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Feature
The Worst Years of Our Lives
The Woodstock Sixties brought everlasting harm to our politics and culture.
(Page 2 of 2)
Sterling’s successor as president proved too timid for the new, non-academic environment the academy had become. Trustees soon forced him out. Lyman became acting president, then president in his own right. The war in Southeast Asia raged on, lacking the permission of as many as 200 protestors who took over the Computation Center, egged on by a radical English prof. Lyman called in the cops—and not just this once. Order he was going to have. Order he procured, if at some cost, inasmuch as when an institution of any kind finds the old rules insufficient to preserve an atmosphere constructive to discourse, odds fall that constructive anything is likely to occur.
So it went in the ’60s and in their aftermath, the early ’70s. It was, in retrospect, especially for those of us old enough now to remember the whole horrible cycle, as if the gods had set out to madden those they were bent on destroying. In his final chapter Lyman—who left the Stanford presidency in 1980 in order to run the Rockefeller Institution—tries to make sense of the whole mess. He notes with gratitude that Stanford’s ascent to the top ranks of academia wasn’t slowed by what took place during the Troubles. “Civility returned, but formality did not.” Rationality “suffered setbacks. It has never entirely regained its place in its supposed Temple, the University.”
No, and probably won’t in our lifetimes. The old system was founded on general consent to the idea of rational discourse. A teacher would teach. Others would discuss. There would be back-and-forthing that might put to sleep a number of listeners. But the right just to listen was something, as was the right to reflect on what was heard. It turned out, around the time of Woodstock, that rational discourse was the last thing on the minds of the moral vandals. Who—scary thought—still live among us. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn come to mind, thanks to last year’s small flap over their palship, or whatever it is, with the incumbent president of these United States. How many mob members, from Stanford and a thousand other campuses, how many members of their cheering sections, live down the street, or, worse, occupy places of prominence, as in the media? Neither they nor the scars and wounds they left have gone away.
Woodstock! Ummmm, so gooey warm: the feeling of interlocked arms and communal dips in ponds of uncertain sanitary properties; rain pouring down; people not ripping off or haranguing others as at so many other contemporary gatherings; traipsing around Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, listening to Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix—always provided they could get near enough to hear them. (A few Woodstock attendees writing for newspapers and blogs have noted that they themselves never heard any of the fabled sounds for which they had bought tickets or gate-crashed in the first place.)
Myth—the good kind and the bad kind—has a softening effect on reality. So with Woodstock and the Sixties. Woodstock was a discrete piece of the Sixties: the Applied Electronics Laboratory at Stanford was another, uglier, messier, more destructive part, like Berkeley’s Sproul Hall; like the buildings and laboratories on countless campuses seized or burned down so that society and its norms might be forced to change, ready or not.
In the Sixties, angry people—who seemed to be everywhere—didn’t ask permission of people from whom they had decided to withdraw their respect. They served notice, issued orders, made blunt and peremptory demands. Those who didn’t like what they did could just, y’know, like, take a flying leap. All of which had consequences, as is the case with repeated actions. As Lyman would write:
Without falling into the trap of blaming the 1960s for everything that has gone wrong since, one can argue that American politics has never recovered from the blows it suffered at the hands of the Sixties radicals. Of course more recently it has been the Right that has made disillusionment with, even contempt for government its stock in trade. But the New Left of the Sixties got there first. Their contempt for ordinary politics, with its compromises and evasions, has by now become epidemic in the United States, to the point where many people believe that the only way to deal with any really important question of public policy is somehow to take it “out of politics.” Students of the rise of fascism in Europe may be forgiven for finding this worrisome.
Ah. Even civilized Dick Lyman finds it necessary in the new century to draw left-right equivalences. Supply-side economics and stop-the-war outbursts—different sides of the same coin? Not precisely. He acknowledges, accurately (being a very honest man), that the New Left with its creed of individual autonomy as the touchstone for thought and action led the way, I, me, my, mine—the creed of the first person singular, against a world of some order, some taste, some traditions, dignity, tolerance, and intellectual integrity.
There wouldn’t be a lot of that left when the Woodstock Era passed, to the extent we can regard it as truly having passed. The damage it inflicted on institutions and moral understandings alike was enormous and lasting; not just the understanding that you win nothing in the end by pushing others around but also that you don’t earn encomia for shunning anarchy. You shun anarchy because that’s what civilized men and women do if they know what’s good for them, yes, and for the things they honor, including peace and love as defined by the wisdom of the human race, not by mere passing fancy, as expressed at a morass of a rock concert.
Oh, those Sixties! May we come some day to figure out what they really were about.
About the Author
William Murchison, a Dallas-based columnist for Creators Syndicate and author of Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity (Encounter Books), is completing a biography of John Dickinson..
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Alan Brooks| 10.17.09 @ 11:11PM
It was 1969.
That's when people began to be liberated, when they could Find Themselves. And if they eventually found they weren't the people they wanted to be, were stuck with the selves they didn't know what to do with, then tough luck. You're on your own, you could infer, in a new world where everybody secretly knew that only imaginary rules existed. Hard to believe, but before '68 long hair was considered a grave a sin as anything else, it was a few years after the fifties, so growing long hair was considered almost the ultimate act of rebellion. A couple of decades before this time crewcut men marched off to the biggest war ever, but then in the postwar period long hair sprouts up along with beards. Ricky Nelson came home to his parents Ozzie and Harriet for dinner most evenings, but outside the Nelson household somewhere, lurking on streetcorners or in 'pads' in seedy neighborhoods, men with long hair and beards were causing trouble.
