The Sixties: The Years that Shaped a Generation

PBS ^ | 9/29/2005 | PBS

[operation clinton cleanup]

"It was the age of selfishness. It was the age of self-indulgence. It was the age of anti-authority. It was an age in which people did all kinds of wrong things."

- Ed Meese III, U.S. Attorney General, Reagan Administration

"It was absolutely exhilarating. It was the greatest time to be alive ever, for sure."

- Charles Kaiser, Author/Historian

[reagan_fanatic]

I was just a little kid during the sixties. I remember going past the local cinema one afternoon and asking Mom what Jesus Christ Superstar was. She replied it was just a bunch of dirty hippies doing some play.

[fizziwig]

One thing I really love about the 60's.....they are soooo over....good riddance to a festering boil on America's history.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Uh, yeah! A lot of Americans backed our troops and the civil rights movements, but somehow the anti-establishment types captured the imagination of the media and took over the universities. Any behavior was coddled and approved -- the more despicable the better. Now the same folks (with haircuts) RUN the media and the universities.

[Blood of Tyrants]

It will be remembered as the most selfish generation ever.

[operation clinton cleanup]

I was young then but I missed most of the "Fun" because I was occupied with other things, the Army for one.

Thanks for your sacrifice... hope you made up for the "fun" in other ways!

[chudogg]

I see hippies on campus from time to time, but for the most part they are an ostracized sub culture while the rest of the students shower regularly and appear to make themselve presentable. I ask my parents in awe how their generation could actually think those people were the "COOL KIDS"?

[ladyinred]

It was my generation, and I am happy to say that not all of us became wacko leftist hippy freaks. I did not, nor did any of my friends. Some that did, obviously burned their brains out on drugs and haven't recovered yet. Some of them have been President.

[Knute]

I admit to attending a David Dellinger lecture at college...

[operation clinton cleanup]

One thing I really love about the 60's.....they are soooo over

It seems PBS and the MSM refuses to let it go!

[MadManDan]

One thing maybe all of us can agree on:
These times right now are NOT that fun to live in, they are getting worse and have been since the 90s. (I'm 24, but can remember plenty of the 80s and I think the 80s were more enjoyable) I don't mean fun in ways like getting drunk, drugs etc. either.

[cubreporter]

Ahhh, now THATS the kind of kids I loved. to hell with what the protestors were doing. You were doing what was right because you loved your parents and they loved you. thanks Mom and Dad is right. God bless you all. I hated the sixties except when our kids were born in 61 and 63. That's the best thing in my life that came out of the 60's as I am sure other paretns feel the same.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The Sixties: A generation of burnouts look back!

I'm so glad I wasn't old enough to have seen it for myself. I probably would have landed in jail for beating up too many hippies.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Another Reagan Kid! One of the happiest days of my life was when The Great One got elected the first time-and seeing the looks of misery on my liberal teachers' faces when he did.

[ErnBatavia]

I remember going past the local cinema one afternoon and asking Mom what Jesus Christ Superstar was. She replied it was just a bunch of dirty hippies doing some play.

Mom was right...they usually are.

[tacticalogic]

It will be remembered as the most selfish generation ever.

Their parent's generation told them that the "Great Society" of Big Government owed them a good life.

[daler]

I agree with almost all of what you said (I'm a little younger, but we're contemporaries).

Where I take exception is the "anger and fear" comment.

I think of the 60's as a time of rapid change and technological modernization, surfing, great network television (particularly "Green Acres" :), Elvis, Motown and the Beatles, cool cars and landing a man on the moon.

It was exciting; not all negative.

You often hear "if you remember the 60's, you weren't there."

Well, I was there...and I remember it clearly and fondly.

And, unlike most of my buddies, Ripple was the most illicit substance I consumed (maybe that's why I remember).

[suzyjaruki]

"American Graffiti" fits my memory best.

[tacticalogic]

I'm so glad I wasn't old enough to have seen it for myself.

Sure you don't regret missing the muscle cars just a little?

[operation clinton cleanup]

The people who believed music would change the world were dopers who are by now institutionalized or dead. Those of us who were in the real world were scrambling to make lives while the entire country was torn apart by the demonstrations and later Watergate.

I think those making real lives for themselves outweigh those who cant or wont... that is the real difference from the 60's.

[laconic]

The only thing that was any good was the music. The rest of the "culture" was garbage. A lot of "principled" young men whose real and guiding principle was saving themselves from the draft. And annoying young women who thought they knew more than anyone else and were so much better than their elders who had worked their tails off to give them a life of leisure. This was not "my generation" just a bunch of people who were born in the same period of time; that's all I and millions of others share with them, Thank God.