"We are fighting to rid ourselves even now of most of the cultural nonsense imposed upon us by 1968."
Rod Liddle explains why The year 1968 was even more ludicrous and damaging to the country than any other.
The remarkable thing is that the half-baked and narcissistic ideologies of that dismal 12 months are still with us, in our schools, in our law courts, in our social services; they have permeated every facet of our lives.
A disrespect for authority, contempt for the family unit, multiculturalism, "yoof culcha" and an emphasis upon rights rather than responsibilities.
A permissiveness and indulgence shown towards every anti-social phenomenon from the use of illegal narcotics to single mothers and suicide bombers ("We really need to understand them better") - all that stuff was forged in the rather tepid British spring and summer of 1968.
It's taken me years, make that decades, to get over and drop all the nonsense I imbibed in the very air of the late sixties.
Posted by Jill Fallon at February 12, 2008 9:40 AM | PermalinkI was 10 years old that year. I remember watching the news on television and hearing these idiots spouting total nonsense while the news anchors nodded wisely. I didn't "get it". I still don't get it. *sigh*
Posted by: Teresa at February 12, 2008 11:56 AMNot everyone remembers 1968 with the same disdain. I was twenty-two at the time, going to the third college on the GI bill, still trying to get an undergraduate degree taking the better part of eight years. Having been drafted as a Conscientious Objector and serving two years as an Army Medic, I had a somewhat different take on events like the killing at Kent State and the nihilistic solipsism of flower children. I didn't get it either at the time, but later I realized that the ideals of a mere few years before, the sacrifices of the Civil Rights movement and protests against the war in Vietnam were abandoned for a selfish culture bent on feeling good. 1968 was indeed a pivotal year but I don't recall it as an unmitigated low point of social and political development.
Posted by: John Ballard at February 19, 2008 7:15 AM