The 1960s - the Beatles Band - Essay Example

The Sixties The 1960s was the most significant decade of the twentieth century. This period of historycommonly referred to as ‘the 60’s’ had its ideological beginnings when the civil rights movement flared up in the mid-1950’s and ended in 1973, the year of the Watergate scandal and when troops began to withdraw in Vietnam. The ‘60’s era was instigated by events in the U.S. but affected the entire industrialised world. No other decade or era in the past century witnessed the massive social or cultural upheaval that occurred during this tumultuous time. Reflecting on the 1960’s, one’s thoughts are immediately diverted to the large-scale war and civil rights protests. All this was occurring while men first landed on the moon. It was a time of a great awakening among the collected consciousness of the world. This discussion will review some of the major events of the ‘60’s era demonstrating why this period was a distinctly profound society altering era. The focus is on the civil rights movement and the counterculture including the popular art and new religious incursions into the existing culture which were challenging conventional thought. Following the ‘60’s, the idea of what was ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ in society was greatly altered in a relatively short period of time and like no other time in at least 100 years. History The Civil Rights Movement was an important chapter in American history which led to the establishment of human rights around the world and The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin” (US Equal Employment Opportunity, 1997). Subsequently an Executive Order (11246) originating from the Lyndon Johnson administration in 1965 mandated affirmative action for all federally funded programs. These governmental efforts to effectively outlaw institutionalized racism was a reaction necessitated by the enormous outpouring of public pressure of all races and gender during the 1950’s and 60’s. Society as a whole as well as many groups and individuals have benefited from these programs including women, those who suffer disabilities and the working class, but the principal emphasis of the movement and legislation was focused on racial discrimination. Civil Rights legislation gave credence to the great imbalance of social equality that blacks were experiencing and to the rights and the respect that they were seeking through the movement. The spotlight on the civil rights movement empowered other social causes such as women’s liberation which championed sexual freedom and equal opportunities in the workplace. During the ‘60’s, women began to openly question many aspects of the patriarchal society that defined their actions in and out of the bedroom. The introduction of ‘the pill’ (birth control) coincided with a growing desire for sexual freedom and pre-marital, ‘casual sex’ became acceptable rather than unspeakable behaviour. Birth control fueled the women’s movement because it allowed them the same choices previously enjoyed only by men. They could now pursue a career path unencumbered by the thought of an unplanned pregnancy. Legalised abortion was the culmination of growing political pressure instigated by the women’s movement. The concept of sexual freedom emanating from this movement extended to homosexuals who began to openly admit their sexuality. The ‘young generation’ view regarding sex was greatly relaxed as compared to the previous generation. Living together rather than marrying became accepted, a trend which continues in popularity today. Sexuality developed into a political cause which served to mobilise other societal movements. The puritanical attitudes towards sexual relationships that described societal norms for hundreds and thousands of years transformed over the period of a decade (Cohen & Zelnik, 2002). This cultural change in the thought and expressiveness manifested itself in the counterculture, a movement that was not politically demonstrative in nature. It was comprised of groups of people dissatisfied with the capitalistic-driven system who experimented with the concept of communal living. These ‘communes’ are described as an effort to “create communities of equality, direct democracy and solidarity motivated not by material deprivation but by radical consciousness” (Anders, 1990: 45). Residents of communes saw themselves as the initiators of a ‘new world order’ based on interdependency and equality. They valued personal interactions and sought to protect the environment. The long-term goal was for society to become “self-correcting and sympathetic to nature’s balance could be created” (Anders, 1990: 45). The ‘anti-establishment’ doctrine of the communes espoused equality, honesty and open communication between all thus raising the collective consciousness, knowledge and wisdom of the group. In this way, society would continue to advance instead of becoming stagnant as it had prior to the ‘60’s. Though this style of living did not catch-on as intended, its values remain imbedded in the culture and are seeing a re-emergence such as renewable forms of energy, organic farming and recycling. Universities became the focal point for massive youth demonstrations. Students organised rallies to decry the military involvement in Vietnam and the bureaucratic school and governmental system believing both were tyrannical and were exercising more power than was their right. Students marched, gave speeches in front of thousands of supporters and held ‘sit-ins’ in defiance of authority. The sit-in tactic was borrowed from the civil rights movement. The University of California at Berkeley became the epicenter for the protests in 1964 when a group of students at that campus organised the ‘Free Speech Movement.’ Soon after, students at other universities began to employ this strategy as a means to voice their opposition to oppression and the war which progressively became the major issue. By 1968, protests on campuses across the U.S. became the norm and at the Democratic National Convention that year, the violent clash between protestors and police was televised nationally. In 1970, four students were killed by national guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio during a peaceful protest as cameras rolled. These and similar occurrences shocked the nation which led to a softening of college policies and contributed greatly to the end of the war. “The political activities of the youth movement had enduring effects. Colleges became less authoritarian, ending dress codes and curfews and recruiting more minority students” (“Vietnam War Era”, 2002). Religion The cultural chaos during the ‘60’s facilitated a spiritual re-evaluation for many, especially the young generation. Since that time, the social taboo of experimenting with non-mainstream religions has diminished sharply. New religious movements were based upon choosing a religion that suited the individual rather than being destined to follow the same beliefs as ones’ parents. This emergence of guilt-free philosophical thought provided an ideal backdrop for the teachings of guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who came from India came to Western nations during the early 1960’s to found the Transcendental Meditation Movement. The movement’s popularity was heightened when the members of the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh, located in the Himalayan Mountains, to study meditation techniques. The counterculture peaked towards the latter part of the 1960’s. ‘Hippies’ were garnering the attention of the media and exotic drug use was common among this sub-culture of society. It was during this time of unabashed sexual, spiritual and drug experimentation that, somewhat surprisingly, many of these youths also ‘experimented’ with Christianity. “A large proportion of these youthful evangelists for Jesus were only a short while removed from drugs, ‘free love,’ and alienation from ‘straight society.’ They spoke of a ‘Jesus Revolution’ and believed that the end-times were near” (Enroth, 1972: 12). These youths were often referred to as ‘Jesus Freaks’ or ‘Jesus People.’ Most held fundamentalist views with a mindset of “salvation through an experience of faith in Jesus Christ” (DiSabatino, 1999: 5). They were considered part of the counterculture movement because they also believed the masses would flock to their message. “The ‘Jesus Movement’ felt as though they were participants in a genuine awakening” (Enroth, 1972: 15). Art/Music The ‘Pop Art’ of the ‘60’s sought to bring fine art back into the daily lives of the modern man with attention given to the items and images that people saw regularly, such as soup cans in a famous painting by Andy Warhol. The Postmodern art of the era can be characterized by a combining of several of the art forms that have come before as artists began looking around and concluding that everything that could be done had already been done. “Postmodernists lashed out against Modernism with an explosion of art of numerous different mediums” (Clark, 2006).  Rather than trying to come up with something completely new, artists of the postmodern generation worked to combine art forms of the past in new and unique ways that more closely expressed the views and understandings of the world even as it reintroduced excitement and vitality to the field. “The goal of postmodern art is to separate the works as far away as possible from the monotony and blandness of modernist art, so all forms of art come together to create visually stimulating, unique, and original pieces of appropriated art.  The overall impression of postmodern art is one of pastiche and appropriation, often promoting parody or irony.  It also aims to blur the boundaries between high art and low art” (Clark, 2006). Rather than focusing on the deeper meanings behind the art as so much of Modern Art had done, Postmodern Art fought against this intellectual approach to art and instead worked to focus on just what was presented in the collage-style piece itself. Like the works themselves, “Postmodernists focused on fragmentation; the belief that one’s work is not his or her own, but an appropriated collection of the completed works of others.  Because with this appropriation and eschewing of the avant-garde, postmodern artists often take an idea from another work of art; a play, a story, or a painting, and rework it into something different” (Clark, 2006). This fragmentation also applied to fashion designers working to find a new mode of dress in the postmodern age. Examples of fine artists that rose to fame during this period include Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, although several pieces by Andy Warhol could also be considered postmodernist. It is the nature of modern art to be self-reflective as it is the prevailing purpose of modern art to explore the deeply personal characteristics and attributes that make one unique. As such, they often present the impression that the artist is fragile or imperfect, hardly the profile of a narcissist. In addition, these artists, working with themselves as subject, have moved into the new age of video as a means of expression, particularly in terms of capturing a sense of the raw and immediate which is inherent in the very identity and form of video (Maziere, 1996). This trend demonstrates an attempt by the art world to re-establish the autonomy of the individual and reinstate the personal into a medium that has been seen to alienate. “Beginning with many influential single-channel video works from the 1960s and early 1970s including Andy Warhol’s Empire and Gilbert & George’s Singing Sculpture, making time traces time-based work through the present, juxtaposing these works against narrative works from the same timeframe” (Maziere, 1996). Abstract Expressionism had its beginnings in the U.S. during the ‘60’s, a form of art that likely could only have evolved beyond a concept during this period of general explosive cultural expressiveness brought on by the progressive social revolution. Painter Mark Rothko figured prominently in this artistic experiment that is exclusively identified with the times. Through his works, Rothko attempted to resuscitate the fundamental concept of modernism, that art has the