Just the other day, I heard the old 1970 hippie anthem on the radio, and
it all came back:

       Did you pay your dues?
       Did you read the news?
       This morning, when the paper landed in your yard
       Do you know their names?

Yes, my brain replied instantly, I know their names.

Allison Krause.  Bill Schroeder.  Sandy Lee Scheuer.  Jeffrey Miller.

Probably some of y'all, of a certain age, know those names, too.  Solid
Midwestern German-American names, all of them (Miller usually comes from
Mueller).  Clean, normal college kids, not druggies or radical agitators.
It's a funny kind of fame that comes from dying under those circumstances.
Another kid was crippled that day, but he lived, and I don't know his
name.

I was a high school sophomore then, one of the editors of a left-wing
student paper.  I don't even want to think about the mood of May 1970, the
rage and fear and excitement of that time, the sense that the era of
"sharing and laughing" (as in the lyrics of that same song) was turning to
bullets and blood.  Fortunately, we were wrong about that.

Some think the "Sixties" (the concept, not the numerical decade) ended
that day.  I would put it a bit later, maybe in 1972 or 1973, but Michigan
State was always a step behind the times.  The last big antiwar
demonstration in East Lansing happened in mid-May 1973; ours was the only
major campus to decide that the mining of Haiphong Harbor was worth
demonstrating against.

We have all come a long way in thirty-two years.  But May 4 always stirs
up the old memories.

84 responses total.

There is no such awareness in today's society and particularly in today's
college campuses.  It's as if society has given up on its attempt at unified
thinking and has allowed everybody to drift back into their caves, blissfully
unaware of the changes that occur.  No longer do we watch three major networks
for all of our news and entertainment, choosing instead to retreat to our
niche cable stations for gratification.  No longer is there one dominant
musical movement that engrosses the American youth--artists as "diverse" as
Brittney Spears and Eminem are major newsmakers for all the wrong reasons,
and rarely do people listen to them both.

In theory, the values that grew so quickly in the sixties still exist, those
ideals of equality and justice and peace.  In practice, we've forgotten what
was won (and, in some cases, lost) in that time.

(For those of you historically challenged the author of #0 is refering
to the release of a CSN&Y album and the first four purchasers at a
small outlet in Ohio.  It was a media frenzy at the time.)

        I believe the reference is to the Guess Who song,
        "Share The Land".

I would say that lack of awareness in the present generation is less the case
than is the lack of opportunity to make existential decisions about one's
life.  In the late '60's, the decisions made defined the person and really
did make a life or death difference.  Such decisions are certainly made
nowadays, but they are particular instead of societal.

        http://www.wksu.org/news/stories/may4th/

Re #1:  Personally, I'd be delighted if society gave up all attempts at
        "unified thinking."  Forever.

senna's #1 is an interesting way to think of it.  (I suspect Joe is reading
something into the phrase "unified thinking" that Steve didn't intend, but
I don't know.)  It's still true that students on college campuses protest
things; just recently on the UM campus there have been large protests
supporting Palesinians and others supporting Israel, often at the same time.
But no, it doesn't feel like the community has come together and agreed on
something.  Did it feel like that in the sixties?

I'm not sure whether I am or not, but the things senna seems to be using the
term for are things I think are actively *bad*: unified ideology, everyone
listening to the same media outlets because the media's controlled by a small
number of networks, etc.

I might be misunderstanding.

Yeah, I guess I think those things are bad too.  But having shared
experinces with a group of people is a way to feel connected to them, and
that can be good.  And the idea of feeling connected to a lot of people
apeals to me.

Something happens to people as they age that they tend to think any
younger generation doesn't get it.  They don't have the spirit we had,
they don't care about society's evil, like we did, and their music sucks. 

Yuck.

I have no idea what issues the young people today are dealing with but I
suspect the issues are ever bit at stressful, if not more, than what I
dealt with in the 60's.  I'm not invested in their music but mostly I've
never given it a chance.  But most of the time I hear people saying it's
crap it's because it's not the same music they listened to when they were
still listening.  Really listening. 

And they have plenty of spirit and they care about their lives.  Probably
ever bit as much as the four young adults killed on Kent State's campus
who weren't even part of any organized demonstration. 

        It is strange to hear that collection of audio
        tape from that NPR broadcast. To hear the
        ferocity of the chanters convictions . .

                1, 2, 3, 4
                we don't want your f*ckin' war

        and hear the menacing tone of voice, as if
        being there in uniform and armed was an act of
        treason during wartime . . it's shocking to
        recall how divisive that time was.

        One of the first comments your hear from the crowd,
        right after the shooting, was a call for help:

        "Somebody call the police . . err, an ambulance."

I wasn't necessarily describing any of that as bad.  You've placed your own
spin on it. :)  There is, however, a confusion of ideals.

(Mary, it's not that the younger generation's music is bad, it's not music.
PDQ Bach might say that after hearing some of this stuff one might want to
follow in Beethoven's footsteps and lose their hearing, but I'm not even sure
if that's an adequate defense.  Er, does this mean I'm getting old? (:  )

In the late 70s and early 80s I worked as a camp counselor in a left wing
youth group where some of the parents were of the "60s" generation. It
always used to frustrate me that some of the children thought that what
they did wouldn't really matter because the world would end up getting
nuked anyhow.

