RateItAll: The Opinion Network

In a letter to Partisan Review in 1966, the poet Robert Lowell predicted, "I have a gloomy premonition though that we will soon look back on this troubled moment as a golden time of freedom and license to act and speculate. One feels the steely sinews of the tiger, an ascetic, "moral" and authoritarian reign of piety and iron."

Welcome to 21st Century America, everybody!

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It was great. Graduated from HS, went to college and the Army. It was a fun, a wonderful time. Even with serving in Viet Nam.

This was probably the worst decade in the 20th Century.

This country peaked in 1965. It has been down hill since. Every thing that is dragging us down the drain happened in the 1960's. I know that all members of the RIA are intelligent enough to be able to catalog the bad things without my help.

Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think!

A terrible decade for the most part. It is where we get the majority of these radical, kook professors who are teaching our kids nonsense.

Before I put my words down I just want to say you can find my comment to be non helpful 30 times if you want(I don't care) but this is the way I feel about the wild crazy 60's and the freak shot insane generation that came out of it. The baby boommer generation is an age of messed up people. Ever since their youthful years they have been a HARD HEAD generation. When they were young they showed nothing but disrespect to THEIR Parents and Elders. They were out of control with their riots and smart word such as "don't trust anyone over 30". They were stuck on being rebels. I agree with George Carlin when he says that the baby bommer generation was the GIVE ME IT generation as he said. They had what they wanted. They had sex..drugs..rock and roll..and the fastest cars. But somehow they are wrathful and bitter and they seem to have a love for picking on the new generation. They seem to want to make their kids into powerless and mindless robots. And I just wish that someone would stand up and say to them..what did these young folks ever do that was so wrong to your generation and whatever it was your generation was far worse. What also bugs me is that the New generation should be able to see that they are being hit down by the older generation..so why don't they say something or fight back. The New generation has the sparkle to become strong. The baby bommer generation is gettin old and is going to continue gettin old. Age takes it's toll..nothing or nobody last forever. And the baby bommer generation is most likely thinking that their standards and what they have said will cling forever...well I have this to say..WORDS FROM A RIGID MIND DON'T GET HONOR. And alot of the things said by that generation had a mean sprit around them. And the baby bommers can't except a loss of power and control..too bad..their losing it. Nothing can stay powerful forever. And if the baby bommers truly want what they say to stay for the long way(even after they are gone)then they need to say or do something Good and Golden for the New generation..their beloved children. The anger of the Genration Gap can feel ease and can be calmed..one(or maybe both)of the genrations just has to reach out. Until that happens hard feelings and pain are just going to continue to build up.

Take the weirdness of the 60's, make it fun, and you have the 70's, which was much better than the boring and tragic 60's.

I was born in this decade so I am stating an opinion obviously from my family and archived data. Seems to be a great decade for racial and womens rights movements. People stood up for what they believed in finally. Change started in this decade that needed to happen. It's still happening which is sad but at least the 60's brought about the voice of the people to the forefront. Hippies, Black Panthers, Gays, women and any group of people feeling stepped on by the "Man" rose up and did so in not always a peaceful way. Lots of turmoil but for the right reasons. I loved the music, very deep lyrics and moody arangements. Motown, Rock and Folk music were all excellent back then and influenced the 70's quite a lot. In my opinion the most beautiful cars were from this decade also.

Any decade that produced hippies has to get 1 star.

I dont know much about this decade since I was not born yet .

Can't bear this decade - old 60s hippies really think they're something. Well, there's nothing to be proud of in taking drugs, being promiscuous and spawning the individuality thing - prototype yuppies!

Somewhat overrated. No generation has clung to their youth like todays baby boomers and we suffer for it by hearing unimaginative radio formats playing the same Hendrix or Diana Ross song over and over again on some bogus classic hits station. And the hippies had nothing to do with Civil Rights. Why there were Marches going on, they were taking acid and dancing in some Be In. They did'nt care about Civil Rights!

The decade that truly brought out the worst in people. Protesting became a sporting event. About the best thing the 60s produced was the music. Worst of all is that now we have to witness the aging hippie with his balding gray hair tied back in ponytail.

The times when the me generation came of age. A social tragedy.

i dont think Ireland in the sixties was the most tolerant liberal place to live. The catholic church ruled the day and we were poor and miserable. it wasnt the sex, drugs and rock n roll that may have been evident in the USA. My friends say man, i would have loved to live back then Yea, the TV view of the 60's would have been great. Sitting around all day, stoned, listening to dylan and hendrix. But to be honest we can do that now, and Ireland is a far far better place to live now than it was then. We had no post-war boom, as we werent in the war so we never boomed like everyone else did, untill the 70's for a while, then the 90's and today.

This was an incredible decade that that encorporated a little bit of everything and produced some of the worlds most memorable events and people. Where do you start? JFK, Vietnam, Civil Right Movement, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Landing on the Moon, The Beatles , Woodstock, Hippies, The Peace movement, The great muscians and music that came from the sixties is just awesome. This was just an energetic, volitaile, creative, exciting time to live thru. Five Stars might not be enough.

The sixties ROCKED. The breaks from social norms... society becoming more tolerant... teenagers realizing that they CAN speak their mind.... God, it was awesome. The music cannot be beat - especially by today's hit music and so-called rap music. There will NEVER be another Beatles. And you couldn't beat the liberalism of the sixties as well. Conservatives are still pissed off about liberalism becoming so prevalent today. Someone earlier said that the Boomers were imposing their beliefs on everyone. No; the Boomers were exercising their right to free speech. God bless 'em for it. No, i'm not a child of the sixties IN THAT I was born in 1984. So I'm a member of the Millenial Generation. Alas, I was born 40+ years too late. But because I enjoy the music and the free expression of the sixties so much, I consider myself a child of the sixties anyway. I only wish I HAD been alive during the sixties. Not only for the music and joining in on the groundbreaking stuff that the Boomers accomplished, but because I would have really liked to join one of the protests from that decade.

Man O Man, what revisionist history.. the 60s are only celebrated by so many today, because that's when most people grew up.. Same thing happened in the 80's with the 50's. And 10 years from now poeple will say the 70's.. The 60's started with everyone living under the spectre of WWIII and ended with everyone getting high and living under the spectre of WWIII. I don't see what was so bleedin' great about it.

I love the music and the culture of the decade, but there were some bad things like vietnam and some high profile assasinations.

Thank goodness for the sixties. Things accomplished by J.F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Muhammed Ali, Civil Rights Act, March on Washington, Motown, LBJ, I was born. Too many good things to list. For a black person the 60's were a decade of hope and despair. JFK, MLK, RFK, all murdered because they sought Equal Rights for all. Ali jailed because he refused to fight for a country that denied him the inalienable rights that whites had. Everything these men accomplished came with tremendous sacrifice. This country should be ashamed. But still the 60's had to happen because the bigots NEVER gave up anything without killing somebody first.

I'm inclined to agree with the comments left by Solenoid. I was born in 1973, so the 60s were before my time, but history tells me that the "love fest" that people pretend the 60s were is a laugh. Two Kennedy's murdered, MLK murdered, An unecessary vietnam, riots on a regular basis, and the so-called love children were in reality nothing more than smelly, drug addicted bums. True, there was alot of good music, but for my money the 70s were better for rock music anyway.

not as good as the fifties sure the music was kinda good and i love the beatles and the cars were cool but there so much strife and violence and hatred in this country at that time values weant down the tube. Liberalism had a field day and the sixties poilicies of ego maniac johnson helped create a bad economy of the seventies. People romaticize it so bad because most of the people are baby boomers and they were imposing there view on others. Im not going to say it was all bad i think civil rights was an awesome thing and it did allow people to be more open but it is highly overrated and the cost outway the advantages

This was the decade of the Vietnam war, really something to be proud of, no? That's what happens if you believe blindly in the perfection of your ultraright capitalistic system... Poor you.

Some of the best artists of all time came out of this era.

The Silent Generation could be silent no more. They were sickened by what society had become and broke away. They embraced freedom, diersity, exploration, peace and love. They, not the Boomers, opened the eyes of the teeming masses to what we could become. The problem was that they were unfocused as to how to go about it on a large scale. Still, it was a start.

Okay, the music was good. But artists and academics have overblown the importance of this decade. This was the decade of race-riots and political corruption. The alleged 'counter-culture' was a middle-class white phenomenon that was not this universal changing event that writers want it to be. Those were MIDDLE CLASS WHITE KIDS in college acting up- the rest of America wasn't there. The changes bought about by the 60's were important and wonderful, but I am sick of hearing aging hippies talk about this decade as if it was the most important one in America's history. The 1860's were far more important. . .

