What do people mean by "the confusion of the 1960s"?

Question

Referring to the era of the 1960s. I know there were a lot of protests and unrest, but doesn't every era have these? Why do they alwasy say "people were looking for answers to all the confusion"

Answer 1

It starts with the parents of the Boom Generation -- they couldn't understand why their children didn't want to continue the societal institutions they felt they had fought for and built in the years following WWII. After all, their next-youngest peers, the Silent Generation, had.

But Boomers felt that the insitutions their parents had built were hollow and money-grubbing... that there was no "soul" to them. So, in their own confusion, they went out to seek internal answers, through rejecting the religions, conventions, and solaces their parents had embraced.

Answer 2

White Americans think of themselves as having been confused in the 60s because today they have rejected and recanted most of the anti-capitolist, anti-imperialist, pro-socialist, internationalist cultural education and hippie attitudes that they once were so enchanted with. Then again casual sex & drugs obviously needed reconsideration. Hence having rejected all of this and all other notions of idealism in the name of the Great Society, they now, despite looking back on those years fondly, think of themselves as having been quite naive!

Keep in mind also how the society had to make many adjustments that radically shook this nation. America for the first time had to come to grips with racism, sexual, religious, and age discrimination. The truth about genocide inflicted on the native indians, the myths of Viet Nan, Blacks started dominating several sports, and Asians Martial Artists proved that Western Sports were devoid of any martial skill, Yoga and Buddhism were being taken seriously, abortion was socialised, clothes and hair-styles changed, the pron industry was growing exponetically, Freud became popular only to be later rejected,Dr. Spock changed child rearing filling the youth culture with sociopaths and meists, tax-payers saw that two thirds of the government budget was being spent by the military etc. Now consider the fact that most Whites and Blacks have become more and more like their parents! That's pretty confusing to me!

Answer 3

The "confusion" of the 1960s -- a good and appropriate term -- was rooted in changing values in America and the coming of age of the early baby boomers, who had and continue to have a huge influence on American life because of their numbers, if nothing else.

The earlier generation -- the Greatest Generation, according to Dan Rather -- grew up in the Great Depression, fought World War II, and saw the beginning of the Cold War. The boomers experienced none of this, although they did grow up in the Cold War era.

Before the 1960s, segregation and racial discrimination (in both north and south) was commonplace and accepted without question as the status quo by the majority of Americans. During the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration was generally conservative; the postwar American economy, fueled by low energy prices and a surge in consumer spending, thrived; and, referring to giant automaker General Motors, a popular quip went, "As GM goes, so goes the nation." The husband and father was the "breadwinner," and the stay-at-home wife was the "homemaker" in the nuclear family. Automatic washers and dryers, black & white televisions, automatic dishwashers and electric can openers were all new products for the home. America was prosperous and smug.

But there were seeds of change and unrest in the '50s. A new musical genre, rock 'n' roll, appealed to teeny-boppers, and one of their idols, Elvis Presley, seemed a threat because of his swivel-hipped sexuality. Some "beatniks," who lived on the West Coast on the fringes of society, seemed to reject society's values. (The beatniks of the '50s evolved into the "hippies" and "flower children" of the '60s.) And most significantly, an incipient civil rights movement was making an impression on television news programs. The 1954 school desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education, led the way, and it was followed by the Emmett Till murder, the Montgomery bus boycott (Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.), and the school desegregation battle at Little Rock's Central High School.

The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy marked a generational change in Washington. Several presidents -- Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower -- had been born in the 19th century and were of age at the time of World War I. Kennedy was the first of the WWII generation. With Kennedy's election, the Greatest Generation came to power in Washington, and that generation held power for thirty years -- Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and the elder Bush. Bill Clinton was the first boomer to become president, and it's likely that boomers will retain the presidency for a few more decades.

The Vietnam War, like the Korean War before it, was a product of the Cold War. In the 1960s, people -- mostly young people -- began to protest against it in the face of the "silent majority" (Vice President Spiro Agnew's term for the WWII generation). The civil rights movement gained momentum, highlighted by legislation enacted as part of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" program. This represented a sea change in the status quo experienced by the WWII generation. "Affirmative action" and bussing speeded up school integration. Interracial marriages increased. Young men grew beards, let their hair grow long, and rejected the buttoned-down, gray flannel suit culture of their elders.

All of this represented generational conflict, signalling changing values. The older generation -- the WWII generation -- had to come to terms with this, and so you get "the confusion of the 1960s" as in your question.

Related manifestations include the three assassinations (JFK, MLK, RFK), plus that of Malcolm X, as well as the Black Power movement of the 1960s (Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam), which was an offshoot of the civil rights movement.

What we call the '60s probably started with the JFK assassination in 1963, and it continued well into the 1970s where we experienced the rise of the women's movement ("Women's Liberation" and bra burning) and Watergate.

Between the time of the Kennedy assassination and the Nixon impeachment and resignation, the American values had undergone a fundamental transformation.

Finally, in answer to your question about changes in every era, the answer is yes, there always are changes, but it takes time for the eras to change. The baby boomers reshaped America to fit their values, and the gen-Xers will do the same. It just takes time, but we're already seeing some of the future as expressed in urban rap and hip-hop music, and in the influx of Latino immigrants who will flex their political muscle in the years to come.

Answer 4

More importantly, the Cold War caused the confusion. Imagine living in a world where a nuke could be dropped on your @$$ at any time.

Answer 5

They were confused because they were all stoned or on acid.