Before '69, people were bound by silly, outmoded, Victorian, civilized mores. Then, after '68, you could shed your old self, and your clothing in the bargain. It filtered down to the grassroots. On Sesame Street, Kermit the Frog disrobed; even the Cookie Monster would take it all off, but only after you gave him several cookies. 1969 was the year of 'Oh! Calcutta!' and 'I Am Curious Yellow', both of which appear tame by today's standards. Today restraint is gone and you have to say, "I'm no prude", just like you say you're no racist-- and you say it as quickly as you can.
Tom Wolfe described what Beatles' fans did at concerts 45 years ago, they were in reality screaming "me, me, look at Me!" Just a few years later, in '69, exhibitionism began to be normed. Dancers stomped around stoned in front of the crowd.
"I will have a psychedelic gleam in my eye at all times", wrote Frank Zappa in 'Who Needs the Peace Corps?' *
Smoking marijuana almost became mandatory in '69. Grow your hair and smoke marijuana. At Woodstock, they thought they would take over the world so everyone could smoke marijuana, roll in the mud, and listen to ear-piercing three chord Rock and Roll played by an unending stream of musicians, some of whom had talent. Activist John Sinclair wrote a book titled, with unintentional humor, 'Guitar Army'.
On TV, being irreverent became the In-Thing in '69. You could insult any institution or persons, except TV executives. I mean, let's not carry things too far.
We don't want to undermine the social order, now do we?
The surviving Woodstock people don't give it all away for free anymore-- they are well off; rolling not in the mud at Yasgur's Farm, but in the dough on Main Street.
BTW, it's almost as if youth don't need to seek depravity; depravity seeks them. At any rate, to be libertarian concerning the fast lane, anyone can do what they want, it is not a moral country-- but it IS free.
Yet those of us who don't like hearing the same infantile chatter about dope and sex, are just doing their own things, babe. Just letting it all hang out.
Alan Brooks| 10.18.09 @ 1:56AM
Since this year is also the 20th anniv. of Chappaquiddick, I repost this as well:
---------------------------
Ted Kennedy always reached for the very highest standards in his personal life, Ted was a quality person. He never purchased 3 or 4 percent cocaine, he went for at least 60 percent, or sometimes as high as 94.9 percent pure.
So, please, let's stop being so judgmental. We have no right to judge others, except those we can't stand.
Larry Craig is someone I don't approve of, that queer-- not that it's wrong to be queer, but Craig just rubs my fur the wrong way, in a manner of speaking of course. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. But Craig did the Tinker Bell Two Step in a public lavatory, and that's silly. But not Ted. Ted is, was, normal, he did have a few problems, but don't we all. Look, Ted was just a sensitive Vulnerable Human Being just like the rest of us. We're all human. We have to be reminded again and again we are Human Beings so we don't get to thinking we're praying mantises or roosters.
Or caterpillars.
So what if we have differences? I accept you, just as long as you don't look sideways at me when I lecture you.
I will defend to your death the right for you to say anything that I agree with.
Ted Kennedy was a decent guy who was much better than you, you right wing flyover resident. Who in the Hell do you think you're dealing with? My attorney paid twice as much to go to law school as your punk lawyer did.
One of Ted's closest friends; actually it was his niece, announced that Ted "is now a part of history". Yes, history. For it doesn't appear Ted will be attending Senate sessions any time soon.
One of Ted Kennedy's closest friends; actually it was Ted's nephew, announced that Ted had a wonderful heart. You'll notice the nephew left out any reference to Ted's mind.
Alan Brooks| 10.18.09 @ 2:00AM
pardon,
This is the 40th, not the 20th anniv. of Woostock and Chappaquiddick.
Alan Brooks| 10.18.09 @ 8:45PM
*Lyrics to 'Who Needs The Peace Corps?':
-----------------------------
What's there to live for?
Who needs the peace corps?
Think I'll just DROP OUT
I'll go to Frisco
Buy a wig & sleep
On Owsley's floor
Walked past the wig store
Danced at the Fillmore
I'm completely stoned
I'm hippy & I'm trippy
I'm a gypsy on my own
I'll stay a week & get the crabs &
Take a bus back home
I'm really just a phony
But forgive me
'Cause I'm stoned
Every town must have a place
Where phony hippies meet
Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up on every street
GO TO SAN FRANCISCO...
How I love ya, How I love ya
How I love ya, How I love ya Frisco!
How I love ya, How I love ya
How I love ya, How I love ya
Oh, my hair is getting good in the back!
Every town must have a place
Where phony hippies meet
Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up on every street
GO TO SAN FRANCISCO...
Hotcha!
First I'll buy some beads
And then perhaps a leather band
To go around my head
Some feathers and bells
And a book of Indian lore
I will ask the Chamber Of Commerce
How to get to Haight Street
And smoke an awful lot of dope
I will wander around barefoot
I will have a psychedelic gleam in my eye at all times
I will love everyone
I will love the police as they kick the s--- out of me on the street
I will sleep...
I will, I will go to a house
That's, that's what I will do
I will go to a house
Where there's a rock & roll band
'Cause the groups all live together
And I will join a rock & roll band
I will be their road manager
And I will stay there with them
And I will get the crabs...
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fghf| 2.25.10 @ 4:11AM
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