America in the 1960s - Essay Example

Rising Discontent: America in the 1960s The 1960s were a decade marred by assassinations, riots, and national political dissent. It was also highlighted by the counter-culture movement that advocated drugs, freedom of sexual expression, and anti-government feelings. America was still reeling from the economic prosperity of the 1950s, television, and the new definition of the American family as exemplified by Leave it to Beaver. A new generation of teenagers were coming of age in 1960 and had brought with them the ideals and values of a youth that was predisposed to material goods and the norms as expressed on mainstream television. A generation had been formed by this new prosperity and old values were cast aside. The values of materialism, freedom, and a lack of religion replaced them. While these may seem contradictory, that is why they were able to collide in the 1960s. This incongruous group of mindsets formed a generation that was rebellious, was seated in materialism, and had little religious philosophy to rely on. One of the most influential aspects of growing up in the 1950s was the Civil Rights movement and its portrayal on television. America had experienced the front line news for the first time in its history. There was a daily dissemination of the atrocities that were committed by governmental agencies around the country. These images had a dual role in the molding of the youth of the 1950s. It was able to portray the discrimination against blacks in detail and also able to tell the story of the government's involvement in the anti-movement activities. These were the seeds of the anti-government feeling in the teenagers of the 1960s. Television was able to paint the government with a brush of mistrust as America was shown pictures of blacks facing physical abuse, while it told a story of government infiltration. In fact, "Southern Baptists had resisted federal civil rights legislation not necessarily because they were racists but because they sincerely opposed federal intrusion into families and communities" (Saletan 21). This factor was able to develop an anti-government feeling across a wide spectrum of America. The distrust of government went beyond the political and social structure and into the affluence of the age. This affluence resulted in greater education and employment opportunities than at any other period in US history. This access also brought with it a greater freedom of thinking that was exemplified by the multitude of philosophies that flourished during this era. The beat generation of the 1950s had given way to the hippie movement. Hippies have been portrayed as beatniks with an attitude. According to Flexner et al., "If you liked hippies you called them flower children and approved of their flower power and love is slogans; if you hated them you called them beatniks, but it was the word hippies that most people used most often, and beats, hipsters, and hippies had all become one in the public mind". This again was the result of television's need to homogenize a subject and make it understandable to the American public. The end of the 1950s presented America with a view of Maynard G. Krebs in the hit sitcom Dobie Gillis. Krebs was idolized for his seemingly innocuous character that promoted dropping out of employment and mainstream thought. However, young people were being handed a teenage idol that would become the pattern for anti-establishment beliefs and behavior. Other teenage idols came in the forms of Beaver Cleaver, Eddie Haskell, and Andy Griffith. These sitcoms verified in the teenage mind that there was an America that was free from crime and flush with material wealth. However, examining these weekly television shows indicate that they contributed to the disillusionment of America. They portrayed a minority of white Americans who were able to reap the benefits of the post World War II economy. The youth of the 1950s fell into one of two classes; those that were a part of the new America and those that had been left behind. This inaccurate portrayal led to the split in America that would force people to take sides in the 1960s. The expansion of suburban America, improvements in transportation, and greater access to education only served to promote the myth of a peaceful country. When the truth was brought forward in the more credible venue of the evening news, the illusion vanished and a generation was left with disbelief. To further complicate the issue of disillusionment was the noticeable beginnings of the decline of religion in the 1950s. Johnson, Hoge, and Luidens contend that, "...in the early 1960s their growth slowed down, and after the middle of the decade they had begun to lose members". This loss of religious values was unable to be replaced by any other meaningful philosophical framework. Teenagers had the images of a homogenized America that was on the one hand void of crime and on the other hand portrayed America as an elitist society. The greatest loss of religious members came from teenagers and Johnson, Hoge, and Luidens reports that, "...the principal source of the decline was the tendency of many adolescents who had been confirmed in these denominations from the early 1960s on to drop out of church and not return". There was a revolution against the values as portrayed on television as opposed to more realistic viewpoints of the real America. This split in the consciousness of American youth paved the way for violent dissent and revolution. With no firm ideology, and no core values, the hippie movement could make their own rules. The convergence of an unattainable American ideal as portrayed on Leave it to Beaver clashed headlong into the well educated, yet real, America that was lived by most Americans. The new America was punctuated by young people that were well read in history and the arts. Students in the early 1960s were quick to disavow and repudiate the image of America s portrayed by the sitcom and its attendant suburban lifestyle. Students were eager to find distortions of reality in relationship to race and gender. They were, however, quick to embrace the new images of a South that was brutalizing blacks or a Vietnam War that was killing thousands of America's youth. These images were so diverse in content that the youth of the 1950s were deeply split, not only politically, but also personally. The youth movement, as defined by the 1950s, would naturally take the easy way out. Anti-government dissent was an easy way to demonstrate their opposition to an America that they perceived as unfair. With no well-grounded core values the hippie movement was able to protest in an 'anything goes' environment. The 1960s were a result of several social factors converging on a single historical era. The affluence of the 1960s had generated greater economic opportunity and more educational opportunities. These were juxtaposed with an America that was presented through the eyes of television. The youth of America were shown a utopian America of secure neighborhoods and unlimited equality. Yet, that equality fell short of reality. There were few blacks on American television during the 1950s and women were relegated to subservient roles. The more believable venue, the evening news, was full of an America where prejudice and war permeated society. The youth, left with personal philosophical