I can't really say how wide-spread this was, or if they outgrew it.
Ironically, these kids would have hit college in the mid-to-late 80s,
about the time the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

Today, many of the people of that age group with whom I hang out are
mostly interested in entertainment, sometimes seeming puzzled by my
efforts at recycling, etc. I'm not sure how many would know that ANWR
wasn't some new type of SUV.

Please tell me that I'm just getting old, and that it's not society that
is getting all plush and comfortable -- and decaying.

sorry - i think it's the latter. we're all getting old.

Yep.  And there are lots of reasons for older generations to feel superior
and defensive at the same time.  We don't really understand what it would
be like to be 18 right now.  The world is different. And if you don't
believe that young people, yep those shallow know-it-all youngsters with
the the god-awful music, haven't staked their claim on this time just
imagine competing for one of them right now as a new employee in your
field.

What they lack in experience they'll make up for with enthusiasm 
and energy and a willingness to adapt.  And for that they deserve the job.

I went to a Steve Allen performance some years ago and, frankly, would
have walked out after the first 10 minutes had John not been along.  His
whole dog and pony show was one long whine about how things and people
weren't as good as they were in his day.  He had lost his relevance and
couldn't find it anywhere.  How sad. 

Jim's youngish (25) housemate and his sister and their friends are pretty
idealistic and into organic farming and jobs that help people.

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As a so-called "young person" (19), I can say that most of today's "young
people's music" does indeed suck. Terribly so, as a matter of fact. Not to
say, though, that there aren't a few diamonds in the rough.

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Kent State.  Yes, I remember it well. Or not.

It was a day of total stupidity on all sides.

The ROTC building was burned down the night before.  Members of the student
body punctured the hoses of the fire fighters.

The students had been sent notices not to attend any demonstrations on a
weekend.  Most of them never got the notices since they were off campus.

Most of the National Guard didn't want to be there, they were about the same
age and in general against the war.

They fired 36 rounds in 13 seconds.  4 people died.  I don't believe any of
them were there with the protesters.

It was plain stupidity on all sides.

re 18: That may explain why the Rolling Stones are still making music. 
Sometimes I wish the younger generation would get it's own music. *grin*

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 .. or not.

Just because we're getting older doesn't mean they aren't getting
stupider. Or somethin'.  (:

Yes, pthomas, there always are diamonds in the rough.  The more rough,
the more diamonds. Searching for and finding these diamonds is one of the
things that makes life interesting and worth living.

A couple of years ago, a lot of the pop music which was being played on
the radio was quite listenable.  Maybe that's because it resembled in many
large and small ways the music that came out 30 years ago.

I thought this was interesting, and shared the observation around.  But
most others of my generation just gaped uncomprehendingly at the notion
that new music might be even passingly worthwhile.

Yeah, but 'rap' is still crap.  I mean it doesn't take a lot of
creativity and spirit to lay down a heavy and repetitive 2 note
base 'melody' with a simple drum rif -also heavy  - while
shouting out antisocial comments at the top of your voice.

On the otherhand some of the (c)rap resembles german
techno of the later 70s and is quite clever and listenable...

My fave (c)rap number is _You's a Ho_.

resp:26  I don't think that's a fair assessment-- hip-hop is indeed 
creative and diverse, and it falls flat just as much as rock or any 
other genre did, honestly.

Every decade has its crap--- ALL THE WAY back to Bach, and beyond.  
Time weeds out what was crappy.

Re: #26  Kind of like, "Hey, Jude" but with attitude?

The best music from any era is gradually filtered free of impurities by the
passage of time (wow, I should sell that to a "best of" CD company!).  The
biggest difference between the music then and the music now is that the music
now hasn't been filtered yet.  After all, we're not comparing "every pop song
from 2002" with "every pop song from 1971".

Then there's the "I know what I like, and I like what I know" side of it.

I think part of the reason college-age people seem to care less about
issues, and engage less in protests, these days is that most world issues no
longer directly affect them.  There is no draft; no one's going to war who
didn't sign up for it.

I suspect that if we engaged in another Vietnam today, and again
initiated a draft for soldiers, that a higher percentage of young
people would revolt and not follow marching orders than did so 
in the sixties.

not if they were promised a HAPPY MEAL (tm)

No, I agree with Mary.  When Tom Brokaw's book about the WWII generation was
being hyped, there was a fair amount of talk about how much more purposeful
that generation was, allowing them to deal with being in such a major war.
Implied is that today's kids are too lightweight.

But the WWII generation were a bunch of partying lightweights too, back in
the 20's and 30's.  The rose to the occasion, and I'd expect today's kids to
do the same if another real war happened.

I wonder how well a reinstating of the draft would hold up today, legally. 
You would think the male-only nature of it would draw legal challenges, at
very least.

I'd certainly hope so.  I think as an affirmative action thing, they should
draft only women for the next two world wars and several police actions.
;-)

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Same here.  It's offensive.  The draft should have become co-ed when women
got the vote.

(Ideally, there shouldn't be a draft, but if we're going to have one it
 shouldn't be unequal.)

In my ideal world, there would be a required two years of national service,
with different types of service available: military, hospital, teaching,
etc.  Required between the ages of 17 and 20.  Both sexes.  

That is a nice idea actually although I would rather see the program be 
voluntary with some kind of reward at the end of it (College tuition 
paid for perhaps?)

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss