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1968 Won the Culture War Because Nobody Paid Attention to 1979
There is little to argue with in Dr. Victor Davis Hanson’s level-headed piece, “So who won the ’60s?“
Republicans would claim that they have won more presidential elections since 1968. They would argue that the silent majority eventually saved much of what was still traditional America. Radicals of the ’60s such as Bill Ayers and Jane Fonda were never widely popular.
But turn on the television, watch a movie or an NFL game, listen to popular music, visit a campus, notice how crowds dress and speak, walk down a sidewalk in a major city, and examine the behavior of our celebrities and political class: It’s hard not to conclude that the ’60s won out.
Although the Republican Party and conservatives generally have made powerful counterattacks, the left has used the zeitgeist of 1968 to win the culture war over and over again. I believe the reason for this is that the lesson of 1968 has been preserved in our cultural memory but the lesson of 1979 has been lost if it ever was fully understood.
We withdrew from Southeast Asia in 1975. No longer was America using military force to attempt to counter Communism in the region. With North and South Vietnam now both Communist under Hanoi’s control and with the everpresent world power influence of close by Chinese and Russian Communism, Pol Pot defeated the Lon Nol government and took over Cambodia. This at first appeared a trivial outcome for the region but strangely the most significant event now unfolded. From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated one of the worst genocides in the already blood-soaked 20th century. Emptying the cities they mass-murdered city dwellers rationalizing it by their twisted ideological scheme. So sick was the Khmer Rouge madness that in 1979 the North Vietnamese invaded and destroyed the Khmer Rouge to be rid of them.
What lesson should have been learned from this but was not. We had been indoctrinated by such lights as Lenin and Frantz Fanon that cultural imperialism was responsible for all of the ills of the developing world. The need of the West to impose its will on other cultures was the root of the problem. From the end of WWII on, the litany against colonialism in our intellectual bastions relentlessly went unchallenged. Marxist liberation movements were seen as a just response to this Western capitalist tyranny.
Cambodia is the answer to all of this. What possible rational reason could the Khmer Rouge have had to commit this atrocity? Did they feel insecure with Communist North & South Vietnam to their east, with Communist China to their north, with Communist Russia more than happy to ship in whatever aid they needed? There is only one answer. It is the answer that the Marxists don’t ever want you to think of. G-dless amoral Communism is just that. Once these master propagandists obtain power their true nature is revealed. Human beings are either moldable clay to be formed into their hideous obsessions or they are threats to be destroyed. Marxism is an inhuman ideology. It was, it is, and it always will be. For all of colonialism’s arrogance, for all of the American cultural clumsiness, none of it was as evil as the genocide perpetrated by the pure Marxist ideologues of the Khmer Rouge.
If that lesson had been learned then 1968 would have been answered once and for all by 1979.
Published in General
Yes.
Quibble: The Left has used its own mythology about the so-called “1968 zeitgeist” to win the culture war over and over again.
If you go back and look at actual data from that period, such as public opinion polling and various forms of marketing/sales data, a very different picture emerges.
For example, the majority of college-aged Americans in 1968 supported the Vietnam War. The majority of the opposition to the Vietnam War came from the older generation (that had lived through WWII and Korea).
This applies not just to politics but also to arts and culture. The late 60s are mythologized for the gritty protest songs from folk like Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Rolling Stones, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, etc. etc. etc.
And yet, the #1 Billboard single in 1969 was Sugar, Sugar by The Archies. (#2 was The Age Of Aquarius by The Fifth Dimension)
In 1968 it was a little better, with the #1 spot going to Hey Jude, but The Beatles still aren’t really the sort of thing people mean when they talk about the “1968 Zeitgeist”. (The #2 single in 1968 was something called Love Is Blue by some guy named Paul Mauriat. I have no idea who that is.)
The top-grossing film in 1968 wasn’t some protest film promoting anti-establishment rebellion. It was 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose heroes are the most conformist squares one could imagine at that time – astronauts. (The #2 highest-grossing film was Funny Girl. #3 was The Love Bug. Revolutionary stuff, that.)
The Left loves to mythologize the Paris protests of May 1968 as a mass uprising against the whole dang system. And yet, it started as a simple dispute over the Sorbonne’s policy forbidding students from staying overnight in the opposite sex dorms. Kids wanting to bone. There’s your “revolution”.
The mythology of the 1968 zeitgeist came from the media which trained its cameras on the folk wearing the brightest colours and making the loudest noises, but those folk were a minority even when compared to peers in their own demographic cohorts.
Meanwhile, the media controlling the cameras were the same old batch of “old white men”. If “old white men” are the enemy, why didn’t they suppress the media coverage of this so-called “youth revolution”? They controlled the media, right? That means they had that power, right?
Perhaps no one payed attention in the sixties because everyone was high on something and it’s worse now.
Okay, so admission time: I had a Woodstock poster that spanned the width of my bedroom and mainly grew up in the 80’s. Our music was not quite as good and some of it was angst-y as far as the Cold War and nukes went, but much of it was fluff. Seems like Disco won something because there sure is a significant connection between it and some of the popular music of today, which also is mainly fluff (just like “Sugar, Sugar”).
It’s true, the generation that was there succeeded in romanticizing the Summer of ’68, and ’69 for that matter (thanks, Bryan Adams), but we didn’t romanticize the drugs and other activities. What truly won the culture war of the 80’s, at least the latter half, was AIDS. Want to “bone” (see above)? Well, you might die. Pretty simple, even if flawed, and certainly not an experience shared with the generation(s) that followed.
The culture war of today as it plays out with political implications is about subjugation, not conversion. There is no attempt to say “this is the better way” on the left. It is, “Go green or the Earth will die.” Say this, or you are _____-ist; agree with that or you’re heartless. Look, I’m not arguing there aren’t a significant number of people willing to live under that yoke, but there are many catching on to what’s happening.
If there is one thing we might take from ’68 and apply it to today, it’s the future seems to belong to those that offer more freedom, not less. It isn’t that people feel compelled to make choices others view as immoral or libertine, it’s that they want the power to decide, and for a long time the left branded the right as those who did not want to allow anyone to decide. We have the opportunity to return the favor, but are too busy (as usual) claiming the mantle of defeat.
Shut your face. 1983 was the pinnacle of music.
On-topic:
Cambodia is really a special case of crazy. Remember, things there got so bad that it was the Communist North Vietnamese who invaded to stop it.
A guy at dinner tonight tried to claim that “true Communism hasn’t been tried” (I was in a different room, and the Thanksgiving rule was in effect, so I held my tongue) but Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge is the counter-factual to that tripe. And that led to the Killing Fields.
Eat that, Alexandra Whatever-Ortiz.
Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. Yes! I stole it and I’m glad.
Most of us weren’t high on anything they just got all the media exposure, sort of like it is now.
So, I looked up “Love Is Blue”.
My goodness, this was the #2 song in 1968?!?!
I’m convinced that the thing people don’t get about Woodstock is that it was an alternative music festival. It’s just that the term “alternative music” hadn’t been coined yet.
When Bertrand Russell met Lenin in 1920, he thought that Lenin’s big failing was that he was too devoted to Marxist orthodoxy, and that Lenin couldn’t begin to acknowledge that anything Marx wrote might have been in need of amendment or revision.
If Russell had been Russian, he would have been purged for being a revisionist and/or a counter-revolutionary.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, Rolling Stone magazine declared Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone to be the #1 greatest rock n roll song. That’s one of my favorites too but it has always amused me that it was chosen for that honor.
Here you have this new (in 1965 anyway) radical style of music, all about throwing off the old cultural norms, about individuals seeking ultimate personal freedom, pleasure, and self-expression. And what’s the theme of the greatest rock n’ roll song? Basically – You should have listened to your parents and stayed home. Don’t come crying to me when it all goes down the drain. Not in so many words, of course, but that’s the basic idea of it. Counter-counter-cultural. Brilliant.
Great article, great comments. We lost they won. Unless even mild evil is opposed it wins. Progressives, at least compared to Pol Pot, et al, are mild evil. It lasts longer because it seems mild but it will end in the same place, perhaps milder because we will have time to become better adjusted to the Brave new world
I didn’t have to look it up. I remember it.
Hm. I don’t even think it’s Dylan’s greatest song.
When we were visiting Cambodia, our tour guide told us about the Khmer Rouge. It was impossible to comprehend the sickness, viciousness, cruelty that took place under their regime. Whole villages were killed off, entire families. That’s why it’s so difficult to determine the number who actually died: there were so many killed who could have told the story. I think if I’m with someone who says Communism has never actually been tried, I’ll remind them of Cambodia. Of course, they will likely not know anything about it . . .
Mis,
Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. We have a first-hand account of an hour-long discussion with Lenin by someone who was philosophically immensely sophisticated. Russell makes it clear about Lenin’s dogmatism and the corrupt cruelty. To stir up the poor peasants to murder the rich peasants was a great joke to Lenin. Russell reveals in his typically British understated way that he was appalled by Lenin.
BTW, I, as a Kantian, am no admirer of Russell. The Logical Positivists abandoned The Meta-Ethics and accepted a sophisticated nihilism. They are excellent critics of a dogmatist like Lenin. However, when it comes to presenting positive moral values they have already painted themselves into a corner. When WWI happens all Russell has to say is that he is against violence and is a pacifist. He is incapable of saying that WWI is immoral and that both sides should immediately stop. Moral concepts are just emotion-charged words according to the Positivists. We wouldn’t want to claim any of that, now would we?
Sorry, I got off of my own topic. The subject of Russell is just too tempting for me. Thanks again for commenting Mis.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t fully disagree…can’t start this album without finishing it.
Jim, there’s no question people are chattel to be done with as a communist regime sees fit, and particularly problematic at the onset of a regime. Are they insecure? Of course, because they know what evil they’re ready to inflict on their fellow man.
I’m not sure anyone was ready to look at southeast Asia in any way in 1979, so what kind of opportunity was it really? There were plenty of problems here…caught an old clip of Bill Murray on the daytime David Letterman show and an audience member jokingly asked their opinion on a fair interest rate for a home loan, the answer was “22 percent.” So, maybe the chance was missed, but it would have been a tough, tough sell. That’s not to mention the hostage crisis and Afghanistan (barely, as far as the calendar went).
Apologies for responding above more to Dr. Hanson than to this post.
Couldn’t scrub it from your mind, eh?
I’m pretty sure it was a regular on the dentist waiting room muzak rotation.
You are against the EU, but the EU is very much a Kantian project. So I am confused.
If that were really true, the Lenin never would have pushed his revolution in a country as unindustrialized as Russia, but waited for Germany and would still be waiting. Lenin was anything but a doctrinaire Marxist.
Thanks for this excellent post. I have a minor quibble. The title should be paid attention not payed attention.
It is the combination of a paranoid revolutionary movement embracing an all-encompassing worldview that allows no doubts that gives rise to the slaughter once they attain power through civil war. Happened in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Chris,
Yep, look out when the “anything goes” attitude boomerangs and comes back at you. I referred to those mortgages (no longer 20 year but then upped to 30 year) as renting from the bank. After 10 years of making your huge payment, you had acquired virtually no equity. Everything was interest. Home prices soon leveled out and went down so you couldn’t dream about the market saving your skin either. Not to worry, President Carter wasn’t going to allow Industry to screw up the environment. The unemployment rate hit 10% but hey Jimmy made sure to wear those cool checkered shirts so everything was just fine.
In 2018 for one brief moment, we had a President that had us on track economically. Now with the Wicked Witch of California as Speaker and her new gang of flying monkey congresspersons in tow, who knows what evil lurks. Being aware of the threat from the left and not falling for their phony rhetoric is important.
We may be off topic again. However, the general illusion that there is no severe downside to the left is as false in 2018 America as it has been for the last 150 years of misery caused by the Marxists.
Regards,
Jim
The February revolution happened when Lenin was in Switzerland. The October revolution happened when Lenin was in Finland. He didn’t push for revolution in Russia. He stepped in to profit from revolution after-the-fact.
Very good post – I think there is a lot to it.
I grew up in the 1970s, and the advancement of totalitarianism that decade led me to become a conservative in my youth and the rest of my life: MAD, the detente policy, the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis, Afghanistan invasion, the boat people, and Khmer Rouge. These incidents and the Vietnam War also led my parents to become Republicans (despite Watergate) and to eventually support Ronald Reagan.
I loved the Beatles and asked my parents about them and the 1960s in general. They were Elvis fans and really didn’t care for the Beatles. They said the 1960s was nothing like as it was later presented in popular culture. They were from a rural farming community and did not like the lack of respect shown to America and its institutions. However, they only observed these things from a distance via newspapers and TV. They never “experienced” the 1960s themselves as popularly presented. Instead, they finished school, got married, started a career and a family (yeah, me!) – and for that, I am forever thankful.
I think on some level, the lessons of 1979 were learned. I believe a significant reason why the US is still in Afghanistan and put a lot of resources into Iraq have been the lessons of the 1970s, Vietnam, and Cambodia. I believe the events of 1979 led to electing Ronald Reagan. I think people who did not participate in the “’60s” got their mojo back and counter-punched. There are now many more open, free market economies now than 1979, and poverty all over the world is down. I do not think the “’60s” to the present is a continuum. Maybe, the 1960s were the 1960s, and the 2010s are the 2010s. Maybe it is all this wealth and freedom, in the 1960s and today, that people in the US forgot about history and hard times and only focus on themselves and the present. As for 1979 and the citizenry, I am not sure Americans have forgotten it more than any other period of history.
Hang,
The mistake everyone makes is to try to hang Cosmopolitanism on Kant. There is no Cosmopolitanism in Kant. It goes like this. The foundation of Right (pure apriori idea of right, not rights) is Private Right. Public Right is justified only by forming a government to make Private Right conclusive (secure). National Right is the entire polity taken as a single entity justified only by protecting the polity’s Public Right from abuse by other polities. Cosmopolitan Right is justified only by forming a coalition to make National Right conclusive (secure).
Marx claims to justify a socialist superstate by first destroying all Private Right. This is totally antithetical to Kant. In fact, a Marxian point of view would automatically be a “Wrong” by definition. The EU claims to be promoting a superstate of its own by first destroying all National Right. Again this is totally antithetical to anything in Kant. In fact, the EU’s point of view would also automatically be a “Wrong” by definition.
People grab onto Cosmopolitan Right like someone grabbing onto the radio antennae at the top of the Empire State Building. They imagine that they can have their tall antennae without the Empire State Building holding it up.
It doesn’t end well.
Regards,
Jim
No, he was in Petersburg for the October revolution and he was plotting it. The October coup was largely a non-event – the storming of the Winter Palace was nothing like Eistenstein, more of a matter of running off some female guards because everyone else was either mutinying or drunk. There were some ministers inside the Winter Palace who were arrested, but most escaped.
Lenin had gone into hiding in Finland after the June coup attempt, but was back in Petersburg four weeks or so before the revolution and had to talk the party into attempting the coup.
The Cheka was soon created to be bank robbers for the new government because neither the central bank nor the private banks would provide them with any money. The civil service also went on strike, so the Cheka rounded up the heads of departments and held their families hostage to get the civil servants back to work. The money the Cheka stole in Petersburg and later Moscow financed the civil war. While early on Lenin also got gold from Germany, within a few months of the October revolution the Germans cut off the payments and Lenin had to look elsewhere. So he stole the money. Communists are great thieves. The residue of gold Spain stole from the Incas and the Aztecs wound up in Stalin’s hands to pay for the Spanish Civil War.
See History’s Greatest Heist by Sean McMeekin for Lenin’s finances.
So what happened in 1979, besides Iran taking hostages?
Oh, the Khmer-Rouge. Huh? Who much paid attention to that at all? We didn’t need to. There are plenty of communist atrocities still ongoing.
Mis,
That Lenin was an opportunist seems the smallest of his massive sins. His entire life was centered around pushing for the revolution. He justified the use of force where Marx had imagined only a “natural process”. He didn’t even step in. The Germans sent him in on the “sealed train”. They knew he would pull Russia out of the War and Germany would have a one-front war instead of a two-front war.
What I find interesting is his great slogan “Peace & Bread”. After the horror of WWI on the eastern front, you can imagine that this slogan was welcomed. Unfortunately, the Russian Revolution killed far more Russians than WWI did. Also, the real famine started almost immediately and continued all the way through to Stalin’s Holodomor.
Peace & Bread not so much.
Regards,
Jim