Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

How anyone can compare Altamont to Pearl Harbour is a joke. They don't belong in the same sentence.

This is the reality of the 60s. Swinging London was in fact a small communityy of around 200 key movers and shakers. Everyone else just consumed what they produced. That's the reality of the 60s. Same applies elsewhere. The 60s generation (those born in the 1940s and early 50s) went on to elect ultra conservative governments in the US and the UK - so much for the ideals of the 60s. Yet with each passing year they embellish the legend of a supposed golden age. Yeh, they might have taken some drugs, seen some great bands blah, blah, blah. But they changed nothing. And we a pay an old age pension to these jokers.

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Sir Craven of Cottage
Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

How anyone can compare Altamont to Pearl Harbour is a joke. They don't belong in the same sentence.

In fairness, Tim in his original post did no such thing. He acknowledged that the scale of both events was vastly different. Just that they took place on almost the same date and marked the end of specific eras.

Gazza - that quote from another posting is just part of the bigger question posed - but I still don't beleieve they belong in the same sentence.

*





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-07 21:29 by Edith Grove.

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Sir Craven of Cottage
Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

And we a pay an old age pension to these jokers.

I'm not so sure about this.

I'm thinking today's generation is even more self absorbed/congratulatory.
I've been rather disgusted lately with so many who subscribe to the philosophy of "keeping up with the Joneses."
It kills me how people just gotta have more, get it first, and try to have better than the next person, so much so that these people are willing to spend themselves into financial oblivion.
I truly believe that is the root cause of the current problem we hear about on the news every day, and the really sad thing is that many people who are able to keep a good perspective and "play by the rules" so to speak, are the ones who will suffer the most while many of those who helped create this problem will sail off into the sunset without any suffering at all.

I'm hoping that I will at least have a pension by the time I want to retire.

Baby Boom - Sixties the Best ..

I was a small child in the 60's - too young to be involved or a hippie or anything like that.

That said, many good things happened then, especially music!
The British, Motown, Stax, great pop, some of the pschadelic stuff, too much to name, etc. etc. etc.

Don't forget social progress (I'm from the American South) - civil rights, the beginning of the end of the Vietnam war, and women's rights.

Lots of bad stuff too though - the drug problem must be laid at the 60's doorstep, the arrogance of this age group that they're best, the word "groovy", etc.

All in all, it's hard to say. Everything changed in the 60's. Everything.

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Edith Grove

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Sir Craven of Cottage
Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

And we a pay an old age pension to these jokers.

I'm not so sure about this.

I'm thinking today's generation is even more self absorbed/congratulatory.
I've been rather disgusted lately with so many who subscribe to the philosophy of "keeping up with the Joneses."
It kills me how people just gotta have more, get it first, and try to have better than the next person, so much so that these people are willing to spend themselves into financial oblivion.
I truly believe that is the root cause of the current problem we hear about on the news every day, and the really sad thing is that many people who are able to keep a good perspective and "play by the rules" so to speak, are the ones who will suffer the most while many of those who helped create this problem will sail off into the sunset without any suffering at all.

I'm hoping that I will at least have a pension by the time I want to retire.

Well said EG.

Jeremy Clarkson on the 1960s; it's from his july 27th 2008 column, which can be read in its entirety here: [www.timesonline.co.uk]

"We know it now as the Swinging Sixties, but unless you were on Carnaby Street, with a Moke, and you were intimately friendly with Twiggy, they weren’t swinging at all. They were crap.

No, really. I bet it was a hoot in northern California in the summer of ’68. But I wasn’t on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. I was picking my way through a puddle of German urine on a campsite in the rain".

OLDKR

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Sir Craven of Cottage
Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

yeah, tedious details would mean actual evidence and rational argument.

Here in the US the answer is a flat YES.
I won't go into the reasons, because the answer is purely political.

Myself (born in 1963) think that we really owe it all to the 50s (not the 60s) generation. Without whom...

I belive that every genteration needs to experience things togheter and leaves their mark in their own way, but that being said I think Way too big a deal is made about the differences between generations.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2008-12-08 06:18 by ryanpow.

I can sort of understand the initial statement that started this.
There does seem to be this sort of obsession with the 60's with those
who were there and those who weren't.

As one who was there let me say this. It certainly was an exciting time to live,
and it has greatly influenced my life. I think some great things were started back then, or pushed along back, but ... were they completed? Nope.

