have not gone away, of course, but at least we don't have the draft. Yet. If you had asked me in high school when I thought we'd have a black president, I'd have guessed a hundred years or so.

Computers were pretty well figures out in general terms even before the government pumped massive amounts of dough into their development for the space program. It takes time to get them developed to the point any schmuck with a few hundred dollars can get one and go online. They still amaze me, even when I am trying to get the dreadful things to work in some approximation of their advertised capabilities. Check out Vannevar Bush and his "Memex" for a bit of amazing prescience.

Progress moves in quantum leaps, with seeds from decades past suddenly sprouting as if by magic. The civil rights struggle was mapped out a generation or two before the awful clashes we can recall. Reading some of the thinking of the civil rights leaders from the '30s can be really surprising.

Enough rambling prattle. Work comes early tomorrow.

 

[TClaeys]

I think the questions turned out to be much harder to answer than we originally thought. But they are still being worked on and we will find an answer in due time. Perhaps the optimism was met with an equal dose of reality. Nothing comes easy.

But at the same point, in a matter of a few decades, we are now on the verge of answers. Life extension is inevitable and serious scientific work is being conducted. Robotics will change our world in the years to come. The energy nut is a bit more difficult, but a myriad of emerging technologies will surely change this game as well. Genetic engineering will be more commonplace soon and I would guess that it would be an integral part to move away from the planet. Communication has already drastically sculped our world into a seamless exchange of massive amounts of particularly important information.

It's all happening, but when the optimism was met by complexity there was a learning curve. Not too bad though getting to this point in a few decades. In a few more will have the flying car, the self-generating energy homes, invisibility, and Mr Fusion where trash becomes fuel for our cars. But perhaps that is a bit too optimistic.

BTW, I love 70's music.

 

[AdamI]

I agree to some extent with some of the responses so far, but technology is only a small fraction of what I was getting at. I just emphasized it because I'm very into technology, so technological innovation and commercialization is a cultural indicator that I really notice.

But I was really getting at something deeper... the collapse of optimism and intellectual bravery. People didn't seem so afraid back then of talking about possibilities that were "outside the box." People still think about things like this, but it's verboten to talk about it in polite company and it would be utterly unacceptable for someone in a position of authority to talk about them.

 

[dusty]

I haven't read all the responses in this thread but since the 50's and 60's I think the biggest influence on the gradual decline in peoples optimism and drive to actually create has got to be Television.

It seems to me that TV is responsible for more wasted time than anything else and consequently, this has dulled most peoples senses, their interest and unfortunately perhaps their capacity for creative thought. If you take for example the design of your average family home from the Victorian era in the UK, the main feature and focal point to any room was the fireplace. The sitting room used to be a place where families gathered, communicated and made their own entertainment.

Dont get me wrong I'm just the same as most folk these days and the TV is right where the fireplace should be, difference being in this household at least, it is used more like a toy box (Video games and DVD's). If it wasn't for that we wouldn't have one. It genuinely saddens me when I chat with so many people and all they seem to talk about is the shit they are served up on the idiot box. Rarely have I met anyone immune to it's influence. Sadly it seems like most folk are happy to live spellbound and ignorant, content and often eager to plan their time around a TV schedule.
Personally I think this is probably highly desirable from the point of view of government for example, and that's exactly the way they like it.

What's that thing about the Opium of the masses again?

Mark

 

[Hermes]

"What happened to our culture in the late 60s/early 70s?"

Strangely enough, "date rape" comes to mind.

Our civilization got collectively drunk on its ingenuity (which was mistaken for brilliance), our might (which many mistook for invincibility), and our excess (which many imagined to be real wealth), then we got stoned on petty entertainments (which many mistook for reality).

Then, after sufficiently numbing our minds, our would-be rulers -- who cooperated to serve all of this up to us -- had their way with us, stole our wallets, robbed many of us of our homes and everything in them, and then left us bereft. And of course still asleep.

Morning comes with a shock. And outrage.

 

[CapnG]

I put it down mostly to naivete. In the 50's we simply didn't know just how hard things like space travel would really be to accomplish. Also WW2 had recently ended and in the frenzy of rebuilding it would be easy to believe you could build something new and better. As the rebuilding began to taper off though it became fairly obvious that people generally don't want "new and better" they want "the same but modern".

This sort of ties in to dusty's TV comment, since almost everything on tv, is just an updated version of something that was already there, the most glaring example of which would be the sitcom which is basically "The Honeymooners" over and over, season after season, til the end of time. People like to dream but when it comes to actually changing the world, they prefer the familiar.

And let's not forget the whole cold-war thing. I grew up in the 80s, a time when we knew only two things for certain: Disco was dead and we could all be completely annihilated at any second by a global, thermo-nuclear war, the outcome of which would be so horrible that the survivors would envy the dead. That's the sort of thing that tends to put a dent in your optimism.

 

[paraschtick]

Some of you might want to check out Dave McGowan's series of articles on Laurel Canyon. It talks about how a number of American bands of the 60s had ties to all sorts of spooky things such as how an inordinate number of members of certain bands were sons or related to people in the Military and/or Military Intelligence. It then goes on to outline how the anti-war movement was nullified through the manipulation of the hippie movement etc etc etc..

If you believe it or not it certainly makes for an interesting read.

Oh ... and ... you can also learn how Neil Young was a fan of Charles Manson too ... must be why I never could stand his deeply silly whining .

Dave's website is here:

http://davesweb.cnchost.com/

 

[dusty]

To follow paraschtick's train of thought,

I have always thought it a little sad that the Ovation guitar company use a material called Lyrachord in the construction of their famous bowl back. This material was developed by Kaman Corp for helicopter rotor blades,
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...esnum=10&ved=0CCAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Along with that this companies close ties with the defence industry is probably something many guitar players are not aware of, and being the peace loving type I find this slightly ironic.

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Kaman-Corp-Company-History.html

Peace,

Mark

 

[Han]

Hi my initial thoughts on this are that it was caused by the Loss/losing of the Vietnam war, in other words overwhelming technology and fire power made no difference in the end. I hope no one is offended by what I have said if so I am sorry peace and love han

 

[paraschtick]

Hi my initial thoughts on this are that it was caused by the Loss/losing of the Vietnam war, in other words overwhelming technology and fire power made no difference in the end. I hope no one is offended by what I have said if so I am sorry peace and love han

According to Dave Macgowan, the supposed 'counter culture' was created by nefarious forces anyway (and when you read what he's says about Laurel Canyon on his website ... see link below... you can see what he's getting at). So culture itself was sort of undermined starting with the anti-war movement that was taken over by people who took it nowhere ... and I think things were affected from there onwards.

Anyway Dave Macgowan's site is here should you want to read more about Laurel Canyon, and the people and bands who sprouted from there ... and their strange military associations etc:

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/