The 60s: You Got Your Revolutions - Who Won?

On Tuesday I talked about the "revolutions" of The 60s. On the surface it appeared to be a "liberal" revolution, an attempt to give "Power to the People!" Power was the word; power was what people wanted. Who got the power? What happened? Who won?

In short, it depends on which part of the revolution you talk about. It is only natural to talk about the political revolution first. Civil Rights and the War in Vietnam were the dominant issues. But the truly underground revolution of the day- the one we didn't see coming- was the conservative revolution. Ronald Reagan led the charge beginning in the mid-60s when people would joke about a movie actor as a governor. (See, times haven't changed!) Nixon's style and politics, personal disaster aside, was not this type of conservative. Reagan and followers and heirs have instead turned it all upside down.

If civil rights and war policy are used as measuring sticks, The 60s only got so far and then got stuck. Polarized. The war policy disagreements went away when the war did. It popped up here and there at times but never went anywhere. Even now (but that will be for next week.)

If popular politics, political strands of thought, who has controlled the politics, it would have to be said that the conservatives and neo-conservatives took the revolutionary flag. The Old Liberals are often just that - old. Ted Kennedy, for all he may have had for and against him, is the image of the Old Liberal. He has become iconic- which in this case means outdated. Fritz Mondale also comes to mind. We don't have many Paul Wellstones who are a 21st Century version. Where, in fact, will "liberal" politics go in the next few years? Who will be the neo-liberals or will there be a whole new way of looking at it?

Business perhaps comes out as the biggest winner of The 60s. Perhaps it always does. Business is self-centered, profit-centered, If they can find a way to make a buck, they will. That's business. Business, starting with the clothing and record industries, learned how to market to the revolution. They took the styles and ideas and turned them into cash. Which just fed into the basic "Me-ism" of the Boomers being the most unique thing to hit the planet since fire. Business learned that one in a hurry. And made it big.

The religious revolution at first looked interesting. Remember the Jesus Freaks? We had hippies tuning in, turning on, and dropping out to Jesus. The long-term result has been the worship revolution, contemporary Christian music (from pop to metal), and a proliferation of styles of churches based on worship and age as much as anything.

But remember that a good portion of the Jesus Movement was also conservative/evangelical at heart. In that area we can see the seeds for the evangelical/conservative growth in the country in the past 25 years. Some of it was based in the inward-looking style of the hippies (Boomers) becoming the personal salvation focus of Christians. Also drawn into that was the conservative political focus that inevitably crept in. The religious revolution, perhaps a renewed reformation(?), is still very much in flux as the world as a whole goes through a shift both spiritual and religious.

The personal/cultural arena may be the one place where we could say that the more liberal tendencies of The 60s won. When you think about it that is not too much of a surprise. We are definitely a more liberal-acting people. The personal morality questions are very much more evident. The freer lifestyles that were presented from The 60s are all around us. That revolution was the one that "won." But then again, hasn't it always been about sex, drugs, and rock and roll?

But for that, wait until next Thursday.

Overall, like most revolutions, this one is still going on. The morphing and metamorphosing into new forms is always happening. The 60s provided an impetus, a change in a lot of paradigms, that we have not finished with. It has moved beyond the Boomers. But I am not sure the Boomers are done yet with their part. That is a revolution that I know I will never see finished. By definition it won't be over until many years after the last Boomer is gone sometime in the 2nd half of this Century.