July 27, 2010

 

P.S. Means Post Script

I suppose 1963 counts as history if the History Channel can cover Alaskan loggers and truckers, circa 2010, with new chapters of the chronicle arriving weekly, reality-style.

Palm Springs, as depicted by Earl Hamner and Warner Brothers, circa 1963

Palm Springs, as chronicled by citizen activists, circa 2008

In this instance, a Facebook friend posted a link to a movie called "Palm Springs Weekend," starring Stephanie Powers, Troy Donahue, and Robert Conrad. For the record, I haven't watched the entire movie, but I was struck by the vaguely scurrilous opening banter and how "clean cut" the experiment in scandal seemed to be. I had the same feeling watching a documentary on Woodstock a few months ago. The would-be Bohemes of the 1960s, from this distance, look almost polite, when you compare them to Ice Cube or Eminem. When you see, for example, Joan Baez up on the stage in 1969, you can almost sense the gentility of her father, the M.I.T. physics professor--and Quaker. You get the feeling, watching a Woodstock performer, that somewhere, underneath the newly acquired ponytail and pharmaceuticals, is a polite 1950s kid, studying musical theory and getting his Dartmouth application in the mail.

It's been said before, and it should be said again: the 1960s were a colossal waste. That decade, with a few exceptions, was a drain on our time, money, and most of all-- our cultural capital. If you don't think so, compare the two pictures above. We go from the winsome, fetching Stephanie Powers ridiculing her parents for an old-fashioned sense of propriety to the sort of institutionalized tagging and gang culture that exists all over Southern California today. There would be no father and mother in the same scene. Mom would be on her 3rd live-in boyfriend and the teenage girl would be sporting new ink on her tramp stamp. There would be no family breakfast, and the banter wouldn't be polite. It would only achieve artistic merit, in fact, if the profanity managed to be a little innovative.

Curiously, this is never reported for what it is: cultural free-fall. It's always seen as the same old generational conflict, merely dressed up in the pop language of different eras. I even read a description of fascism the other day that downplayed the "national socialism" part and emphasized any "obsession" with cultural decline. Lament any change in attitudes or standards, now, and certain academics will call you a Nazi.

But you have to consider, at least, the numbers:

United States Crime Index Rates Per 100,000 Inhabitants*
	1963	2008
Forcible Rape	9.4	29.3
Robbery	61.8	145.3
Burglary	576.4	730.8
Vehicle Theft	216.6	314.7

Earl Hamner Jr.'s celebration of relaxed standards really paid off big for the feminists, didn't it? Look at the numbers on forcible rape. The celebration of "do your own thing," and the lionization of youth culture, which took every form from the Monkey's "we've got something to say" right up to the youth-fueled Obama election has resulted in the least educated shaming the most educated. Prior to the 1960s, the young were supposed to learn from the old. After 1960, it was, effectively, the other way around.

So, read the numbers, and weep.

More of the Farm Journal --July 24, 2010