The Fifties™, the Sixties™, and the Eighties.

[xiphias]

Over the weekend, Lis watched "The '80s: The Decade that Made Us", a documentary on the Eighties, and its ongoing effect on popular culture, economics, and politics to this day. Lis found out that it was largely based on the book Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything, by David Sirota, so she downloaded it, and was reading to me from it in the car this morning.

I was shaking with anger by the time she finished what she read. In that section, Sirota argued that much of the culture and politics of the Eighties was shaped by a manufactured conflict between what he referred to as The Fifties™ and The Sixties™ -- and that that manufactured conflict exists to this day.

The Fifties™ and The Sixties™ are only tangentially related to 1950-1959 and 1960-1969. Or even "the period of time from the building of Levittown and the assassination of JFK", and "the period of time from the assassination of JFK to say, the breakup of the Beatles", or whatever other events you want to use to mark the beginning and end of the time periods. Rather, The Fifties™ and The Sixties™ are the concepts, attitudes, emotional resonances, and images that we associate with those things. Whether or not they were ever particularly significant, whether or not they actually HAPPENED in those time periods, or even whether or not they ever actually existed.

They are "brands". They are about the brainspace that the ideas occupy.

Alan Ginsberg might be considered part of The Sixties™, even though "Howl" was from 1955. You could argue that LBJ was Fifties™ even though his landmark legislature was Sixties™. Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is clearly Sixties™, even if it was written in 1971.

The image of "the greaser" is one of The Fifties™, and many pop culture figures aligned themselves with it. The Fonz. Bruce Springstein. Patrick Swayze. Even though they, themselves, didn't necessarily fit with that brainspace: Springstein's works are solidly social-justice, for instance, and therefore fit more in The Sixties™ -- a paradox that has thrown a lot of people over the course of his career.

Now, not all of The Sixties™ is good, nor all of The Fifties™ bad -- but the Eighties was partially defined by the Republican party aligning themselves with The Fifties™ and denigrating The Sixties™. They downplayed, hid, and even twisted the good parts of The Sixties™, and played up, and even made up, good parts of The Fifties™, while denying its injustices and unfairness.

They've done their best ever since to align and malign Democrats with their twisted version of The Sixties™.

Democrats who've been successful have done so by distancing themselves from The Sixties™, and that pisses me off. Because it's an insult to my parents and therefore a personal insult to me.

Throughout my life, I've teased my parents for being hippies, and I may have even done so hurtfully sometimes. I hope not, though, because the truth is that I am intensely proud of them for their work in fighting war and injustice. I am proud to be the child of people who fight for what's right -- child, grandchild, and great-grandchild, in fact. And the work they have done, and continue to do falls squarely into the brainspace of The Sixties™. They've denied ever having been actual hippies, but they've never denied working for the causes of social justice, fairness, civil rights, and peace that are -- or at least SHOULD be -- associated with hippies.

And so politicians distancing themselves from that "brand"? That's a direct INSULT to my parents. And THAT pisses me off.

I told Lis how angry I was, and she tried to calm me down. She pointed out that my parents HAVE done a lot of good, and never did it to be RECOGNIZED for it, but rather, they did it to actually push the changes toward fairness and justice, and had some success.

"I don't care if they don't care about recognition for what they've done. I want them celebrated for it."

But Lis went on, saying words to the effect of (and these aren't actually quotes, but are rather the general thrust of what she was saying) "You know, you and I are part of the change toward some of the positive changes in the world. We're partially responsible for the foundations of consent culture. The idea that 'costumes are not consent'. The idea of 'active consent'. We've seen mainstream sitcoms and action shows talking about safewords. And that's us -- you and me."

"Really?"

"Many of the intellectual foundations of consent culture were hashed out on alt.sex.bondage and soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm. You and I were part of the arguments, the pilpul about 'safe, sane, and consensual.' About what consent IS, how it works, how it can be given and revoked. Twenty years ago, you were part of that conversation -- even an important part. It didn't start there, it didn't end there, it HASN'T ended, and it's not perfect yet -- but you and I and our friends did a lot of the work in setting up the foundations and the frameworks."

A lot of the battles we're still in -- the Confederate Flag, Gamergate, the Sad Puppies -- can be viewed through that lens of the Fifties™ vs Sixties™ conflict. The other guys want to hang on to what they think is "traditional", and are against the ideas of inclusiveness. They want male-focused video games and don't want to have to think about what they are actually saying. They want "southern pride" and don't want to face their history of slavery, treason, racism, KKK, and Jim Crow. They want science fiction that is just like stuff which actually never much existed in the Fifties -- it didn't exist in the Fifties, it exists in The Fifties™.

