WARNING!

60s Generation Warning

In many ways I lament giving this warning but I feel I must. For me the people who opened things up in the 60s and 70s were my heroes and in many areas my teachers. But what are the consequences of the 60s generation?

Increased consumerism and less morality.

How are these connected? Sexual freedom was clearly one of the products of the 60s - even there I was still tempted to write advances. Marriages are now less stable as a consequence. Freedom of sexual expression does not mean ignoring responsibilities. Whilst sexual repression was one of the causes of the sexual freedom, together with medical advances, there was no need to forget virtue whilst participating in the freedom.

This sexual freedom has become part of a decadent consumerist lifestyle. With the freedom came drug abuse, and western cities have major crime issues as a consequence. This increased consumerism is a consequence of liberalisation of the 60s. Whilst the liberalisation developed as a consequence of increased spending power, the liberalisation was necessary to increase the consumerism as traditional values resisted the pointlessness of expenditure on entertainment and fashion. Now both are major industries in the West. The 60s was also the beginning of the youth culture, again a necessary requirement for the changes in consumerist patterns already alluded to.

There was much "mind expansion" in the 60s, and I don't just mean by drugs. Many minds threw off the shackles of restrictive discipline - often described as Victorian values. Whilst throwing off what often appeared spiritually-restrictive, they also threw away social controls. Mind expansionism as demonstrated by the internet is a virtue-less arena of crime and exploitation fostered by increased business profits.

Indiscriminate questioning and mental expansion has led to a mental looseness which has been exploited as addiction, crime and consumerism. What is essential to such expansion is a need for control through the practise of Virtue and Meditation.

I recently saw a sci-fi movie of the time, Logan's Run. This movie started with a city of youth culture run by machines. Every hedonistic human need was satisfied but the price was paid at 30 when life was terminated. Some tried to escape this termination by police, and this escape was called a run.These runners were trying to reach Sanctuary, and the machines wanted to understand Sanctuary so Logan was assigned to find it. He didn't and returned to the city where he was questioned by the machines. The machines imploded with contradictions thus destroying the city, and the final scene was the people of the city touching an old man who had returned to the city with Logan. This is a 60s generation movie because all of the past - the city - was destroyed and there was great hope for a new beginning - touching the old man. Our traditional morality has been destroyed and the hope for the new beginning has been replaced by the city-slickers grabbing money at whatever humanitarian cost.

Pirsig clearly contributed to the destruction of tradition. Whilst appropriately opening up the failings of the education system, he did not discuss control and did not discuss what to replace it with. Unless the reader brings with them the personal integrity associated with Meditation and Virtue, then the knife that Pirsig effectively used to promote Quality can also destabilise your own outlook. As such reading Pirsig is dangerous, and I am putting out this warning. By all means expand the mind through Pirsig provided you maintain the control through meditation and virtue. I am feeling very listless today after finishing his book last night, and I associate that with intellectual rambling connected with Pirsig-created looseness.