decisions, had little guidance to turn to. The decline of the importance of religion left a void for sound value judgments. The media was able to transfer the freedom of the beatniks to the more violent factions of the hippie movement. When faced with this dilemma, youth were eager to follow a course that was not yet a part of America's socially accepted norms. Vietnam: Was it Necessary No issue from the 1960s is more contentious than the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was able to split a generation, political parties, and the patriotism of Americans. The war brought a socially conscious president, Lyndon Johnson, to an early political end. Johnson was unable to balance the conservative pressure for the need for war against the more liberal factions that were calling for an end to the military action. Some will argue that the war should have been extended and the military given greater free reign to wage a successful campaign. Others argue that after over 50,000 American deaths that victory was nowhere in sight. While the outcome of the war remains in doubt and the strategies remain fodder for academic debate, the original intentions of America's foray into a foreign war have become more obvious. America entered Vietnam to continue to implement the policies of containment against the USSR, to create another battlefield for the Cold War, to attempt to eliminate the Soviet's presence in Southeast Asia, and gain support for the military industrial complex. The policy of containment had been a long-standing strategy of the United States in their efforts to curtail Soviet aggression. This approach had worked well in Europe by providing military aid to countries that were threatened by the Soviet army. During this period, the world was divided ideologically into the capitalist and the communist spheres. American foreign policy was based on the belief that the Soviets held world domination as one of their fundamental ideals. The US policy was that by containing their aggression they could be stopped from accomplishing their goals. The policy of containment was offset by calls for a more militaristic policy that called for rolling back the Soviets in Eastern Europe and developing countries. However, according to the State Department, "...containment in the more general sense of blocking the expansion of Soviet influence remained the basic strategy of the United States throughout the cold war" ("Kennan and Containment, 1947"). Containment was a compromise policy between escalation of the Cold War and a policy of isolationism. Vietnam offered the United States a platform for confronting the USSR without bringing a nuclear war to America. Though the Soviet Union was only anecdotally involved from a military standpoint, there support of China and their ideological support of communism in the region were well documented. Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese ruler during the war, was a communist that had been schooled in Moscow in Russian ideology. In addition, when Eisenhower began the war in 1956, the official policy was to fight the war to support the leader of South Vietnam and to back, "... Ngo Dinh Diem Oct. 1, 1954, and his Catholic Saigon government imposed on 6 million Buddhists" (U.S. Policies in the Vietnam War). During this period the American public was living in fear of a nuclear attack and was quick to back a government policy that could prevent the Soviet aggression. Catholics were viewed as a collectivist group who could further the cause of communism in Asia. By disallowing the communist sympathizers to gain a foothold in Vietnam, they were setting the stage to provide a battlefield for the capitalistic-communistic war without bringing it to domestic soil. The Americans had been dismayed by the outcome in Korea just a few years earlier. The country had been divided after World War II and put under the defacto rule of the United States and Russia. As the Cold War took hold after Russia proved to be a nuclear power, the sphere of influence became a greater concern for America. Korea had been divided and after a lengthy and brutal war was even more set in on the division. America could not tolerate another Korea in Asia and there was a strong will to prevent Vietnam from being communistic or divided on ideological grounds. The predisposition to use developing countries as a battlefield had already been shown in Korea. It would become an issue again in Cuba, Granada, and Nicaragua. This political drive to stop communism from gaining a foothold prompted many people who may have seen the error of going to war in Vietnam from speaking out. This animate support that the government was able to generate was more a reflection of people's fears than a belief in the policies. Taken together these issues may be enough to prompt a country to war. Yet, there was also the military industrial complex that was in need of a military issue to further the country's willingness to increase defense spending. A Cold War and its nuclear threat were not visible to the citizenry. Only by actively engaging in a military confrontation could the military justify an increase in spending. During this period there was strong support for the war in Vietnam within the defense industries. JK Galbraith recalls that, "Indeed, it was taken for granted that both the armed services and the weapons industries should accept and endorse hostilities". The military could only justify a bigger budget by having an example of Soviet and communistic aggression. The Cold War had become an abstract concept. A war on the ground would promote military spending, the defense industry, and political contributions. It was in the political well being of politicians to promote the national defense and in the best interests of the military to justify the action. The period when America entered Vietnam was a period of heightened awareness of the looming Cold War. America had been through a war in Korea and it ambiguous outcome was still on the minds of most voting Americans. This was emboldened by the official State Department's policy of containment. It was necessary to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining any ground anywhere in the world. While Vietnam was a small developing country, the government viewed its leadership as sympathetic to communistic ideals and causes. The US government needed a battlefield to fight the war of ideology. These anti-Communist feelings were exploited by a military and defense industry that understood that the American public would not tolerate an increase in spending without some evidence of a threat. The Vietnam War was justified by a real fear in the American public that was bolstered by a need of the military to promote the industries of defense. Works Cited Flexner, Stuart B et al. "Generation Gaps.". 1997. Florida State University. 5 Nov. 2007 . Galbraith, J K. "A Cloud Over Civilization." The Guardian 15 July 2004. 5 Nov. 2007 . Johnson, Benton, Dean R. Hoge, and Donald A. Luidens. "Mainline Churches: The Real Reason for Decline." First Things (1993). 5 Nov. 2007 . Kennan and Containment, 1947." US Department of State. US Department of State. 5 Nov. 2007 . Saletan, William. Bearing Right. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. U.S. Policies in the Vietnam War. Ed. Steven Schoenherr. 1 May 2007. San Diego University. 5 Nov. 2007 . Read More