You are right when you look at what happened "after the 60's died" whenever that was. Personally, I'm amazed at what has happened in many ways since then and it certainly has been some great steps backwards as you suggest.

However, I think that at least in part, that's what's so exciting about Obama being elected. I think he is sort of restoring hope in some of the ideals that were raised in the 60's.

So, maybe that's a two edged sword? On the one hand, we could think, oh no, here come all those hippies again ... or ...

We could think, maybe this time, we'll get it a little more right.

Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

Musically speaking, it was a wonderful time to grow up in.

Most self absorbed? Yeah. Most hyped, yes. They seem to take credit for everything. Bragging, however, changes nothing and means nothing. So they are also the most arrogant.

Hind site is 20/20. What you hear about the 60's is hindsight. Hinde sight that the 60's was probably the most 'expansive' period in music (merging of styles, electics, sound effects, recording technologies....does it ever occur to you younger folks I would be happy to ackwnolege some of todays acomplishments but it appears everyone is still riding on the back of the 60's and reinventing it...is this not a testiment.I have been subjected to glam rock, punk, grunge, hip hop, and yes disco...how does this compare to the Beatles.Were 60's folks indulgent...damm right....but for causes like love, no war...not how big my old ladies booty is. Of course every generation will have it's causes but you would have to match the times and the emotions.

If you were not there, do not understand the times, do not critisize. I have seen the 60's and everything since, I will take the sixties.

Signed....a guy who hated Elvis, liked the Stones over the Beatles, took in Haight/Asbury and Goldengate Park in the summer of love, come from the same area, mindset and culture as Tommy Chong, from the same country John Lennon chose to mount his peace campaine in and bought LSD from the best friend of the guy who supplied the Greatfull Dead/Timmothy Leary tune-in/drop-outs and walked with a member of the Chicago Seven who went on about causing kaos with things that go boom (I like not to use some words in email, they are listening, from the UK I believe) as the only way to acomplish anything, but he had a nice bottle of Scotch under his car seat so I stayed for awhile.

I think others are jelous and I'm am greatfull I lived this period.

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Sir Craven of Cottage
Without going into tedious boring detail I think it is safe to say that the 60s is the most self congratulatory, self absorbed generation in history.

How anyone can compare Altamont to Pearl Harbour is a joke. They don't belong in the same sentence.

This is the reality of the 60s. Swinging London was in fact a small communityy of around 200 key movers and shakers. Everyone else just consumed what they produced. That's the reality of the 60s. Same applies elsewhere. The 60s generation (those born in the 1940s and early 50s) went on to elect ultra conservative governments in the US and the UK - so much for the ideals of the 60s. Yet with each passing year they embellish the legend of a supposed golden age. Yeh, they might have taken some drugs, seen some great bands blah, blah, blah. But they changed nothing. And we a pay an old age pension to these jokers.

there's a lot of history you can research if you wanted to. from the beat poets and the early rockers into the earliest sixties...the awareness in earth day, women's rights...i was born before there were civil rights in the USA, which wasn't passed until '64, etc...a lot of people in a huge movement helped move things along; i think this current generation is doing the same...
..if you can't see the poetry, the plays, the music, the tragedy and drama of being targetted by a government you were too young to live under, for protesting the VietNam slaugher etc....and the assainations and such...
being suspended from high school for long hair or blue jeans, being intentionally targetted to get beat up as an anti american. i've seen more bravery from barefoot sixteen year old girls in the streets (and others) getting the fair share of abuse. you can't always get what you want... but lots of things moved and are still moving as a result. as we get further from that ethos, society is more dumbed down and numb.
it was a time of great historical and cultural importance aside from a cheap ass and ignorant assessment, and i don't disrespect you personally but look at what you wrote and take the other side in your head just for fun...do some research and let that art and culture inform you soul...

yeah a lot of professional hippies, and a lot of that generation, rich or poor, is hopelessly asleep and selfish...you've got to look, read, listen, immerse yourself in the literature, contemporary art and dance scenes...to begin to understand, even seperate from politics, that this was a time of great cultural change and sacrifice...many of the children of those flower power people are the most informed, active, loving and evolved people i've ever met.

