Why do I hate the 1970s so much?

[Sefton]

"Everywhere I go, there are old hippies, staring with fish eyes at me.." -Doran

I just had that experience. I was in the local library here in Burlingame(which is by the way,a beautiful old building with lots of "Golden Age"flavor),just walking through when I turned a corner and almost ran into a bearded and long haired young man wearing a macrame hat,tie-died Greatful Dead t-shirt and baggy shorts.
I wasn't in a suit (too warm here today),but I did have on my favorite 50's high waisted trousers and a nice dress shirt and my 30's style fedora by Art. Coincidently I was there to check out that book that I believe Doran mentioned; "How We Got Here:The 70's".

Yes, it is possible to have left political opinions and not embrace the extremism of the 70's youth or the extremism of todays Boomers and their children. I mentioned before that I have fairly good memories of the 70's-family,friends,etc. I think this is mainly due to my being just the right age then. If you were 10 years old in 1975 you were young enough to not be bothered by most of the extreme behavior of the adults around you.I think that I was amused by a lot of it. Many was the time that I was in the company of "adults" who were smoking pot,drinking and generally acting ridiculous. I would read my comic books or draw all the while observing them from my standpoint as junior anthropologist. I even had pot offered to me when I was a child. I didn't take it because I thought that they all were acting stupid and I didn't want any part of it. Looking back I'm mostly appalled by what the older generation found acceptable.

 

[Lincsong]

"Everywhere I go, there are old hippies, staring with fish eyes at me.." -Doran

I just had that experience. I was in the local library here in Burlingame(which is by the way,a beautiful old building with lots of "Golden Age"flavor),just walking through when I turned a corner and almost ran into a bearded and long haired young man wearing a macrame hat,tie-died Greatful Dead t-shirt and baggy shorts.
I wasn't in a suit (too warm here today),but I did have on my favorite 50's high waisted trousers and a nice dress shirt and my 30's style fedora by Art. Coincidently I was there to check out that book that I believe Doran mentioned; "How We Got Here:The 70's".

Yes, it is possible to have left political opinions and not embrace the extremism of the 70's youth or the extremism of todays Boomers and their children. I mentioned before that I have fairly good memories of the 70's-family,friends,etc. I think this is mainly due to my being just the right age then. If you were 10 years old in 1975 you were young enough to not be bothered by most of the extreme behavior of the adults around you.I think that I was amused by a lot of it. Many was the time that I was in the company of "adults" who were smoking pot,drinking and generally acting ridiculous. I would read my comic books or draw all the while observing them from my standpoint as junior anthropologist. I even had pot offered to me when I was a child. I didn't take it because I thought that they all were acting stupid and I didn't want any part of it. Looking back I'm mostly appalled by what the older generation found acceptable.

Yep, Sefton that was a typical Frisco Bay upbringing in the '70s. I knew a couple kids in elementary school whose parents smoked pot in front of them. Hell, there was one punk whose biker father used to give him the pot when he was 10. Growing up in 1970's Frisco Bay meant you grew up real fast. Innocence was lost at a very young age. I find very few socially redemable qualities of the San Francisco Bay Area if any at all.

 

[Quigley Brown]

Innocence was lost at a very young age. I find very few socially redemable qualities of the San Francisco Bay Area if any at all.

Just the opposite for me. I grew up sort of sheltered on a farm in Iowa and went to a very small high school. So I look back pretty fondly on those years.

 

[Sefton]

Maybe there was a silver (non-disco ball) lining to the 70s after all;we survived it and now we're here to poke a little fun at it! (I'll save poking fun at the way Mom dressed me back then for another time! )

 

[Parallel Guy]

I guess my problem is choosing a particular time frame as a whipping boy. I teach in a jail and the stories I hear about today make offering pot to child tame (no, I'm not excusing it, just bare with me). In the 30's and 40's children were beaten and neglected in the name of discipline. In the 50's sexism and racism was considered status quo. It is never the time, it is the individual who is extreme. And my bet, with nothing to back this up, I suppose, is that the same percentage of people have always been willing to muck up the works no matter what time.

 

[Lincsong]

Maybe there was a silver (non-disco ball) lining to the 70s after all;we survived it and now we're here to poke a little fun at it! (I'll save poking fun at the way Mom dressed me back then for another time! )

Oh yes, the stripped pants, Angels Flights, leisure suits with WIDE white belt, bahahahahhahahahahah I laugh at some of the off the wall clothes I had to wear. I remember those kids clothes in the '70s where they had little animal tags on it so the buyer would know what shirt matched which pants. You just find a tiger or hippo on one article and then the same tiger or hippo on the other.

Then there was that classic piece of Detroit marketing; take a Chevrolet Nova, change the fenders, drop in leather seats and an 8 Track, power it with an Olds 350 V-8, name it Seville and price it as the most expensive model and watch it sell like hotcakes.lol It worked so good that Lincoln did the same thing with a Ford Granada and called it Versaille.lol

 

[John in Covina]

The clothes were terrible, the hair was sloppy, the furniture was revolting and social and personal responsibility slowly started turniing into "if it feels good, do it".

