{"id":13696,"date":"2021-07-06T16:22:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T23:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=13696"},"modified":"2021-07-06T17:17:29","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T00:17:29","slug":"eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies\/","title":{"rendered":"Eeyore \u2019s Corner: From Hippies to Yuppies to Our Puppies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part One: Hippiedom<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Sixties were, as the late, great Peter Collier and the astute David Horowitz wrote, the work of a \u201cDestructive Generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the best minds of the conservative movement who lived through those wasted years chronicled their excesses\u2014the narcissism, the selfishness, and the legacy of free love, drugs, and radical chic resistance. All that and more were passed on to two subsequent generations, who inherited the \u201cfree that and free this\u201d of the Sixties\u2014but not the educational and moral instruction that ungracious and pampered radicals had received by being raised and taught by the Greatest Generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In the academy, the result was surreal: professors of the 1960s and early 1970s, in their 20s and 30s intent on not transmitting the \u201cuptight\u201d rigor and \u201cirrelevant\u201d training they had received from old-style liberal academics, and thus ensuring their students would be both predictably radical and ignorant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no idea which was the worse result: for well-trained professors to have received a solid traditional education under the very system that they destroyed for others and never passed on? Or their clueless and babied students, nursed on therapeutics and race\/class\/gender homilies, who were as arrogant in their political zeal as their professors, but far more uninformed\u2014given they lapped up postmodernism, \u2018theory\u2019 and race and gender schlock rather than mastery of languages, literature, history, and philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myron Magnet (The Dream and the Nightmare: the Sixties<\/em>) noted how the 1960s\u2019 self-indulgence and nihilism frayed the youthful upper-middle class, but did not destroy these long-hair hipsters who had family resources\u2014establishment connections, relative familial stability and networking affluence\u2014and so they cut their hair, cleaned up, moved on, grew up\u2014and turned their self-absorption to their careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in their wake, \u201cdo your thing\u201d proved devastating to the inner-city residents and many minorities, at least those who adopted 60s values\u2014but without the resources to allow precivilized hippie indulgences to be a \u201clark\u201d rather than a moral and culture catastrophe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Sowell in a variety of books (see especially, The Vision of the Anointed<\/em>) demonstrated how black families and communities of the postwar era were successfully headed for parity with the white middle class, despite against great odds. They had found success mostly from their own self-disciple, community standards, and traditions of hard work and perseverance against terrible bias, all resulting in stable families, small businesses, and religious observance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the one-two punch of the Great Society agendas of upper-middle class, white liberals and the pernicious social and cultural legacy of Sixties\u2014abortion on demand, promiscuity, rejection of religious faith, single-parent family, drug use, and crime and violence as revolutionary acts. That neutron bomb was dropped on the black community but without compensatory resources of the white suburbanite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All that said, one thing\u2014and only one thing?\u2014could be said for the Sixties. There was a wild spirit of freedom and suspicion of centralized authority, akin to what the grouch Tacitus saw in German tribes across the Rhine and Danube, along with a commitment to absolutely uncensored expression and speech (especially what was crude, pornographic, and mostly anti-American). Still, many of the songs of Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Band, and Bob Dylan were about the individual taking risks. He was a Steppenwolf, defying convention, and resonating empathy for the working classes. In other words, in the 1960s there were not trigger warnings, safe spaces, and micro-aggressions. Instead, everything was a shotgun blast, open-season on everyone space, and in-your-face challenges, and what are you going to do about it insults. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part One: Hippiedom The Sixties were, as the late, great Peter Collier and the astute David Horowitz wrote, the work of a \u201cDestructive Generation.\u201d Some of the best minds of the conservative movement who lived through those wasted years chronicled their excesses\u2014the narcissism, the selfishness, and the legacy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3yU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11571,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-rise-of-the-new-old-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":0},"title":"The Rise Of The New Old Left","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution In the 1960s, campus radicals were branded the New Left. The media saw the m\u00e9lange of radicals like Bill Ayers, David Delinger, Jane Fonda, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, Herbert Marcuse, Jerry Rubin\u2014as well as hippies, the Black Panthers, the gay liberation movement, La Raza,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Left"","block_context":{"text":"The Left","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-left\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1107,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-age-of-adolescence\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":1},"title":"The Age of Adolescence","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Never-never Land One of the great themes of the 1960s was to \u201cdo your own thing.\u201d But usually \u201cliberation\u201d distilled down to creating your own rules and norms to justify allowing the appetites and passions to run free, while offering some sort of exalted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2010"","block_context":{"text":"December 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/december-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13520,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/this-isnt-your-fathers-left-wing-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":2},"title":"This Isn’t Your Father’s Left-Wing Revolution","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Image by Darren415 iStock Getty Images Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Starry-eyed radicals in the 1960s and 1970s dreamed that they either were going to take over America or destroy it.\u00a0 One of their favorite psychodramatic mottos was \u201cChange it or Lose it,\u201d even as protests focused on drugs,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/this-isnt-your-fathers-left-wing-revolution\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/iStock-1289282832-e1623340140911.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/iStock-1289282832-e1623340140911.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/iStock-1289282832-e1623340140911.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/iStock-1289282832-e1623340140911.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/iStock-1289282832-e1623340140911.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13710,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":3},"title":"Eeyore \u2019s Corner: From Hippies to Yuppies to Our Puppies?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part Two: Yuppiedom The nihilism of the protests movements, the drop-outs\u2019 human wreckage, the end of the draft and American involvement in Vietnam, and the \u2018silent majority\u2019 reaction to hippiness, all ended the Sixites, albeit in the 1970s. George McGovern\u2019s landslide loss to Richard\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 6 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies-2\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Yuppies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11628,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-race-to-the-bottom\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":4},"title":"The Progressive Race to the Bottom","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The old Democratic party championed the working classes, wanted secure borders to protect middle-class union wage earners, and focused generous federal entitlement help on the\u00a0citizen\u00a0poor. Civil rights were defined as equality of opportunity for all. That party is long dead. An updated Hubert Humphrey\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Progressivism"","block_context":{"text":"Progressivism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/progressivism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5551,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/peace-frogs-dearbornistan-and-the-strange-case-of-the-caro-terrorists\/","url_meta":{"origin":13696,"position":5},"title":"Peace Frogs: “Dearbornistan” and the Strange Case of the Caro Terrorists","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Craig Bernthal Private Papers In Frankenmuth, Michigan, among a complex of little shops that sell junk to tourists, there is a T-shirt store called \u201cPeace Frog.\u201d On each T-shirt, there is a large squatting bright green frog, who sticks out a paw, huge in the foreground, making the sixties\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Craig Bernthal"","block_context":{"text":"Craig Bernthal","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/craig-bernthal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13696"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13703,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions\/13703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}