Figuring Out Your 1960s Stance in One Question

Intellectual Takeout ^ | March 23, 2021 | Alexander Riley

[DoodleBob]

The 1960s, according to Carl Oglesby, a former president of Students for a Democratic Society, “will never level out.”

“It’s a corkscrew, it’s a tailspin, it’s a joyride on a roller coaster, it’s a never-ending mystery,” he continues. “Who won? Who lost? What were the terms of victory and defeat? We’ll always be discussing that.”

I recently edited a book of interviews with leading scholars that investigated the consequences of that decade. As a scholar, I avoided taking a partisan stance on the legacy of the ‘60s for contemporary America. But that stance doesn’t mean that I think there is no principled way to pick sides.

Instead of the lengthy, nuanced argument most academics would give, the story of Norman Morrison provides a quick method for deciding which side you’re on.

Morrison was a part of the aggressive activism in the ‘60s against the war in Vietnam. Most of us are aware of some of this activism: the marching in the streets, the blocking of military recruiting sites, and the burning of draft cards. More violent forms of protest also existed, including assaults against law enforcement, vandalization and burning, and breaking into military offices to destroy and steal documents.

But Morrison’s act went beyond all of these. He practiced a form of less well-known anti-war activism by imitating the acts performed by a number of communist-sympathizing Buddhist monks in South Vietnam.

A young Quaker with a wife and three children under the age of six, Morrison was described by his wife as someone who cared deeply about people in the abstract, but who was ill at ease with actual human beings. On Nov. 2, 1965, he went to the Pentagon with infant daughter, Emily, without telling his wife of his plans. There, after either setting Emily down or handing her off to a stranger, he used a can of kerosene to fatally set himself ablaze. All this in the belief, apparently, that immolating himself and perhaps also his child would strike a blow on behalf of the Vietnamese children who had died during the war.

Morrison’s oldest daughter, Christina, summarized the heart-breaking effect of her father’s action, noting that "It didn’t stop the war,” and it made the people of Vietnam seem “more important” than her family.

I was incensed that he could even imagine sacrificing a child in following his own vision. And he did sacrifice her in a sense by requiring her to witness his death and by leaving her there without him. … I have often felt that, in a sense, my father sacrificed all five of us in hopes of saving the people of another country.

The logic of Morrison’s deed follows from his political and social principles, and those principles were accepted by many in the streets in the ‘60s who might have seemed quite less radical than he. They believed the U.S. war effort in Vietnam was evil and that the communist cause was justified as resistance to that evil. They believed that any consistent advocate for justice, in a land so distant from the site of the violent consequences of imperialist evil, had to be prepared to sacrifice themselves and those close to them to fight against such evil being done to those distant peoples.

Here you have your basic 1960s moral calculator.

If you agree with Morrison, and you find his self-annihilation and abandonment of his wife and young children an admirable and morally sound symbolic contribution to the anti-war effort, you are on one side. If you see what he did as a horrifying atrocity, and you believe it a dangerous delusion to be more committed to the well-being of abstractions in your mind that represent people on the other side of the planet you’ll never know than you are to the children of your own flesh, you’re on the other.

Essentially, the ‘60s as a whole can be boiled down to these two simple principles. In many ways, this dichotomy is applicable to our own time as well.

Are your moral concerns most intensely focused on those closest to you, perhaps radiating outward beyond kin and community, but inevitably weakening as they move outward? Or are they focused with equal intensity everywhere, or perhaps—owing to the requirements of social justice—especially concentrated on expert-approved victim populations, regardless of their distance from you, your loved ones, and the community in which you live? Indeed, regardless of whether you will ever see them?

Answer that and know where you stand.

[DoodleBob]

It's worth repeating:

Are your moral concerns most intensely focused on those closest to you, perhaps radiating outward beyond kin and community, but inevitably weakening as they move outward?

Or are (your moral concerns) focused with equal intensity everywhere, or perhaps—owing to the requirements of social justice—especially concentrated on expert-approved victim populations, regardless of their distance from you, your loved ones, and the community in which you live? Indeed, regardless of whether you will ever see them?

[cuban leaf]

Reminds me of the old phrase: liberals love the masses but hate people. Conservatives hate the masses but love people.

[Blurb2350]

Yep. That’s it in a nutshell. “Morrison was described by his wife as someone who cared deeply about people in the abstract, but who was ill at ease with actual human beings.”

[gspurlock]

This simplistic dichotomy is simply part of the communist effort to replace God with state. People must replace their loyalties to God, Family and Country with only the “state” or controlling party. It works with some like that poor Morrison fellow and not so much with others.

[elpadre]

“....aggressive activism in the ‘60s against the war in Vietnam...”

I was in LE during the 60’s. The war was just an excuse. These people, the SDS and their off-shoot the Weathermen, were actually purposed for a violent overthrow of the government. It was no secret. They openly proclaimed that was their goal. They opposed all authority whether it was governmental or parental, or anything in between. And, they were supported by the USSR and Cuba. They were a sick people, to say it mildly.

[daler]

I was of draft age in the early ‘70s, and was adamantly opposed to putting my life on the line in Viet Nam.