ability and obligation to dismantle people’s assumptions. As in many other areas, Americans borrowed artistically from Europe then ‘Americanised’ it. Abstract Expressionism, a uniquely American invention, combined European concepts to fit the counterculture ideology popular in the 1960’s. “It is often held as America’s most important contribution to Modernism. Abstract Impressionism was influenced by both Surrealism and Analytic Cubism. The Abstract Expressionists synthesized European trends in modern painting in order to create an all-over technique that was quickly held to be emblematic of American post-war culture, politics, and power” (Rosenblum, 1975). The Beatles, considered by many to be popular music’s most historically important band, continues to evoke intrigue and fascination from a social point of view while their music, even today, appeals to people of all ages more than 30 years after their last album was released. The Beatles were the embodiment of the 1960’s. They began their career as one type of band and ended as quite another altogether. This is the theme of their development, how they transformed from seemingly carefree suit and tie wearing lads who created innocuous, relatively simple songs to counter-culture icons widely perceived as leaders of a societal revolution. Sgt. Pepper’s (1967) is widely considered, specifically by rock musicians of the time, to have transformed the music world. It was developed principally from the melodies and metaphors of the Victorian Music Hall style favored by the working class. The Beatles developed the material with a literary awareness. Two songs from Sgt. Pepper that clearly display the Beatles’ sense of innovation also display touches of irony in selections such as ‘When Im 64’ and ‘Lovely Rita’ while still effectively invoking the Music Hall style. The melodramatic ‘Shes Leaving Home’ represents the widening gap between parents and their children, a universal reality of the mid-to-late 1960’s in a song where “the string arrangement is closely related to the meaning of the text” (Thurmaier, 2003). The practice of depicting words through musical imagery “goes back to at least the Renaissance but is relatively uncommon in rock music. Indeed, the corny, melodic sentimentalism of the antique Music Hall repertoire was a rich vein for the group, and they were never to abandon it” (Thurmaier, 2003). While the Beatles continued to generate heavier rock songs such as ‘Come Together’ and ‘Revolution’ and they engaged in some musical experiments on the White Album that were ‘something completely different’, “the influences that shaped their major, later output, most of the music for which they are best known, emerges from an antique pop style”­(Freund, 2001). The enormous influence that the Beatles had on popular music and culture was and still is historically profound. They introduced the concept album and helped to bring about personal expressions into a music field that generally used a prescribed concept for song writing. The band’s evolving persona, from the original 1964 ‘Beatlemania’ days through the end of the decade, either guided or mirrored the period’s changes within society. The Beatles remained the focal point of this phenomenon, if not ahead of it, as long as they existed. The Beatles’ heritage is monumental and they are universally known to be the most influential musical artists of the last century, arguably of all time. This is because the Beatles encouraged an entire generation to imagine itself differently. No other period of time in the history of societies have so many cultural changes occurred in such a short time. An analogy can be drawn from the state of television during this era. The people of the U.S. and much of the rest of the world entered the 1950’s in black and white, ideologically and artistically speaking. The ‘60’s introduced colour to everyone, pun intended. People today have a higher level of tolerance for minority rights and alternative forms of lifestyles and artworks. Artists such as Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and the Beatles gave society a new way to view the world and contributed greatly to the transformation of western culture’s collective consciousness. They gave progressiveness credibility in a time when most were clinging desperately to maintain the status quo. The ‘60’s accelerated a century of cultural and societal change into a one eccentric, volatile and unforgettable period. It was without question the most exceptional decade. References Anders, Jentri.  (1990).  Beyond the Counter-Culture: The Community of Mateel.  Pullman: Washington State University Press.   “Civil Rights Movement, The.” (1998). Theale Green Community School. Berkshire. Retrieved 28 August, 2007 from Clark, Lauren. (2006). Postmodernism: A Greater Understanding. Washington: Washington State University. Retrieved 28 August 2007 from < http://www.wsu.edu/~lauren_clark/pomodefinition.html> Cohen, Ronald and Zelnik, Reginald E. (eds). (2002). The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California Press.  Daniel, Pete. (1990). “Going Among Strangers: Southern Reactions to World War II.” Journal of Southern History. Vol. 77: 893. DiSabatino, David. (1999). “The Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource.” Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Enroth, Ronald M. (1972). “The Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in the Age of Aquarius.” Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Freund, Charles Paul. (1 June 2001). “Still Fab: The Beatles and their Timeless Influence.” Reason Magazine. Rosenblum, Robert. (1975). Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko. New York: Harper & Row. Sound Vision staff writer. (2006). “How the Civil Rights Movement Affected US Immigration.” SoundVision. Retrieved 27 August 2007 from Thurmaier, David. (Spring 2003). “The Beatles as Musical Experimentalist.” Phi Kappa Phi Journal. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (January 15, 1997). “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” United States Code. 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