A.J. DiCintio
An antidote for Sixties lies: Part One
By A.J. DiCintio
With its emphasis upon individualism, idealism, communing with nature, and experimentation in the arts, all of which are particularly attractive to youth, the period commonly referred to as "The Sixties" represents a romantic era in the nation's history, albeit a brief one when compared with the great Romantic Age that flourished in the 19th century.
But duration stands as an insignificant difference between the two; for in Europe and America the former was breathed into life by many great minds who labored with exceptional distinction in a wide range of disciplines.
In contrast, much of the ethos of the latter oozed from the psyches of the same-old morally and intellectually deformed creatures who have plagued humanity throughout history.
Specifically, the closed-minded, true-believing frauds who are power lovers or airheaded idealists, in politics, government, law, journalism, higher education, the arts, and entertainment.
So it is that while The Sixties produced some truly profound changes and achievements, most notably, the civil rights revolution, the beginning of the era of equal opportunity for women, and curiously (since romantics tend to be skeptical of science) a space program that gave birth to the Digital/Information Age, it also produced a number of pernicious lies that continue to sicken our culture.
Happily, there are innumerable antidotes for those lies, many to be found, ironically, in ideas expressed by this country's 19th century romantics, who, in typically American fashion, tempered their idealism with hard-headed, hands-in-the-dirt common sense.
Following are a few examples which young people, especially, will find invaluable.
"Free Love"
The nineteenth century romantics who lived to hear Marx and Engels enlighten humanity with the "scientific" notion that "bourgeois marriage [is] the legally recognized form, the official cloak of prostitution," might have taken up a sheet of paper to pen a reply to the notion of free love.
But they didn't, most likely because they deemed the perfect stupidity of the concept unworthy of even the smallest amount of paper, ink, and time.
Happily, however, we today (especially every girl and young woman among us) are blessed to be heirs to knowledge passed on to us by our families and religious institutions and to have easy access to the ideas of thinkers such as Camille Paglia, who, drawing upon wisdom that stretches from antiquity to the present, tells us in her characteristic no-holds-barred fashion she finds it ignorantly ludicrous that from a spiritual, psychological, social, economic, and biological perspective love and sex can ever be "free."
"Everybody's beautiful"
Even if we accept this statement as implicitly referring only to human beings of good will, the raging, lying hypocrisy of those who selectively invoke it forces us to change Emerson's profound existential question, "In Christiandom where is the Christian?" to "In Liberaldom where is the liberal?"
After all, to this day the vast majority of Americans recoil from a liberal "everybody" that includes Marx, Mao, Che Guevara, "empathic" judges, Democratic bosses, power bloated bureaucrats, murderers, violent anarchists, and every last ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer but excludes conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, Christians, shop owners, hunters, NRA members, "bitter" residents of Main Street, Southerners, Westerners, Texans, Alaskans, and Boy Scouts.
"You can be anything you want to be"
Embracing the spirit of individualism, the 19th century romantics urged us to be ourselves as we strive to make the most of our dreams and talents with the kind of mature self-acceptance Emerson captured when he wrote that the roses under his window "are for what they are" as they "exist with God to-day."
Something there is, however, that impels liberals to prefer the lie quoted above, explaining a host of problems, including why a good deal of the $1 trillion of current student debt, including $40 billion owed by people 60 and older, is owed by those who looked (or, at age 60, 70, or 80 are still looking) in all the wrong places for a self they never can be.
That something is, by the way, so irresistibly powerful we can expect that a month or two before this year's election, the USSR-like agency called the EEOC (where individualism is despised) will file a suit demanding triple damages from the U.S. Army, charging that its slogan "Be all that you can be," has served no purpose other than to illegally limit the employment opportunities of millions.
As the examples above make abundantly and sadly clear, the term "pernicious" doesn't capture the full danger of the Sixties Lies, of which, even more sadly, there are more . . . to be exposed next week in Part Two.