**************
Actually, what you are describing is the 1960's from about 1966 on, and the "Summer of Love" was 1967. The 70's continued much from the 60's but in a corporate way. The 1970's was a rejection of a lot of what had gone on before in the establishment but it also signaled failure of the West. With the gas rationing, double digit inflation and unemployment it was tough times for the working man. Two lows were the start of disco and the Leisure Suit which embodied a sense of decline in all standards even from a Rock N Roll viewpoint. Grand Funk Railroad doing a cover of "the Locomotion" showed how everyone sold out. But the rot developed over time and had many sources. In a way it leads to punk, the new wave of British Heavy Metal, the 80's, the 90's and where we are today. I would not change a thing though, it is what was supposed to happen.

The one thing is the wide lapels and ties makes it easy to date an old tv program.

 

[Roger]

I guess my problem is choosing a particular time frame as a whipping boy. I teach in a jail and the stories I hear about today make offering pot to child tame (no, I'm not excusing it, just bare with me). In the 30's and 40's children were beaten and neglected in the name of discipline. In the 50's sexism and racism was considered status quo. It is never the time, it is the individual who is extreme. And my bet, with nothing to back this up, I suppose, is that the same percentage of people have always been willing to muck up the works no matter what time.

As compared to children being drugged into submission today with the use of Ritalin?????? It all centers around one's definition of "beaten" and "neglected" which is off topic and is crossing the line into political talk which is banned on this forum. It also appears that attitudes in regards to race and sex were improving in the 1950's as opposed to the attitudes of the first 20 years of the 20th Century. Again, a little off topic and crossing the line into political discussion.

 

[Dr Doran]

**************
Actually, what you are describing is the 1960's from about 1966 on, and the "Summer of Love" was 1967. The 70's continued much from the 60's but in a corporate way. The 1970's was a rejection of a lot of what had gone on before in the establishment but it also signaled failure of the West. .

Excellent point, my good man, excellent point. I have always considered the period from 1967 until about 1979 as of a piece.
Your second point: I agree entirely. I think Spengler goes too far, but Death in June's song "Death of the West" explains it well.

 

[jamespowers]

Unfortunately, there is no critical sense toward that period here. The aging members of that counterculture never even say "yeah, we were a bit silly in many respects," much less conduct a serious inquiry into how their generation screwed up various things for the future. They look at their actions with a view so uncritical that it makes the rose-colored lenses through which many of us on the Flounge view the "golden era" seem intensely critical. In contrast, for example, ex-punk rockers very often are appropriately critical of the youth movement to which they belonged.
It is right to be critical of all things, or else cerebral functioning stops. And as a resident of the Bay Area, I very seldom see the veterans of the late 60s and 70s youth movements being critical at all.
This, mes amis, is one of the reasons why Powers and I may seem like sourpusses about the late 60s and the 70s. (And another is the Brady Bunch.)

You can say that all again---particularly the last part. There really is no examination of what went REALLY wrong back then. The Black Panthers was a big reality around here because you actually could see them toting shotguns and rifles around daring the police to start something.
Horowitz is a good example of one that just turned away from being a communist because of what he saw. His friend was a bookeeper for the Black Panthers and she found some severe discrepancies in their accounting. When she ended up missing (likely dead since they still haven't found her) he found out where he fit into things.
There is just so much to dispise because we were at ground zero. What happens here tends to sweep over the nation later---but not to the same extent.
The clothes, the appliances, the ugly furniture, the ideas and yes there was Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers---gee I wonder where that name came from. :eusa_doh:
So if there is a reason I hate hippies, you just about summed it up.

Regards,

J

 

[Dr Doran]

You can say that all again---particularly the last part. There really is no examination of what went REALLY wrong back then. The Black Panthers was a big reality around here because you actually could see them toting shotguns and rifles around daring the police to start something.
Horowitz is a good example of one that just turned away from being a communist because of what he saw. His friend was a bookeeper for the Black Panthers and she found some severe discrepancies in their accounting. When she ended up missing (likely dead since they still haven't found her) he found out where he fit into things.
There is just so much to dispise because we were at ground zero. What happens here tends to sweep over the nation later---but not to the same extent.
The clothes, the appliances, the ugly furniture, the ideas and yes there was Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers---gee I wonder where that name came from. :eusa_doh:
So if there is a reason I hate hippies, you just about summed it up.

Regards,

J

I'm with Powers on this one. Now y'all realize exactly what made us so unappreciative of the late 60s and 70s.

 

[Lincsong]

**************
Actually, what you are describing is the 1960's from about 1966 on, and the "Summer of Love" was 1967. The 70's continued much from the 60's but in a corporate way. The 1970's was a rejection of a lot of what had gone on before in the establishment but it also signaled failure of the West. With the gas rationing, double digit inflation and unemployment it was tough times for the working man.

That's really the paradox of the '70s; gas rationing, double digit inflation, (remember President Ford's slogan WIN; Whip Inflation Now), high unemployment etc. but at least in my neck of the woods, the '70s was the decade when my Dad and his neighbors (factory workers, truckers, other blue collar occupations) who had bought their homes in the mid 50's were now going out and buying the cabin out in Jackson, Clear Lake or the Sierra's, running out and plunking down $2000 for dining room and bedroom sets etc. [huh] And this was before there were the ARM mortgages.

