What Happened to the Sixties?

The movie "Easy Rider" in 1969 featured a couple of guys on motorcycles, heading out to experience America. They had enough money that they did not need to get a job, which was a popular fantasy at the time. But in the end, the Easy Riders are killed by gun-toting, pickup-truck-driving (and presumably ignorant) rednecks. Is this what happened to all the the ideas of the sixties?

During the sixties, some Americans became aware that with their increasing wealth and higher standard of living, that one day "work" may be a thing of the past. The idea was that machines would do the work, and people would have lots of leisure time, and be able to enjoy life in the future rather than spend their lives accumulating goods. The sixties were an idealistic time, where civil rights for black people had been achieved, and where the "war on poverty" was being waged. With the new generation of baby boomers reaching late teen years, new ideas were everywhere. Some of the ideas included sex, drugs and rock and roll. The future looked like peace and love.

Today, forty years later, instead of peace and love, we have some war and plenty of hate. The war on poverty turned into the war on drugs, with a holy war thrown in just for good measure. Leisure time is not valued all that much, and most people prefer just to accumulate material possessions. What became of the dream of leisure time? Now parents need to put their kids in day care so that they can work enough jobs to buy the stuff they "need".

I'm guessing that near the end of the seventies, when it came right down to the decision, most of the flower power generation opted for consumerism.

Another sixties idea was the "Back to the land" movement. This idea was that you did not have to get a job and work for money, you just moved to some land, and built your own house, grew your own food, and became self sufficient. It was an idea doomed to failure from the start. Not only did most people lack the skills, but they did not realize that farming was unpleasant hard work. Then you have babies and suddenly the concept falls flat.

The backlash to the naive "Back to the Land" movement was strong, and possibly persists to this day. As the flower power generation hit their thirties, suddenly jobs were back in style, "dressing for success" was popular, and anyone who was not a consumer with a paying job was to be pitied.

Eventually the trends will swing back again, though probably not to the extreme "back to the land" ideas. We could do with a healthy dose of frugality, eliminating wasteful consumption, learning to repair and recycle things. And we need to learn how to handle leisure time in a sustainable way. For example, people could use some of their leisure time to learn about the world around them instead of grabbing mindless sound bites off Fox News.

The reason the days of wasteful over-the top consumerism are numbered is simple. Consumerism now makes no more sense than the old Back to the Land ideas any more. In spite of the slogan "Drill, baby, drill", oil production has peaked, the climate is changing, jobs are evaporating, and people still with jobs are overworked. Overworked people are not thinking people. It's pretty obvious that extremist doomsday religions are gaining stronger footholds, and ignorant, dissatisfied people tend toward aggressive displays to make up for their lack of understanding of the world around them.

It's too bad we had to go down this road of mindless consumerism for thirty years. It's even more of a dead end than "Back to the Land".