© A.J. DiCintio
May 13, 2012
With its emphasis upon individualism, idealism, communing with nature, and experimentation in the arts, all of which are particularly attractive to youth, the period commonly referred to as "The Sixties" represents a romantic era in the nation's history, albeit a brief one when compared with the great Romantic Age that flourished in the 19th century.
But duration stands as an insignificant difference between the two; for in Europe and America the former was breathed into life by many great minds who labored with exceptional distinction in a wide range of disciplines.
In contrast, much of the ethos of the latter oozed from the psyches of the same-old morally and intellectually deformed creatures who have plagued humanity throughout history.
Specifically, the closed-minded, true-believing frauds who are power lovers or airheaded idealists, in politics, government, law, journalism, higher education, the arts, and entertainment.
So it is that while The Sixties produced some truly profound changes and achievements, most notably, the civil rights revolution, the beginning of the era of equal opportunity for women, and curiously (since romantics tend to be skeptical of science) a space program that gave birth to the Digital/Information Age, it also produced a number of pernicious lies that continue to sicken our culture.
Happily, there are innumerable antidotes for those lies, many to be found, ironically, in ideas expressed by this country's 19th century romantics, who, in typically American fashion, tempered their idealism with hard-headed, hands-in-the-dirt common sense.
Following are a few examples which young people, especially, will find invaluable.
"Free Love"
The nineteenth century romantics who lived to hear Marx and Engels enlighten humanity with the "scientific" notion that "bourgeois marriage [is] the legally recognized form, the official cloak of prostitution," might have taken up a sheet of paper to pen a reply to the notion of free love.
But they didn't, most likely because they deemed the perfect stupidity of the concept unworthy of even the smallest amount of paper, ink, and time.
Happily, however, we today (especially every girl and young woman among us) are blessed to be heirs to knowledge passed on to us by our families and religious institutions and to have easy access to the ideas of thinkers such as Camille Paglia, who, drawing upon wisdom that stretches from antiquity to the present, tells us in her characteristic no-holds-barred fashion she finds it ignorantly ludicrous that from a spiritual, psychological, social, economic, and biological perspective love and sex can ever be "free."
"Everybody's beautiful"
Even if we accept this statement as implicitly referring only to human beings of good will, the raging, lying hypocrisy of those who selectively invoke it forces us to change Emerson's profound existential question, "In Christiandom where is the Christian?" to "In Liberaldom where is the liberal?"
After all, to this day the vast majority of Americans recoil from a liberal "everybody" that includes Marx, Mao, Che Guevara, "empathic" judges, Democratic bosses, power bloated bureaucrats, murderers, violent anarchists, and every last ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer but excludes conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, Christians, shop owners, hunters, NRA members, "bitter" residents of Main Street, Southerners, Westerners, Texans, Alaskans, and Boy Scouts.
"You can be anything you want to be"
Embracing the spirit of individualism, the 19th century romantics urged us to be ourselves as we strive to make the most of our dreams and talents with the kind of mature self-acceptance Emerson captured when he wrote that the roses under his window "are for what they are" as they "exist with God to-day."
Something there is, however, that impels liberals to prefer the lie quoted above, explaining a host of problems, including why a good deal of the $1 trillion of current student debt, including $40 billion owed by people 60 and older, is owed by those who looked (or, at age 60, 70, or 80 are still looking) in all the wrong places for a self they never can be.
That something is, by the way, so irresistibly powerful we can expect that a month or two before this year's election, the USSR-like agency called the EEOC (where individualism is despised) will file a suit demanding triple damages from the U.S. Army, charging that its slogan "Be all that you can be," has served no purpose other than to illegally limit the employment opportunities of millions.
As the examples above make abundantly and sadly clear, the term "pernicious" doesn't capture the full danger of the Sixties Lies, of which, even more sadly, there are more . . . to be exposed next week in Part Two.
© A.J. DiCintio
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