Just Above Sunset
Volume 5, Number 10
March 11, 2007

As seen from Just Above Sunset -

"Notes on how things seem to me from out here in Hollywood..."

Saturday, January 20, 2007 -

The Sixties Are So Over

Via "Miss Laura" here we see there's the new and baseline data. It seems the sixties may be back in some strange way.

Every year since 1966, the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, out here at UCLA, has produced a report on the attitudes of entering college students on a broad range of issues.  This year's report (PDF format) is comprehensive, based on information from 271,441 students at 393 colleges and universities. That's a big sample.

So what stands out?  This -

For today's freshmen, discussing politics is more prevalent now than at any point in the past 41 years.  More freshmen report that they discussed politics frequently as high-school seniors, moving up 8.3 percentage points to 33.8 percent in 2006 from 25.5 percent in 2004, the last time this question was asked.

The sixties return.  These students also show increased rates of identification as "liberal" and "conservative" - both these categories have gone up by 1.3 percentage points since 2005.  This is the highest level ever of conservative students ever found by this survey, and the highest level of liberal students found since 1975.  Things are heating up.

The breakdown on issues, however, isn't so clear -

• Not only do 88.5% of liberals believe the federal government isn't doing enough to control environmental pollution, so do 62.5% of conservatives.
• 83.9% of liberals and 57% of conservatives believe that a national health care plan is needed.
• 70.8% of conservatives and 59.6% of liberals believe that "the chief benefit of a college education is that it increases one's earning power."  Perhaps to protect all that extra income they anticipate, only 42.2% of conservatives believe that "wealthy people should pay a larger share of taxes than they do now," while 71.6% of liberals believe this.
• Support for gun control is down by nearly 5 percentage points.
• Agreement that "there is too much concern in the courts for the rights of criminals" is at a thirty-year low overall, taking 43.2% of liberals and 67.6% of conservatives.
• Support for gay marriage is up, to 61.2% overall - conservatives of course being the holdout at 30.4% - while denying rights to gay people is down.

So some of the issues have shifted.  Some of what would the natural province of the remaining long-haired left of 1968 has become mainstream with the young - the environment matters and some sort of a national health care plan might actually be a good thing. Gun control and making sure the accused don't lose their rights don't seem so radial to the new kids on the block.  And, really, who is upset these days with the very existence of gay folks?  What's the problem?

The odd thing is the young are engaged in popular politics and policy. How things are run actually matters to them. 

Or it doesn't, if you are to believe the Harvard professor who is teaching a course on what he calls the "New Leftists."  The course is actually called "From Reform to Revolution: Youth Culture in the 1960s" - a study of the old days, when the leftists were actually new - and in the Washington Post he reports this -

Some of my students suggested that they might not even be capable of experiencing the kind of indignation and disillusionment that spurred many baby boomers toward activism. In the Vietnam era, the shameful dissembling of American politicians provoked outrage. But living in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate, and weaned on "The Simpsons" and "The Daily Show," today's youth greet the Bush administration's spin and ever-evolving rationale for war with ironic world-weariness and bemused laughter. "The Iraq war turned out to be a hoax from the beginning? Figures!"

The students who took my seminar were a particularly serious-minded and delightful bunch. Most of them came to admire the pluck and panache of the New Leftists we studied, and they were quick to recognize how frequently the concerns of Vietnam-era protesters dovetailed with their own complaints against the Iraq war. Some even wistfully remarked that they would like to be part of a generational rebellion.

But they doubt that this is likely to happen. "Just like [in] the 1960s, we have an unjust war, a lying president, and dead American soldiers sent home everyday," one student wrote me in an e-mail. "But rather than fight the administration or demand a forum to express our unhappiness, we accept the status quo and focus on our own problems."

So the extensive survey is nice and all that, but what we have these days in just wistful indifference.  Talk is cheap.  Nothing will change - and it's best to just take care of yourself.  Marching in the streets to change things is cool - like old Steve McQueen movies or a nicely restored 1967 Chevy - but what does it have to do with anything these days?  Mass political action can change things?  Isn't it pretty to think so.

But really, something might be up. Something quite different, as "poputonian" suggests, saying you really have to account for changes in communication technology -

It seems no small thing that the medium for protest itself has undergone a massive paradigm shift. The current 100 million streams per day on YouTube and Google Video far exceed the numbers who view the old style 'teevee', and though much of what is being viewed over the net is entertainment, there is also a growing body of news and protest video. Think of the taser video of the UCLA student that spread organically and virally across the ether. Ditto for the video of Saddam's hanging, which circled the globe before the corporate press could get their fat 401k asses out of bed, or Bush strumming a guitar during the destruction of New Orleans, an image that propagated from person to person and surely had some influence on media coverage and public opinion.

That Harvard professor concluded the lack of a military draft one primary reason today's kids aren't protesting in the streets.  No one is being forced to ship out to Iraq or Afghanistan, or, down the road, to Iran, Syria, Venezuela or Cuba, or North Korea.  Where's the pressure?

But "poputonian" throws in something from George Washington regarding the citizen response at Lexington and also the notion of a compulsory military draft -

We are now, as it were, upon the eve of another dissolution of our Army. The remembrance of the difficulties which happened upon that occasion last year, and the consequences which might have followed had advantages been taken by the Enemy, added to the present temper and situation of the troops, reflect but a very gloomy prospect upon the appearance of things now, and satisfy me, beyond the possibility of doubt, that unless some speedy and effectual measures are adopted by Congress, our cause will be lost.

It is in vain to expect that any (or more than a trifling) part of this Army will again engage in the service on the encouragement offered by Congress. When men find that their townsmen and companions are receiving 20, 30, and more dollars, for a few months service it cannot be expected without using compulsion, and to force them into the service would answer no valuable purpose. When men are irritated and the passions inflamed, they fly hastily and cheerfully to arms. But after the first emotions are over, to expect among such people as compose the bulk of an army, that they are influenced by any other principles than those of self-interest, is to look for what never did, and I fear never will happen. The Congress will deceive themselves, therefore, if they expect it.

The comment on that is instructive -

I don't think human nature has changed much in the last two centuries. Self-interest is the primary driver for most people, whereas "the disinterested," as Washington called them, the people he said were "actuated by principles of honor," are fewer in number, and always will be. People will go to war when they believe it's in their best interest to do so, and they will oppose going when they believe it is not. Why do you suppose the military is unable to raise recruits for the current mission?

Both my teenagers asked a dozen questions about Vietnam and the street protests after watching Going Upriver, a documentary that revealed a true American anti-war hero in John Kerry. Watching Kerry, their eyes welled up with tears, as did mine. They later watched the bumbling press conferences of President Bush and hold him in contempt, and speak out against him. They pledge to vote against him and others like him whenever given the opportunity. My daughter pointed me to When The President Talks To God, the protest song by twenty-something indy-rocker, Bright Eyes. That song, which Bright Eyes made free to anyone who wants it, has now been heard by millions. The video of him performing the song on Leno has been viewed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions. My daughter ended a friendship with someone who became radically opposed to gays because of what that person's fundie parents had taught her. The culture battles are playing out in the schools and I believe the side of reason has the edge. Though it might not hold the visual drama of a street protest, per se, it is the rejection of bad ideas and beliefs.

So, I admit to being optimistic about the younger generation, what with their sensibilities and the new uses of technology. Having information spoon-fed by the monolithic media empire is being replaced by consumer-selected information sources. Print circulation is dropping and the networks are laying off staff as the MSM is out-flanked by the emerging, wired community. It's the wired community where you can find the bee-line to the truth, if you want it. As I see it, protest is still there, but it's perhaps a bit more efficient, subtle, and less obvious to those we're protesting against. Hopefully, this way leads to a greater gathering of numbers, and more sustainability as the precision-memory of digital reporting, coupled with smart governance, leads to a better world. I think the kids will figure it out.

Ah, it's just the sixties transformed. Welcome back, everyone.

To leave a comment, drop a line and I will post it below the text.

Mail to: Editor@JustAboveSunset.com