>Still other scholars have argued that student movement
>from this period was over-emphasized in the media, and
>that its impact was actually quite narrow.
In the years since being a 60s (and 70s) activist I have
observed the way in which the period has been mythologized.
The standard synopsis of 60s activist history in the minds
of many Generation Xers appears to be something like
this:
Back in the 60s all the young baby-boomers were
radicals and/or hippies. They had shaggy hair, listened
to the Beatles, smoked lots of pot, and wore peace
buttons, beads, and sandals. They protested the
war, and some were feminists and black power
advocates.
Then one day, en masse, they all decided to sell
out, go back to school for law degrees and MBAs,
buy palacial homes in the suburbs, start wearing
Gucci shoes, and trade in their Volkswagen buses
for BMWs.
There are several problems with the above view, which
I suspect has been used to justify a lot of cynicism and
apathy among Xers. In the first place, left-wing radical
activists who actually gave a lot of time to the movement
were a small minority. Baby-boomers were a diverse group.
Some went to college, some got blue-collar jobs out of
high school, and some went into the military. The radicals
were mainly a small subset of the campus population.
Many students were politically apathetic, and the majority
were fairly conventional in their politics -- either Democrat
or Republican.
The imagery of activism became established later as the
watermark of the 60s because history records what the
newspapers and broadcasters report during a period.
And what is journalism all about? It's about reporting the
NEWS. And what makes "news"? Events and people
who are different, unusual, and extraordinary make the
news. We radicals were different. That's why journalists
wrote about us.
And we did not all turn into yuppies occupying palaces
in the suburbs. Many of us experienced hardship. Some
of the more devoted activists of the time dropped out of
school to devote more energy to activism. Some went to
jail. Some suffered the effects of dirty tricks played by the
FBI to screw up employment opportunities.
The job market in the 70s wasn't that good. I recall reading
a survey report described by a US Labor Department
official writing in the early 80s. Only 68% of the college
graduates of the 70s were able to find career placement
in jobs adequate to their training. The remaining 32%
were either unemployed or working beneath their skill level.
Another piece of mythology (I suspect) about the 60s
is that former radicals took over the campuses as faculty.
I really think this is probably a big piece of rubbish, and
would like to see it researched systematically.
Anyone claiming to be a former 60s radical of any
substance ought to be able to produce a thick FBI
dossier -- obtained under the Freedom of Information
Act -- to substantiate the claim.
In his book Culture of Complaint, Robert Hughes
reports a survey of 35,000 professors. Only 4.9%
described themselves as "far left," while 17.8% said
"conservative." The majority described themselves
as "liberal" or "moderate."
I also recall reading a survey done in the 90s about
baby-boomers recollections of the 60s. I'm sorry I
don't have my hands on it for the details. A large
proportion claimed to have participated in demonstra-
tions in the 60s -- much larger than the proportion
making the claim to have actually done so when the
demonstrations were happening. (I think the source
was Psychology Today).
It seems that at a certain stage of history, it became
chic to have been an activist in the 60s.
There are no doubt some former 60s radicals on college
faculty. I think they are probably a tiny minority. I suspect
many of those claiming radical backgrounds were the type
I would have called armchair radicals -- spending endless
hours discussing literature and theorizing in coffee shops,
but not much involved in organizing actions.
I would very much like to see studies of the life outcomes
of those of us who were long-term committed activists.
How did things turn out for us? We know about the
celebrities such as Tom Hayden, but what about the rest
of us? Such studies should be controlled for:
1. sex
2. education completed
3. family background
4. degree of family support
5. region
6. arrest record
-- Michael Wright