The Sixties Cultural Movement - Essay Example

The 1960s was a significant period within modern history. It could be said that it was when society as a whole began to realize that there was individual freedom within humanity, that life need not be dictated by those who controlled us that life is a personal choice. It was also a time when America began seeing itself for what it is, their government policies especially their foreign policy was always based on profit and the American people understood that they needed to be more sympathetic to other people. It was a reawakening because previously during history the population could be recruited for whatever means to serve the government especially during times of war however, during the sixties many people fought and protested against war recruitment. It was a moment when humanity could re-examine themselves and their lives that society could be changed just like the efforts of the African-American people as a segregated minority. It was a time of possibility. In the 1950s America had great faith in their political system, America went to war with Korea and not many protested, McCarthyism1was rampant and the people were led to believe in rampant anticommunism. From these roots of an anticommunist stance did the 1960s take place and the war against Vietnam was built on these reasons. Even within literature did the American beliefs penetrate there was a nave impression of American anticommunism. In the Quiet American, Graham Greene2explores the views of a British journalist, Thomas Fowler was caught up in a love triangle with a Vietnamese woman, Phuong and an American, Alden Pyle who works at the American embassy and is involved with local politics. The events described within the book was fictional but they were relevant as later on America really did went to war with Vietnam in 1959-1975 under the same pretenses that in the book Pyle mentions. In the book itself Pyle will go on to say that communism destroyed people's lives and it was 'wrong' and the American presence and intervention was necessary to stop the Viet Cong (Vietnamese rebels) from taking over Vietnam. But the American methods were done with the 'right' reasons and the 'wrong' decisions when Pyle and the American embassy decides to support a military dictator, General The. Aside from the war policy of America against Vietnam there were other important events that took place in the 1960s that affected the world and America was at the center where there were many movements and protests against the formal government. Science & Religion in the Sixties There was an expansive surge on science during the sixties and if the details could be believed, man has landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong, an astronaut landed on the moon in 1969 after President Kennedy launched a space race between America and Russia. Earlier on in the fifties the USSR have managed to send several dogs in orbit in space to test whether it was feasible for man to travel there. Before Armstrong was able to reach the moon the Russians in 1961 was already orbiting space3. It could be said that the science of astrology and space travel during this time was reaching its all-new high. Satellites were being sent to orbit the earth and these weren't minor achievements. Satellites are what we use today to receive signals for our televisions, our wireless internet, our mobile phones, we use satellite technology today almost everyday. Science also reached its fictitious zenith where it came to the point that it could create its own religion. The Church of Scientology was founded in 1955 by a fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. In the 1960s, as all counter-cultural movement goes, it developed its own stances to living daily life and cultures and created their own basic principles. Today, Scientology is no longer a completely 'New-Age' phenomenon as many people and celebrities begin to embrace its practices. Sixties and Politics When the settlers came to America they fought for a land that was not theirs. They did not recognize the spiritual attachment of the 'Red' Indians with their land and believed that they had every right to claim on that land. They massacred many Red Indian tribes and when the Red Indians fought back they killed them in large numbers, forcing the native people of America to become slaves on their own soil. America was also built on the sweat of black slave labourers treated like cattle (in most cases) justified by Christianity to be condemned to hell and slavery was a form of purgatory4as can be seen in literature such as Uncle Tom's Cabin. The sixties was the year when black power began to be utilized and its most powerful advocates like Martin Luther King, Jr. and the black power movement The Black Panthers and The Nation of Islam, began their activist work of integrating the country from racial segregation. Martin Luther wrote his most influential speech on segregation, I Have A Dream and he helped Rosa Parks in one of the most important racial political protests in 1955 in the Montgomery Bus Boycott where blacks and whites had separate seats. In 1968, Martin Luther was assassinated in Tennessee at the Lorraine motel by a white supremacist. Martin Luther was honoured by the then president, Lyndon B. Johnson and the whole of America mourned the death of a civil rights acitivist. The sixties was also a decade when women began the Feminist movement that also hallmarked abortion for women in the 1967 Abortion Act. Women have long been degraded as the second sex and that they did not have the right for an abortion, the abortion act gave women the right over their own bodies and that the decision of life was in their hands. Many student demonstrations were opposed against many abuse of rights and justices that their predecessors had always accepted, now they realize that they had a voice and power against even the biggest institution. One of the most marked protests were done against the American government and their war against Vietnam and it wasn't only America protested the war the Vietnamese also protested against the American occupation of Vietnam5. Sixties and Art & Music The sixties was also a decade of freedom of expression and the romanticism practiced during the French Enlightenment was almost similar to the Hippie movement of the sixties. The Hippie movement rejected all forms of modern living and preferred 'nature' and 'natural' things. It was a decade of Flower Power when the Hippies tried to peacefully protest against the American-Vietnamese war. It was also the decade when Woodstock was first created. The sixties hippie movement was epitomized by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles (think, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) and the famous Bob Dylan. All of the music featured during the sixties displayed a loving theme for humanity and questioning authority, this included Bob Marley and his Rastafarian roots. It was also the decade of psychedelic art, drugs was a main feature of the hippie movement and although some musicians such as Jimi Hendrix died of drug abuse others used drugs as a means to lose their inhibitions within art. One can see even in the art of Salvador Dali in the 1960s that there was a burst of colour and it blurred the lines between reality and imagination. The Beatles with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (LSD) tries to explain the wonderful effects of using LSD the drug in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. There was also a subculture of mods in England. The mod boys of England were the first version of the metrosexual man. Although the mod subculture began in the 50s it reached its zenith in the 60s. Mod was short for 'Modernism' and the boys who adopted the mod lifestyle favoured trendy fashions and it could be seen by the costumes of the Beatles in their earlier years. Mod boys wore slim cut suits and liked jazz, R&B, British beat music and ska music. The mod boys rode scooters and many bands in England were heavily influenced by the mod lifestyle including The Who. The mod lifestyle had its revival in the late 90s by bands like Oasis and Blur. One of the most important contributions in art during the sixties was done by a man named Andy Warhol. Warhol was a pop icon and his art as well as himself was the centre of many media attention. Warhol was an advertising illustrator who propelled towards art with his simplistic illustrations of modern products or of famous celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe in different modern colours. One of his most famous drawings were of Campbell's Tomato Soup Cans and Coca-Cola. What was significant about his art was that they were simple icons representing the lifestyle of Americans in the 1960s. Conclusion Arthur Marwick's statement that the sixties was the era of counter-cultural movement was right. The 1960s was an important age in the evolution of humanity and human thought. Without the 1960s most of us would not have the freedom that we have today. It was the age of the mass media and change when people began to learn that they have the right to speak up. Reference: Ellwood, R.S, (1997) The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace: American Religion in a Decade of Conflict, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press Greene, Graham, (1955) The Quiet American, London, William Heinemann Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1852) Uncle Tom's Cabin, Vol.1&2, John P. Jewett in an article retrieved on 6th of May, 2007 in Read More