Only because it became clear to me we had no intention of winning the damn thing.

[exDemMom]

Or are they focused with equal intensity everywhere, or perhaps—owing to the requirements of social justice—especially concentrated on expert-approved victim populations, regardless of their distance from you, your loved ones, and the community in which you live?

That is the goal of communism, to replace individuals with abstractions. Instead of trying to enable individuals to live the best lives possible, they want to exalt society and reduce individuals to unimportant and interchangeable cogs that exist only to make society function. The point they are missing is that society is only a framework that allows individuals to coexist on peaceful terms; it is not a living entity and does not deserve any special consideration. Furthermore, society is not imposed on individuals as communists believe or want to happen; it is created by the countless interactions of individuals.

[bimboeruption]

I’ll take dogs over most people any day.

[Chode]

[LibFreeUSA]

Here’s my deep inside take on the ‘seed’ that started all of the problems we have today...... Bobby Kennedy! Yes, Bobby Kennedy.

The problems the United States faces today started with Bobby Kennedy.

- APRIL 1961: it all began with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba to topple Castro’s communist government in April 17-21, 1961. Bobby Kennedy was the one who convinced his brother JFK to ‘downscale and change’ the original invasion plans set by the Eisenhower administration, and also to not ‘get involved’ overtly during the critical first few days of the invasion which consequently allowed the invasion to fail. Castro consolidated his power and fully invited the Soviet Union to set up missiles in Cuba.
* a failure in leadership that resulted in the most catastrophic reverberating event in the history of this country, such that the resulting consequences seeded a cancer in our social fabric which to this day is taking us deeper into the abyss.

- MAY 1961: After deciding not to ‘overtly’ help Cubans STOP communism just 90 miles away in Cuba, JFK decides to APPROVE and overtly send 400 US Marines over 8000 miles away to help the South Vietnamese STOP communism, thereby getting the US military engaged in combat operations.
* a reflex reaction to his failure to act just one month prior and just only 90 miles away from the US. (Thank You Bobby Kennedy).

- NOV 1963: JFK gets assassinated, and he leaves with 16,000 combat troops in Vietnam. Johnson takes over as President, and gets elected Nov 1964.

- DEC 1965: Smarting from the Cuban debacle of now having communism 90 miles away (Thank you Bobby Kennedy), Johnson decides to ‘get tough against communism’ 8000 miles away by escalating to 180,000 US troops in Vietnam by end of 1965 and gets into a full blown needless war.

- 1966/1972: The US goes into full blow social upheaval (anti war movements, radical leftism on college campuses, feminism, drug and sex culture get spawned from this entire social upheaval from resulting from this unpopular war. (Thank you Bobby Kennedy).

- 1973/1975: Democrats force Nixon to resign by starting Impeachment proceedings, and a young Hillary Clinton (an indoctrinated radical leftists), among many others, are now in the Democrat party, radicalized and indoctrinated as a result of the social upheaval of the needless Vietnam war. (Thank you Bobby Kennedy)

- The 1960’s Leftist radicals started infecting schools and government in the 1970s and forward. The ‘social activism and radicalization’ born in the 1960s as a result of the the STUPID INVOLVEMENT in Vietnam, spawned a radical group of people where they came to believe that “The Ends justify The Means”.

THANK YOU, Bobby Kennedy!

[aumrl]

and , apparently, they have won

[chuckee]

Our human construct, whether we approve of it or not, is our world starts with our own individual welfare and works its way out from there. Anyone that denies this fact is being disingenuous. Conservatives acknowledge this principle, accept its limitations and legislate with a view to empowering the individual which results individual accountability and growth. Liberals won’t acknowledge this fact, although they know it to be true and legislate with a view to empowering the collective which assures and lack of individual accountability and stagnation.

[socal_parrot]

Who won the 60s culture war? All the social unrest and “peace and love” of the 60s gave rise to the moral majority and Nixon elected for 2 terms.

[LastDayz]

I don’t remember. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?

[dfwgator]

Who is in the White House means squat.

The Left was busy infiltrating all of the institutions that matter: Academia, Media, Corporations, and even the Churches.

And now, here we are.

[bert]

Implied is the requirement for moral concerns.

Picking the moral pepper out of the birdseed is the root of a mostly non existent problem

[The_Harlequin]

I was anti-establishment back then. That stance has remained unchanged to this day. The anti-establishment Left of the sixties weren’t so much against the status quo as they were bent out of shape because they weren’t part of it. Notice how former radicals from the sixties love the establishment now that they’re part of it.

[a fool in paradise]

SDS was linked to the KGB and spawned the Weather Underground who’s first act was the Days of Rage riot during the trial of the Chicago 7 instigators of the 68 DNC riots.

[a fool in paradise]

Most of the activists in the 1960s who hated America STILL want to overthrow it. They just have adopted other subversive tactics like taking over academia, the government, and destructive DAs.

[elpadre]

“..The Left was busy infiltrating all of the institutions that matter: Academia, Media, Corporations, and even the Churches...”

Exactly!! Many active and/or sympathizing with SDS, the Weathermen, the Black Power organization and others began their takeover and changing society - changing a way of life.