where you alive in the 1970's?

Question

i wish i was alive back then. i just want to know what it was like back in the free days, growing your hair, listening to rock music gettin stoned and all that. what was it like in the 70's? was it better than this generation?

Answer 1

Yes, the sex, drugs and rock & roll were good. Now all I have left is the rock & roll.

Answer 2

We didn't all get stoned, but we had the best music ever, which started in the Fifties and exploded in the Sixties into a phenomenal music scene that spilled over to the Seventies. During that time, all of us listened to the same music. There might have been a Generation Gap in the Seventies, but we listened to much of the same music.

The Seventies were not the blissful time you think they were. In 1970, I started college in the spring; by the fall, the Kent State shootings occurred, with the military turning weapons on students, a number of them not even involved in the protesting! Many campuses were filled with protest and unrest. Thank goodness, the campuses I was on were quiet ones.

You wouldn't have liked the early Seventies because, if you were of age, you could have been drafted since the Vietnam conflict didn't end till 1973 with U.S. troop withdrawal.

In 1970 alone, we lost Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. In 1973, Jimi Croce died in a plane crash. I'm certain I'm leaving out others.

Do some reading before you idealize the time period that we fought hard to live through, especially after the calm of the FIfties exploded into the Sixties, which we battled through before reaching the Seventies, which still held a lot of rough times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s

Here's a year-by-year visit to major events:
http://www.inthe70s.com/timeline.shtml

There were good times, great music, lots of concerts, long hair and, yes, drugs and drinking for many. But, in the Sixties, we had learned to choose sides. Many of us chose to avoid the pitfalls that so many succumbed to; people I knew were divided into two groups: those who did and those who didn't. There was no in-between. You stayed away from the group you didn't want to be associated with.

What started in the Sixties had severe repercussions. People on the San Francisco scene have said that drug experimentation started when no one really understood the dangers of LSD, marijuana and other drugs. I suppose for many it was a matter of "Now you tell me!"

In many ways though I think it was much better than the Nineties and now the 21st century. Yet, there's a lot of good in films, literature, research, science and more. And, young people can choose better paths because they have more information about it. Carefully choosing a path is very important, but the media present a sad picture that I hope is the exception, not the norm. Maybe they focus on the "bad apples".

I don't understand the self-destructiveness. I don't understand the doom, gloom and hate. I don't understand music that has little musicality. I don't understand wanting to see ugliness, whether on television, in films, in animation, etc. What is this craving for vulgarity and cruelty? Why destroy children's fairytales and tear apart Santa Claus, dirtying them and removing the delight from them? What do you think the children will be like when even this innocence is trashed?

I know that I'm on a soapbox, but I'm sure other older people might say some of the same things. Maybe things will turn around and improve. Even during war years, whether the Forties, Fifties, Sixties or Seventies, people found joy and life reassurance that showed in music and dance.

Now, everyone can give me a thumbs down and write me off as a grumpy old lady. But, I lived those decades some of you are curious about and even long for.

Answer 3

A big difference was that we didn't have proof of how bad the drugs can hurt you. Some of us knew just from common sense that you can't fool around with something as fragile as your brain, so we didn't do it anyway, but nowadays there is no excuse for not knowing that stuff can hurt you for life.

Also, the press makes it seem like free love was fashionable, but we knew it was skanky, and the vast majority did not swap partners or have anonymous sex.

Homosexuals were still considered freaks, and women were still marginalized in the workplace. It was ok to pay a woman less for the same work as a man.

Also, I have an adult son with autism who was born in 1984, and if he had lived back then, he might be in a warehouse instead of enjoying his life and his job.
.

Answer 4

Listen to the song "AM Radio". That will tell you pretty much all you need to know about the 70's! I graduated hs in 1971, got married and pregnant right after graduation, and then went crazy doing all the stuff I was prohibited from doing at home.

Answer 5

i hate to burst your bubble, but your generation is doing the samething as back then its just not such a novelty since its not so new anymore, the late 60's and 70's started it but it never really ended
yes was alive in the 70's as a child. not so much different then now but now has better techi toys

Answer 6

i was 8 to 18 in the 70's with a sheltered upbringing ( except for sneaking out wearing ordinary clothes and changing into my punk ones, what a loser!), so it wasn't quite like that for me!!

What's to stop you doing in now- I'm wilder now than i was in my 20's!!

Answer 7

In 1970 I didn't exist cause I was born at the 80's!!

Answer 8

haha i didnt exist back then either..i was born in the 90's

but i do wish i was alive back then! like when i watch that 70s show...its like i wish i was born in the 70s ..cause it looked tight back then...but sadly i cant.

Answer 9

If you werent in the SF Bay Area during that decade, its not worth talking about!

Answer 10

nope