If only we could have skipped that decade!
I shudder when I look back on the 1960s. That was when things began to fall apart. Every college student had a ringside seat. We had no idea what we were chasing after. Our professors told us we were wise, and made us fools.
We’re still living with the wicked idiocies embraced by my generation in its youth–remember “Youth Culture”? Sure, we were exploited: clever villains fed on our ignorance. But some of this, really, we should have seen through. We shouldn’t have been such butterballs.
I was working for a living while all this was going on. I was actually a pretty radical leftist at the time myself, but the idiocies and outrages of your generation made me rethink a lot of my ideas and began my turn toward conservatism. In fact, some of the actions of your generation influenced me to join the Air Force as a gesture of support for the Nation that the youngsters were trying to destroy. So your generation wasn’t a total loss after all … I guess.
I don’t think most of us–including me–realized how far off we’d drifted from sanity and decency. Slipped our cables–and didn’t know it.
I was in the latter half of grade school when this really took hold, and by the time I got out of high school the craziest of this had calmed a bit, but with Vietnam and the draft, there was still some significant angst.
It died down a lot in the ‘80s, but has slowly re-emerged and at this point, it’s become quite prominent. I pray for my nation, frequently. We are far from perfect, but respect for individual rights and personal liberty were more prominent here than anywhere else that I know of. The right too succeed brings with the the right to fail, but that’s where personal responsibility comes in. I can choose to fail any day, but I continue to assert myself, and work to maintain the success I have found in life.
It’s not simply about material prosperity, but is more about taking control of my own fate and not letting myself become a burden to others. I have outlived most of my relatives, and have no offspring, so I will be looking after my own needs for some time to come. Living to 90 years old is not unusual on either side of my family, so I have to think long term. That’s why I work every day, even when it’s not what I’d like to do.
Well said, kimosabe.
It always gets me that wealthy musicians who talked bad about Capitalism (many of whom don’t even know what the means) lived lives of privilege, and lived much better than the middle class that they so despised.