 

[Dr Doran]

That's really the paradox of the '70s; gas rationing, double digit inflation, (remember President Ford's slogan WIN; Whip Inflation Now), high unemployment etc. but at least in my neck of the woods, the '70s was the decade when my Dad and his neighbors (factory workers, truckers, other blue collar occupations) who had bought their homes in the mid 50's were now going out and buying the cabin out in Jackson, Clear Lake or the Sierra's, running out and plunking down $2000 for dining room and bedroom sets etc. [huh] And this was before there were the ARM mortgages.

Yep, well, that was before manufacturing jobs got exported. When factories still existed largescale in this country, other industries needed to compete with those decent wages in order to attract American blue collar people. Almost nobody is willing to continue that practice when goods can be manufactured much cheaper elsewhere. Buying American-made goods is presently a niche market, like buying organic.
(Not that I want to get too political here ... I for one appreciate the hard work the bartenders do to keep the Lounge free of politics as things just devolve too fast when politics are discussed.)
That is wonderful that your father was able to buy those things! I envy him.

(My wife and I have prioritized buying a cabin. This may well be after we first buy a house, which cannot happen until after we finish grad school.)

 

[jamespowers]

That's really the paradox of the '70s; gas rationing, double digit inflation, (remember President Ford's slogan WIN; Whip Inflation Now), high unemployment etc. but at least in my neck of the woods, the '70s was the decade when my Dad and his neighbors (factory workers, truckers, other blue collar occupations) who had bought their homes in the mid 50's were now going out and buying the cabin out in Jackson, Clear Lake or the Sierra's, running out and plunking down $2000 for dining room and bedroom sets etc. [huh] And this was before there were the ARM mortgages.

Not everyone was in that situation--not that we ever wanted a cabin---although I still have the property that is useless now due to local government action. :rage: I think the main thing to remember is that you are specifying a significantly older population than we are talking about. Those people were the WWII generation and not hippies. They could actually budget money and earn a living without all the frills if they had to. They were also fairly well established. After living in the same house for 20 years there was significant equity built up an the payments were what $100 a month? :eusa_doh:
Housing was also laughably cheap in the 1950s around here. You could literally plunk down ten grand and buy a house. By the 70s houses had quadrupled in price and property tax was killing the property owners---thus the reason for the only single thing good that came out of the 1970s---Proposition 13. :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

That's really the paradox of the '70s; gas rationing, double digit inflation, (remember President Ford's slogan WIN; Whip Inflation Now), high unemployment etc. but at least in my neck of the woods, the '70s was the decade when my Dad and his neighbors (factory workers, truckers, other blue collar occupations) who had bought their homes in the mid 50's were now going out and buying the cabin out in Jackson, Clear Lake or the Sierra's, running out and plunking down $2000 for dining room and bedroom sets etc. [huh] And this was before there were the ARM mortgages.

Oh and I forgot to mention that double digit inflation is good for people who have money in the bank.

 

[reetpleat]

Oh and I forgot to mention that double digit inflation is good for people who have money in the bank.

Are you kidding. Suddenly that money you worked so hard for only buys half as much.

 

[reetpleat]

Read a book a while back that makes the case against the war generation. says they were the first generation that prioritized themselves over their children and grandchildren. Says that they are still living extravagant lifestyles based on a lot of decisions they made that put money into their pockets instead of infrastructure and development. They are driving around in 100K winebagos while their children and grandchildren are the first generations to not do better than their parents economically.

I'm just sayin.

 

[jamespowers]

Are you kidding. Suddenly that money you worked so hard for only buys half as much.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said in the bank. It is just good for people who have money in general because they can invest it where others cannot but that goes for any time---inflation or not. You need money to make money.

 

[reetpleat]

Am I the only one here who kind of digs the lte sixties. Firstly, the clothes, unlike the 70s, was actually a lot cooler than most people thought. IT was creative, but still pretty simple, dark colors, modish etc.


SEcondly, there was a big groundswell of do it yourself, create your own way of doing things and approaching the world.

Of course the anti war and peace love no racism political attitudes. I mean who would have thought it would be hip and cool to be about peace love and acceptance. Also a big revival of traditional folk music and culture, as well as a big back to the land movement.

These new attituded had a huge effect on music, art, film etc. Cwertainly there were excesses, but I think the whole thing was pretty cool. And to blame all the woes of the seventies and eighties on it is kind of unfair. Culture was changing, it had to change as it does in every era.

I particularly enjoyed Alice's Restaurant. Great fun. And still love the woodstock film.

 

[jamespowers]

Read a book a while back that makes the case against the war generation. says they were the first generation that prioritized themselves over their children and grandchildren. Says that they are still living extravagant lifestyles based on a lot of decisions they made that put money into their pockets instead of infrastructure and development. They are driving around in 100K winebagos while their children and grandchildren are the first generations to not do better than their parents economically.

I'm just sayin.

The complete opposite is true of my grandparents. I am ten times better off. [huh]
Quote the source so I can understand where that is coming from.