It was a turbulent time to grow up. When the 60's ended I was 17. It was a very interesting period to live through. We experienced the space race, a real threat of nuclear war, Viet Nam, extreme racial tensions that led to burning cities, political turmoil, assassinations. If anything it was a time when one could examine the world around us and perhaps come up with some alternative ways of living and thinking. It was as wide open as you allowed it to be. Was it all good, of course not. Was it stimulating, hell yes it was. I also believe the Obama election has put us back politically on more hopeful turf than we have seen since back when perhaps Bobby Kennedy was alive. Certainly the music scene in the 60's was somewhat unique and it transcended just about everything as it became a real part of our identity. The Stones("the boys") were a way of life for many of us fans back then. Hard to argue against the quality and abundance of great music from the 60's. There was some crap out there, but the pile wasn't that tall compared with the good stuff.

That being said we as "baby boomers" have nothing over anyone else. I am not sure where that characterization comes from. Self indulgent maybe, but then who the hell isn't when it comes to some things if you can get away with it without hurting someone else?.

That generation was the most creative culture ever produced by youth in the history of mankind. What's your problem?

The funniest thing is how it went from being this very vibrant movement to kind of fizzing out in the mid 1970s and then all of the sudden it got really bad from 1978 to roughly 1988. The 1980s have to be the most laughable decade ever.

Too many people getting really loaded, and of course the cynicism was setting in as economic conditions were declining.

It helps to have been there, all you "experts".

Without wishing to sound like Grandpa Simpson, the trouble with today's kids is...!

Aren't all teenagers self-absorbed? I know I was.

When we look back at youth cultures like the hippies, there seems to be a tendency to exaggerate those groups as being representative of the entire generation. Isn't it fair to say that most baby boomers weren't hippies and didn't go near that kind of lifestyle? I know my parents had normal jobs etc and my Dad being an old skool rocker wouldn't touch flares with a 20 ft sh!tty stick.

Case in point from my generation - the current media fixation with the 1980s. In fact, its a very very narrow recasting of a few extreme 80s fashions and a bit of slightly 80s influenced music. Oh yeah and everyone was off their heads on E at a rave near the M25 by 1988. Sure, some kids were but most weren't. You couldn't even get E where I lived, dammit!

I was born in 1962. I didn't get to participate, but I saw a great deal of it. There was an innocence and vitality to the '60s that I really remember feeling, and I don't think it was just me being a kid and feeling the innocence all kids feel. There was a difference then. I put it down to the massive bulge in the population who were hitting their late teens/early '20s. They created a whole atmosphere around them. Culturally it was a very significant time, not because the '60s generation were geniuses but because film, recording and TV were all flowering at once.

People speak of the "ideals" of the '60s and I think that gives the '60s generation more credit than they deserve. In fact I think simple self-centered hedonism was at the root of most all their "ideals". "Peace" was hardly a controversial cause to rally behind. (Who's against it?) And the peace movement had as much to do with young men not wanting to go to war as it did anything higher. And "love" wasn't really love, just a beneficent feeling at a gathering or a rationale for getting laid. A lot of their "ideals"(and titular personalities) were flawed, to say the least. Chauvinism was rampant, for example, compared to today; and the rampant drug-taking was just that, rampant drug-taking. Screw "expanding your consciousness", it was drug-taking. "Ideals" without "ethics" are worthless.

To get a great snapshot of the '60s, watch any documentary from the time and see how the Now Generation actually behaved. They were selfish kids more than anything else. They thought the world revolved around them and frankly they still do.

I remember watching a VH1 Behind The Music doc on The Jefferson Airplane/Starship and being struck by how not one member of the band is what you would consider a "nice" person. I get that same feeling from the members of The Grateful Dead whenever I read or see interviews with them (and from almost every deadhead I've ever met!) Deadheads and other hippies are great about helping you smoke your last joint but I've never heard of any hippies getting together to build a school in an underprivileged area, or dig a well in a village without fresh water. They're idealistic, maybe, but neither altruistic nor philanthropic.

Tommy

i know phil lesh - and a nicer man you'll be hard-pressed to find.

I cannot forecast to you the action of T&A. He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is StonesTod."

-PhilLesh

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WMiller
I cannot forecast to you the action of T&A. He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is StonesTod."

....or something

T&A, i love the dead .is somebody saying bad things about jerry ? i hope not .remember jerry loves ya !!!!!!!

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The Greek
T&A, i love the dead .is somebody saying bad things about jerry ? i hope not .remember jerry loves ya !!!!!!!

the members of the dead weren't specified. but thou shalt not speak ill of the dead....or something.