How The 60's Changed Our Lives
When the soldiers returned from WWII, they returned to a country
that was flourishing again. The Great Depression had finally come to an end,
and the economy was back where it should be. "Leave it to Beaver" may have
been somewhat stereotypical, but it still remains a fairly accurate
portrayal of the average life in the post-war decade. Plenty of jobs for
the men, and plenty of housework for the women. Life was easy, so people
did what they did best, they reproduced. Because of the medical and
technological breakthroughs, the infant mortality rate was greatly reduced,
thus creating a "boom" of babies, aptly called the "baby boom." This
generation had one of the largest populations of any ...
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and purity of their childhood values. To themselves, they
were the dawn of a new society in America. A psychedelic society, almost
utopian, in which love would be everywhere and people would help each other.
(O'Neill 127)
Drugs were very quickly associated with the hippies. You could
often see people smoking marijuana on sidewalks, in parked cars, in
doughnut shops, or relaxing on the grass of a public park, anywhere
(O'Neill 125). LSD was also very prevalent. Both were to make the user more
aware of reality, and to expand their minds. In an interview, Joyce
Francisco said "Whenever I find myself becoming confused, I drop out and
take a dose of acid. It's a shortcut to reality; it throws you right into
it. Everyone should take it, even children. Why shouldn't they be
enlightened early, instead of waiting until they're old (O'Neill 134).
Sex, or rather the promiscuity of sex, was quickly associated with
Hippies as well. Nude parties, where people painted each other, were ...
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XV-XVI).
Demonstrations on November 5-8, 1966 in New York, played a large
part in linking the hippies with the anti-vietnam movement. About 3,000
hippies gathered in downtown New York and marched to the city's rally of
10,000. They were dressed in old clothes, largely military, had "outrageous
hairstyles" and were carrying an enormous stage prop Yellow Submarine. The
hippies made the madness of the crowd into an occasion for joy and humor.
There, Jerry Rubin remarked that he was all for the Marxist tradition "the
revolutionary tradition of Groucho, Chico, Harpo, & Karl (DeBenedetti 161-
2)"
Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin both were very influential in the
anti-vietnam movement. Organizing ...
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"How The 60's Changed Our Lives." Essayworld.com. February 14, 2008. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/How-The-60s-Changed-Our-Lives/79005.
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