1960s and 1970s and now
by Bob on April 13, 2007
1960s & 1970s versus today. And which is better.
A friend in London just chatted with me and posed the contrapuntal question.
Could one argue in Oxford Union rhetoric style that now is better than the 1960s and 1970s ? Of course, assuming one remembers what rhetoric is and how to apply it.
Hmm. Not for me, present company of friends excepted.
The early 70s and the tail end of the 60s, people could smoke freely in pubs, in offices, in their homes, even on the open street without fear of reprisal. And it was socially acceptable. No judgment made, just a differential observation. Good, bad or indifferent.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was little pretension, except normal societal tensions. No major disaster occurred except the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Bobby Fischer played brilliant chess and especially in a tournament in Iceland. People wore tattered jeans and bell-bottoms. There was a pretense of egalitarianism. America finally got out of the quagmire of Vietnam. Music was a rainbow of genres: blues, Motown, West Coast hippy, pop, folky-ish rock, and soul &c. A huge mix. And music in general wasn't over-produced and post-produced. No iPOD's and MP3's flying around between musicians to compose a song together from places all over the world on their yachts. We had to do it in the same recording studio together back then. Mostly. We had tapes and we bounced tracks. But that was not aethereal. You could feel the recording tape in your fingers.
By the time the 60s had worn off in the later-ish 70s, and we can see that with the advent of expensive designer jeans and disco music, which wasn't egalitarian at all, I mean Studio 54 was pretentious with its velvet rope prohibiting commoners from getting in ... the jig was up.
Now ... NOW ? What is NOW ? 120 beats per minute synth rock, the business of music dominating over the creative aspects, and seemingly a rich class and a poor class with very little in between.
Music is now terribly over-produced and post-produced. Everyone is into the stock market and driving a BMW or a Hummer. We are as a world all stuck in the Middle East and New York City had a tragic day in 2001 which changed the world now, seemingly for eternity, although eternity is a very long time indeed. One wonders if one might be able to reclaim one's innocence, ever.
Children playing soccer on a video game rather than being physically out on the pitch or field playing for real with others. It's the age of modern isolation. The internet. Everyone's friend is Google, not grandfather and his stories of yore at bedtime. Search engines have become universal oracles of which the entire population of the planet is asking everyday questions. Like how to boil potatoes. Instead of just asking someone else or trying hard to remember. The Sibyl at Delphi was a bit more adept and didn't have pop-up advertisements.
And "Delphi" can likely be etymologically linked to dolphins. The "womb-fish". Their symbolism is ubiquitous although very complicated. Metal dolphin-shaped coins were found in ancient Olbia. The Dauphin of France. And Dauphine, an archaic province in southeastern France. Dolphins in the Alps. Amazing.
E-mail, e-relationships, e-friends, e-education, distance learning from around the corner to a university, instead of from far away, administrator-heavy universities, now seemingly run as business models rather than the old medieval cathedral model.
And accountability is seemingly at an all-time low.
I know, it's a new generation. And there are good things, too. Indeed there are.
One might feel lost in it now. But that may be just an older generation person's perception although I would likely tend to doubt it. Like Diogenes, of Sinope, the philosopher in 400 BC, with his candle in darkness looking for an honest person. I can't remember if he really found one.
Ancient times. Modern times.
George Bernard Shaw, in his famous 1905 play, "Major Barbara", looked at what price salvation might engender, too. However we must leave sacrosanct topics be just as they are. Infinite, as Blake might say