Political compass for the21st century

[Eric the Green]

(02-19-2019, 11:11 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-18-2019, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I question the notion that the counter-culture was composed of people who neglected their families. For one thing, most hippies were under 30 years old, and probably didn't have children or married partners. Some of them formed communes in which children were looked after by everyone there. They engaged in free love because they could. Later, many settled down. The birth control pill made freer sex out of wedlock more possible. This pill was not the result of the self-actualization movement.

Self-actualization does not mean neglect of families. As I already mentioned, a lot of therapists during the Awakening helped to cure the results of oppression within families, and thus healed family relationships. Virginia Satir and John Bradshaw are examples. A self-actualized person has awakened and developed themselves into a full human being, and that certainly involves being able to care about and for others.

Gen Xers gained a lot because they were neglected. They became excellent survivalists and independent, self-reliant people. The Awakening era saw a rise in divorces and single-parent families, which was the main reason for this neglect. There were latchkey kids, which was also the result of more women working. Single-parent families was not necessarily a good thing, for many children. I remember Bradshaw said it wasn't. But it was a general trend of the time, and it was not a direct result of the counter-culture or the self-actualization concept. But the general trend of the Awakening was for more freedom in lifestyle, including freedom from marriages that were not happy or supportive for women's aspirations (e.g. The Feminine Mystique), and divorce laws were weakened. So the trend of those times did create more neglect of children. But people who just wanted more freedom were not necessarily self-actualizing people.

Come on Eric.  The idea that the hyper individualism that was the underlayment of the hippie movement didn't contribute to the social disintegration of the last 50+ years is simply unbelievable.  Does that make the counter culture liable for all the ills?  Of course not.  The worst damage occurred in the shadows as the counter culture played the role of bright-shiny-object.  The PTB, including most of the tech entrepreneurs, laser focused on capturing everything in sight, while the culture fretted over sex, drugs and rock and roll.  That doesn't let the counter culturists off the hook though.  Self defeating self absorption is still a big negative.  

We all need to do a little penance -- some more than others.

I'm sure. I won't deny there was a general trend of desires for more freedom in lifestyles. But the self-actualization concept and the human potential movements were not self-defeating self-absorption. My points still stand, I think. I would not agree that the hippies were self-absorbed or hyper-individualists; they were about "come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now." Hyper individualism that contributed to social disintegration is primarily the responsibility of the neo-liberals, a totally different philosophy and much more political. Of course these neo-liberal tycoons turn everything into a commercial profit-making meme, so some of that occurred with the counter-culture's mainstreamed influence, as well as anything else people might find attractive.

And I still think most of the desire for more freedom in lifestyle was a good thing; it just needs to be more responsible than it was then.

The "Awakening" required "penance" too, from the uptight and restricted, repressed, socially-determined, violent, conformist, ignorant, narrow-minded, disconnected way we lived and perceived. Of course, the racists, materialists, and what not still need that awakening; a lot of us still need a LOT of Awakening, me included. It all depends on how you talk about it, perhaps.