by Greg Erlandson

In Focus: 1968 -- Psychedelic Experiences

To paraphrase Dickens, the '60s were the grooviest of times, and they were a total bummer.

A good half of all Americans alive now don't actually or personally remember anything about 1968 or the decade in which it was situated. I asked a few teenagers what the phrase conjured up for them, and they told me: Hippies. Haight Ashbury. Vietnam. Marijuana. "Free love." The Beatles.

Not bad. But not the whole story. As someone who does remember, I would add: Vatican II. John F. Kennedy. Richard Nixon. Peace marches. "The Whole World is Watching." Yippies. The Peace Corps. The trip to the moon. George Wallace. Martin Luther King Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy framed in a chiaroscuro of death, perhaps the first American killed by Middle East terrorism. MLK laid low in broad daylight by a homegrown terrorist. Grape boycotts and home Masses and the explosion in our Church after the release of Humanae Vitae.

In greater context

The 1960s was, like all decades, connected to the ones that came before and the ones that came after. In fact, one of the great blind spots of both those who revere the decade and those who revile it is that they often end up denying it was symbiotically tied to what had gone on before it.

Indeed, much of the change that was heralded by that decade had been in the works for some time. The Second Vatican Council, for instance, was the outgrowth of a huge number of factors, including the rise in a deeper appreciation of the role of the laity and the changing status and self-awareness of the Church in the devastating wake of World War II.

Changes in marriage, divorce and sexual practices were already in the works long before the "Summer of Love." Divorce rates were climbing in the 1950s. The discovery of penicillin and the pill had more to do with "love" suddenly being "free" than all the hormone-fueled lyrics of pop culture, and it was the 1950s that gave us Playboy.

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll were all in the works in the 1950s. Just read Allen Ginsburg's "Howl" (1956). And while the excesses of the '60s are routinely blamed by pundits on that spoiled demographic bulge known as the baby boomers, consider this fact: Most baby boomers would have had to have been driven by their parents to a concert by the Beatles, all of whom were born before the baby boom. So were the political, ecclesial and scientific leaders who really shaped that decade's belief that it was an age unlike any other, that all the old rules did not apply, that everything was born anew in 1968.

Idealistic time

But at the risk of attracting a mailbag's worth of detractors, there were some things of value in that stormy decade. It was a time when society made great strides toward equality -- between blacks and whites, men and women, young and old. It was a time of enthusiasm and sacrifice. JFK began the decade asking what we could do for our country, and movements like the Peace Corps and Vista were part of the answer. A few young people rioted in the streets of Chicago and elsewhere in 1968, but many more walked precincts and registered as voters and believed such actions mattered.

Some people rejected organized religion, and the numbers of priests and sisters began to plummet, but it was also a time of great spiritual seeking. Time magazine spent one cover declaring God was dead, and another cover declaring that he was making a comeback.

Boomers did not create this decade, but they were shaped by it. Our most irresponsible traits were baptized by the culture of the '60s. But there was also an idealism that caused many young people to think about more than just themselves.

That wasn't such a bad idea then. It's not a bad idea now.

--Greg Erlandson is president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor.

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