Re: the hidden cost of Mike's question [6 views] (fwd)
(sixties@jefferson.village.virginia.edu)
Mon, 10 Jun 1996 16:52:09 -0400
nakedeye@pipeline.com wrote:
> I'd just like to build on Mike's intellectually and emotionally challenging
> post. When I think of all the fetuses in the 60s who would have gone on to
> lead pure, All-Amerikan existences, I begin to despair. They missed out on
> the chance to live Safe, honest, and fulfilling lives, lives that are
> safe, honest and fulfilling simply by virtue of being drug free, of course.
> Because, as we all know, most people who took LSD in the 60s took way too
> much of it and ended up in insane asylums, because everyone who smoked pot
> became damaged and immutably incapacitated, in stark contrast to the
> demure, totally functional martini drinking sexual harrassment crowd of
> the 50s.
>
> As it turned out, those fetuses, sacrificed in a orgy of drug-crazed
> self-indulgence, never had a chance to actualize themselves in the 80s, the
> decade of self-actualization(because people began to say no to drugs).
>
> Had only those fetuses survived, maybe it would have been just a little
> different, just a little better, for all of us.
>
> Mike, stop watching the History Channel, man. Name me a decade that
> didn't have hidden costs, and name me a decade that didn't have a drug
> culture, be it sanctioned or unsanctioned. While the drive to excess in
> our society, which incorporates all facets of living--from drug-taking to
> eating to money-making--did take place in the 60s, there was actually an
> ideology attached to much of the early drug culture. It was about
> deprogramming, Mike, not just accepting parental and societal dictums about
> who you should associate with, what you should believe, who you should
> fuck. What a lot of the early pioneers of the drug culture learned--thru
> drug use--is that *you don't know that you've been programmed until you've
> been deprogrammed*.
>
> What about you, Mike? Is your take on the 60s something that came out of
> reading about the decade, talking to people who lived through it, thinking
> about it independently? The fact that watching something on the History
> Channel prompted your post leads me to think--no. You're heavily laden
> with programming, Mike. Why not think about the hidden costs of that
> programming to those whose paths you'll cross in your life, in your
> attempts to answer really complex questions. Read up on the 60s, watch a
> variety of documentaries if you must, and then start asking some real
> questions that aren't simply echoes of things you've been programmed to
> ask.
>
> Peter Braunstein
>
> nakedeye@pipeline.com
>
No doubt that there have always been problems. No doubt that alcohol has
caused a lot of damage, and no, not everyone who smoked pot or took
acid lost their minds or became incapacitated. I never intended to imply any
of those things. I thought the topic of discussion here was the sixties.
More clearly, what I meant to point out was that the changes in western culture
during the sixties had a cost that was not as obvious (read hidden) as say the lives that
were lost or wrecked in Vietnam (on both sides) or in any other tragedy that occured
during that time period.
As for me, the reason thst my post was prompted by a program on the History Channel
was because it brought back memories. Having been born Sept. 14 1951 I lived through
the sixties and did not just read about it. I was eighteen in 1969 and my comments
about sex,drugs and the like came from personel experience. I did the drugs, I had
"free" sex, I drank and smoked. I have friends that had abortions. I have friends
that were incapacitated by drugs. I had friends that who died or commited suicide
because of these things. The lies that were propigated about being "Free" or dropping
out were appealing and may have caused some to start thinking about different ways
of doing things and just may have brought some positive changes but ,it is like
candy that is laced with a slow progressive poison. The damage to our society
because of these beliefs has spread out and is a part of the what we see every day.
The broken families, the explosion of youth violence and such. When I was in elementary
school in the late fifties and early sixties living in one of the largest cities in
the U.S. I did not have to worry about being gunned down in school or walking home
from school even though the city was called the "Murder Capital of the U.S." at that
time. Now the schools have metal detectors for guns and knives and, though I live in
a relativly quiet middle class suburban neighborhood, very few of the parents let young
childern walk to school. Many of the problems we face today were not caused by Nixon,
the CIA, Watergate but because of morality breakdown that was taking place 30 years
ago in the society as a whole. The volume of sex and violence that we see in TV and
movies today is not put there by my fathers generation but by mine, the "Woodstock
Generation", people who said "If it feels good. Do it!"
As far as programming, look beyond your psychedelic blue blockers and realize that
"What you sow is what you reap" is as true for a society as it is for individuals.
Mike
mrappe@flash.net