Queen Vicky's Age of Aquarius

Hello Everyone!!

Since I've noticed that a lot of this blog has involved some very heavy topics and has a number of other heavy topics planned for the future, this post is going to involve something a little more fun-I hope.

In particular, there's been a lot of talk lately some positive and some negative, about if and how America might be re-entering another period like the 1960's. Some of this talk comes from very high brow analysis of societal cycles, others come from hopes for Obama, and other still base try to gauge the spirit of the times through popular culture.

Of course, some would say that America isn't finished fighting the culture wars from the first 60's and *really* can't afford another one. The inevitable question is:

"So OK a more progressive spirit may be coming back. But does that mean the hippie thing will have to come with it?"

While some people mourn the hippie thing others think it did progressive politics a disservice. Had politically minded young people simply marched for Civil Rights, protested Vietnam, and gotten involved with movement like nuclear disarmament, 2nd wave feminism, and the ecology movement wearing suits, ties, blouses, conservative skirts or trousers, and tweed jackets these movements would not have "alienated the working classes" and by 1980 the US would have been politically indistinguishable from Sweden rather than electing Ronald Reagan. Or so one theory goes.

Indeed the hippie and beatnik movements have become both a political rorschach test and perennial source of controversy. Perhaps the problem lies with the belief that the beatnik and hippie movements started in the mid 20th century, and were largely inventions of the Silent and Baby Boom generations. And that nothing like them had been seen in Western civilization before. Of course, litle could be farther from the truth. Countercultures have been a recurring part of Western society since Greek times. After all Socrates was basically a social dropout who was executed by poisoning on the charge that he was "corrupting the youth of Athens".



Perhaps the most striking aspect of the 1960's counterculture was just how unoriginal it was. And how such a large portion of its imagery and ideas were entirely recycled from the last time period most Americans would even think to look:

An age most Americans associate scrupulous morals, conservative dress, old fashioned patriarchal family values, and absolutely unabashed imperialism and industrial optimism. A time when the sun never set on Her Majesty Queen Victoria's British Empire, and the Queen had great trust in Prime Minster Disraeli or "Dear old Dizzy". When America struggled not over Vietnam and Civil Rights, but the aftermath of the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction. When the Monarchs of Russia, Prussia, and Germany seemed as secure in their jobs as Vicky herself. Before the world ever heard of the atomic bomb, and the earth was believed to be slowly cooling. When concentration camps were remembered mostly a fate dished out to Afrikaaners.
When Gilbert and Sullivan were the height of popular culture. And as youngsters such as Adolf Hitler, TE Lawrence, Margaret Sanger, Amelia Earhart, and JRR Tolkien would grow up in the shadows of it all, being too young to participate.

The 60's cohort had a different set of theories on hand for it's wild ideas, and a different set of drugs. For the Victorian antecedents of the hippies LSD hadn't been invented, mushroom safety was not the most precise science, and marijuana (aka loco weed or jimson weed) mostly belonged to the American west and rural Appalachia. The hot drug was in fact Absinthe in the 1890's. At the time it was believed that if you drank enough of it you would see "The Green Fairy". Of course, toxicologists to this day manage to debate whether 19th century absinthe had psychedelic effects or simply made you drunk. And now that some versions of the brew are being relegalized, researchers seem eager to downplay it's more colorful history.

But in the 1890's in Britain, Europe, and part of America it became popular for people to put aside the very classical styles of the earlier 19 century in favor of art noveau with it's fanciful designs and bright colors. And certain people became very interested in the supposed divorce between modern society and nature often advocating solutions such as open marriages, communal living, "back to nature" trends such as home gardening and wilderness organizations for youth, and other radical arrangements. Many young men took on colorful clothes and behaviors that were then considered too "feminine" even as more mainstream women were starting to loosen their corsets, shorten their skirts, ride bicycles, seek new professions, and agitate for the right to vote.
When the typical middle to upper class Victorian diet was so meat oriented that, Dr. Atkins would worry about protein poisoning, a radical few began to advocate "dietary reform" that encouraged more fruit, vegetables, legumes, and grains sometimes to the point of promoting vegetarianism. Of course, the hip and with it protein was peanuts and peanut butter rather than the soybean. And with it the anti-vivisection movement and the temperance movement largely coalesced. Along with an interest in "natural medicine" such as the the ideas of JH Kellogg.
And then there were the more literary and cultural ideas. Much like the 60's brought an intense interest in JRR Tolkien, many counterculturally inclined Victorians were interested in the Arthurian Legends. Another common fascination for the Victorian unconventionals was the ideas of the fairies, and in fact they invented the view of fairies as gentle and benign. Their Irish contemporaries however did not share this perception and often blamed the faires for mental illness, sick or deformed children, dead cattle and sheep, failed crops, and in some cases even The Great Famine. Other modifications of grim European folklore would include Bram Stocker's sexualization of the idea of a vampire in "Dracula".
More direct similarities between the 1960's and 1890's was the interest in Eastern ideas. And with The British Empire at its height there was plenty of "cultural exchange". Sometimes students of Eastern philosophy came in unlikely packages. If the 1960's had it's grey suited psychologists with radical ideas, the late Victorian era had a certain equally analytical and tweedy gentlemen living at the fictional address of 221B Baker Street, London.

Why does this whole "hippie" thing keep recurring? Several theories point to either a historical, an economic, or even a generational cycle. But perhaps a more provocative theory was propsed by a feminist and cultural theorist Charlene Spretnak. According to Spretnak countercultural movements are a reaction against an intense militarization of society. In her mind viewing it as a rebellion against "sexual repression" is misguided, because many societies with a much stricter sexual code than the US in the 1950's (or late Victorian Britain) did not see that kind of youth rebellion. And in fact, both the 1950's and 1880's /1870's were already much more liberal than the period before them. But both were very militaristic societies, and both had a tendency to make either Cold War patriotism or one's duty to the Empire not just a political loyalty but the cornerstone of everyday life. Down to the preferences for boys haircuts, children's toys, and how women were instructed to raise their children, cook and clean, and maintain their marriages.
And the reaction against such an ethos often will tend to embrace things like sensuality, disorder, and the desire to "free one's mind". Others may rebel by less ordered and pristine but actually more authoritarian social movements such as fundamentalist religion or reactionary political groups, which can partly explain the ugly polarization that hit many European countries
in the earlier decades of the 20th century, and the fact that Americans still can't seem to end the so-called cultural wars. According to Spretnak, it would be facile to blame counterculture for the polarization, or to put it all down to factors such as covert racism and devisive economics. It was even Vietnam or the Civil Rights movement that made the 60's such a radical departure from the 50's or so controversial decades later, but rather was much deeper than that.

Since you will all hear talk about the 60's and perhaps the next counterculture in the near future, hopefully I've provided some perspective and some interesting thoughts to chew on.

That's all for tonight. And

Say Goodnight Readers!