These fights are the fights we're still fighting.

But I like the idea that Lis and I and many of you were, and are, part of moving our ideas of sexuality and just plain general social interaction toward consent, justice, and fairness.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

You and Lis definitely are part of the positive change in society, and you know why I say that. *smiles at you*

Also, you are the awesome son and husband of awesome people. *beams at you and Lis and your parents*

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

This was fascinating.

And a really interesting lens for the net news part, too.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It's an honor to know you both, and having read this I hope to someday meet your parents.

You're right about the false dichotomy that was created to drive a wedge between people who came of age in the Eisenhower administration and people who came of age in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. I saw it happen, and it was transparently false even then. But it sure worked. An awful lot of people who voted for JFK in their first election voted for Ron Reagan 20 years later, even as those of us who had campaigned for George McGovern and Gene McCarthy cast our futile votes for Jimmy Carter.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My grandfather Tuny was a red diaper baby. He wasn't OBVIOUSLY political -- but he WAS friends with Louis Armstrong and helped out with some of the subtle social pressure that Armstrong was creating to help social justice. Tuny was much more a small-scale, individual-person force for goodness, kindness, and justice, just helping out the people he came into contact with on a daily basis. And since he was a guest lecturer at dental schools, and a big macher in the state and national dental associations, was a pretty good number of people. He was a major force in changing pediatric dentistry toward a non-traumatic, make-the-experience-fun-for-kids experience. When he was in school, the general idea for how to do dentistry on kids was to hold them down and pry their mouths open; however, Papa had one teacher who explained that, if you actually TALK to them and explain what you're doing, you can make this much less horrible for EVERYBODY. Papa took that idea and ran with it, and brought magic tricks, balloon animals, and general clowning skills into the dentists' office. And taught those skills to generations of dentists after him. Not a political change, but a huge force for good, anyway.

His mother, my great-grandmother, was the pinko commie who worked for direct political change and agitated for workers' rights. She showed up at some of the protests my mother helped organize in the Sixties. And kibbitzed and told them how the protests were better in The Old Days.

When he came back from Vietnam, Dad pretty quickly joined Veterans Against the War. They were both part of SDS, in the NON-Weathermen faction. Because, y'know, "not crazy", "not terrorist" and all.

Yeah, I'm kind of a little bit incredibly massively proud of my family.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Decades are crap. The civil rights movement was part of the Fifties.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Of course it was. It was part of the Fifties. But it's part of the Sixties™ -- that's part of the difference that the ™ makes. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was in '63, but had been in planning since, basically, 1941 -- the 1941 March on Washington was called off when Roosevelt signed the executive order banning discrimination in hiring in the defense industry, which was was what the march was going to be for. Since it succeeded before it happened, they didn't need to have it. But the planning was there in the toolbox.

Of course the Civil Rights movement was also part of the Sixties. And it ain't done yet, so it better be part of the twenty-teens and keep being part of it until the job is done.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Amen! May I boost?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Please do.

[snippy]

I'm glad to be part of moving toward consent, justice and fairness.

But the 60s/hippies were not uniformly like your parents, and I actually had a pretty evil experience of the 60s/70s/hippies. And that definitely plays a part in the formation of my political attitudes towards drugs and welfare, among other things.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Of course. For instance, some people involved in the same struggles my parents were in supported terrorism as part of their strategy.

[(Anonymous)]

The mistake is looking at the past as decades and not eras. After World War II, you had a time of great hope and prosperity with cracks. People protested against the Korean War, and you had the start of the civil rights movement. Brown vs the Board of Education was 1954. The post war Happy Days era with growing cracks starting ending with the election of JFK and permanently ended with his murder. The next era was 1963 to right after the pardon of Nixon, where you had major protests, anger, and social change. The 80's and 90's was a jumble of progress and regress and the beginning of the fractionalization of the country that we see now. Maybe it had something to do with the change of the century and millenia with the growing fundamentalism in religion and the instant communication of the internet that also fuels the current malaise.

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that Papa Tuny's parents also started one of the first tailor unions in the Unites States (and therefor one of the very first unions) that's what Bubbe (great-grandma) was protesting for (against?) :)

[temima.livejournal.com]

I really wish that I could like this. I do, anyway.