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IN PRAISE OF DECADENCE
In Praise of Decadence by Jeff Riggenbach is a unique look at the 1960s. Anyone who either lived through the 60s (and has intact memories!) or for those who simply have an interest in the subject, or readers who enjoy an argument that is unique, should enjoy this book. The book is relatively short (198 pages) so if you're like me, and can't sit still for very long, it is an extremely quick read which adds to its charm. Riggenbach argues that the 1960s rebellion, in which young people participated, showed little difference from any other era in the sense that every generation has a group of people who could be considered dissidents. In the 1920s student rebels swallowed goldfish, read the American Mercury (H.L. Mencken) and visited speakeasys (underground bars) during Prohibition. Students in the time of the Civil War and World War I also protested the draft as did the students of the 1960s. What made the 1960s so unique was the vast number of students available to protest. The argument can be made that it wasn't necessarily that a larger percentage of the college population opposed the war, than did in previous wars, but that the percentage of college students was so large "relative to the entire US population." Between 1946 and 1964 people made babies like rabbits and it was these babies who went to college en masse during the 1960s. It is this, that the author contends (in part) made the protest movement seem so large, because in terms of actual numbers it was. Another persistent rumor that Riggenbach attempts to debunk is that the college protest movement came from the political left. He claims that the values and ideals most of these young protestors were espousing were those of Libertarian ideals (the belief that government should be severely limited in how much it can control an individual's economic and social life). His theory that the students were widely known as leftists came from the fact the students opposed both the war and the draft, so clearly they were not on the right side of the spectrum and the media automatically labeled them leftists. Riggenbach bases his contentions, that the 60s protesters were more Libertarian than they were Leftists, on the studies performed on baby boomers by Fortune magazine in 1985 and Harvard University in the mid-1980s that indicated baby boomers were more Libertarian in their political thinking than anything else. The author does not think it is plausible that so many people would have completely changed their minds politically between the 1960s and now. Go To Page: 1 2 |
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