***WHEN TO BE YOUNG WAS VERY HEAVEN –WithTHE SIXTIES: YEARS OF HOPE-DAYS OF RAGE In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A while back, actually about five years ago, I was on a tear about various 1960’s movements for social change –the defense of the Cuban Revolution, a revolution witnessed with starry eyes on black and white television directly and with a sense that the fellahin of the world could actually win sometimes, the fight for nuclear disarmament that was extremely pressing as we were in the throes of a hard red scare cold war night, the centrally important black civil rights fight also witnessed on black and white television with the imperative that they needed to win that fight, the struggle against the Vietnam War in America that defined the contours of our battles later in the decade, and the emerging struggles for women’s and gay rights that would gather steam and grow exponentially during the next forty years. I noted that many of those struggles had animated my youth and had also acted as the touch-stone for all my subsequent social and political activism, That swirling time, chaotic in its own way, mistake-ridden in its own way as in any youthful endeavor, produced in its aftermath more questions than answers about the way to go about creating that “newer world” we were all chasing one way or another. Certainly once the swirl died down toward the early 1970s (we can argue, as I have elsewhere, about when that swirl actually ebbed but that is a thought for another time) one was forced to think through what had gone wrong (and a few things right too, no question). Forced to think thorough the how and why of a movement that had turned to dust when just a few years before it had the possibility of turning history on another axis. Ultimately, for a few (too few) of us, also the necessity of thinking about the struggle to change the social organization of American society-the fight for socialism. In short, questions about all the signposts for that part of a political generation, my generation, which in shorthand I will call the “Generation of ’68.”

Let us be clear, nostalgia and the ravages of time on the memory on the part of this writer aside, this was a short but intense period that he believes requires serious study. Militant leftists today face many, if not all, of the social problems that confronted the generation of ’68. While it is entirely possible for today’s militant leftist youth to start fresh and ignore what for all of them is at best a mythical experience- that would be short-sighted. I agree, due to the not unimportant fact of lack of a critical mass of militant leftists who could have assimilated and transmitted those experiences, which a militant movement today could get along without knowing anything about the 1960’s. However, at some point the issues, the conflicts, the struggle for a victorious strategy to fight the monster (otherwise known as American imperialism) will be replayed. Believe me it is never fruitless to learn something from the past.

That said, we are not talking about the working-class 1960’s here, we are not talking about the 1960’s of the mainly middle class parents of the generation of ’68. We are most definitely not talking about the Vietnamese people’s 1960’s. In fact we are not talking about an experience that most of the people during that period experienced except as media events or at the margins. What we are talking about is the youth explosions of the 1960’s, their repercussions, effects and legacies. This is the area of my intimate personal experience and therefore is a good place to start.

In the usual case this writer has spent his time describing and analyzing events that occurred before his time. Things like the American, French and Russian Revolutions. It is therefore with certain amount of pleasant, if not nostalgia, that he can deal with events that made up his youth. All the signposts of my youth have been described and analyzed from the ‘beats’ through Cuba to the civil rights movement and eventually through the struggle against the Vietnam War.

It is always problematic whether the general cultural climate or particular prior events had much influence on what followed later. It is easier to see both influences in hindsight and to over-analyze their importance. Nevertheless one must deal with the trials and tribulations of the ‘beats,’ the rise and mainstream commercialization of the original rock and roll movement and the initial youth culture rebellion through such figures as James Dean, Marlon Brando, the work of Tennessee Williams and other cultural figures. Such figures rather than, let us say, Che Guevara, acted as a catalyst to more away from the mainstream society, to find a safe harbor niche, and not change it. The rise of the counterculture movement bears witness to that effect. It was easy enough to challenge the staid red scare cold war orthodoxy of the 1950’s it was another to have seen a way out. None of these phenomena pretended to or sought to do so.

One gets closer to the core of the influences upon the sixties generation when one discusses the Kennedy Administration, particularly after the Bay of Pigs fiascos. Two issues galvanized youth- the struggle against nuclear war and the struggle for black civil rights. The pretensions of the Kennedy administration to form a liberal society were the legitimate and logical target for the increasing numbers of young who wanted to take the Kennedys at their word- the need to roll up your sleeves and change society. However, the Kennedys did not expect that change to start with them as the targets. The early movement started with that love/hate relationship with the liberal mystique-it never really got resolved then (and still hasn’t today).

The central organizational expression of the student/youth rebellion, especially on the campuses, was Students for Democratic Society (SDS). One can draw a line through the political and organizational ups and downs of SDS accurately and with a certain amount of insight and trace the long curve of the 1960s. With a couple of caveats though-one should not become wedded to the notion that early SDS and its‘old politicos’ network was something of Golden Age tarnished by the later craziness of Progressive Labor and Weathermen-like interventions that brought about the demise of the organization in 1969. One moreover could not believe that the student movement by itself could have then led the fight for social change as some kind of ‘new class’ to lead a new society. If nothing else the history of the last forty years of campus life has cruelly placed that theory in the shade. Nevertheless read stuff about the period and learn why all those who thoughtfully lived through it would almost all agree that in the 1960’s “to be young was very heaven.”