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, War, and Protest. A decade that will always be remembered. A nice break from social conservatism, a great decade for patriots, musicians, and hippies.

I like a lot of the music from the 60s, but dirty hippies, rampant drug use, and chaotic war protestors loses some stars.

They tell you in the history books that these were years of extreme change and turbulence. While I would tend to agree, it isn’t hard to imagine this being said by someone fifty or a hundred or a thousand years before this time with the same amount of personal conviction. I can only tell you that from my own point of view this decade in which I started as a five year old and ended a high school freshman - were definitely the most important years of change I have ever known. The events of these times – both personal and historical - account for my often cynical outlook on life, my sense of humor, my faith in God, my values and possibly most tragic – my fashion sense. No, I don’t have a compulsion to wear hip hugger bells or love beads. But I am one of those old bags who still hates to cut her hair and loves her Levis (well, okay they’re more likely to be Bill Blass stretch jeans now but life is about compromise if nothing else). I was five years old when this decade started at what seemed like a fairly sedate pace…almost imperceptible in tone from the decade that preceded it. The space program was off and running – a really big deal it seemed for adults. However, to a small child this modern miracle had already been placed in the same realm of the technologically accepted and expected. Certainly it was no more or less exciting an aspect of my life than those great little buzzers we were all attaching to our bike handles at the time. Barbies, GI Joes, Roller Derby Sidewalk Shoe Skates, Silly Putty, paraffin lips and teeth, candy necklaces, and super balls were all must have items of the day for kids my age. And, I would be willing to bet that about 80-95% of all of TV was targeted to my age group. There is simply no other explanation for shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr. Ed, The Addams Family, Bewitched, The Monkees, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligans Island – the list is endless and a reflection of the times and the money loving wisdom of Madison Avenue as they began to work that lush Baby Boomer market. (Forty years later they continue to usher us into senility with a host of medical miracles, insurance and pharmaceutical offerings.) I will always remember this as a decade of almost non-stop loss. The untimely death of my own father in 1962 to be followed shortly by JFK’s assassination in 1963, then Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy as well as thousands of young men in uniform. All sorts of rights issues were beginning to blossom – civil rights, women’s liberation, and the much-ballyhooed sexual revolution - all being expressed radically and passionately in emerging new art, music and film styles. I will always easily see Viet Nam as the defining issue of the times though and can recall people talking about this “conflict” as far back as my early grade school years. By the time I made it to 7th grade they were no longer talking – they were screaming and throwing things. On a shallower note, changes in clothing style truly ran the gamut from 1960-1969. Styles going in and coming out were like comparing a parochial school uniform to a hot pants clad cage dancer in a Go Go bar. Plaid skirts, neat little pressed white blouses and saddle oxfords gave way to mini skirts, fish net hose and big gold hoop earrings. Guys who had sported buzzes and straight-legged pants and Keds in grade school suddenly had hair to their shoulders, scruffy belled jeans, wide belts, wild print shirts and fringed leather vests. It seems almost odd now to think that all this turmoil and radical change existed in the world yet; just being young as it was unfolding seemed to somehow absorb some of the shock of it. I think many of us developed a kind of emergency room staff mentality and became immune to it to a degree. By the time the 70’s rolled around and Watergate hit the fan we had built up enough apathy, cynicism and lack of trust that we were barely surprised let alone shocked by it.

Started off with a bang of glamour and excitement with Kennedy's "New Frontier". For a moment there was hope that the 60s would be a period of peace, prosperity in change in American culture with the Civil Rights Movement. However, on November 22, 1963, this country suffered a severe loss, and from that moment on, the 60s, not to mention the 70s were doomed. Kennedy's death started a period which lead to the subsequent turmoil in Vietnam, the lies and deciet of Nixon and the laughing stock administration of Carter. In the beginning of the 60s, most Americans were in love with their President (Kennedy), and by the end, they loathed their President (Johnson). Never before in that century had the mood of the country sharply changed in such a short time. A decade of glamour, excitement, fun, tragedy, turmoil and lies.

I was a teenager during the Sixties & Seventies, and remember this period far too well to be fooled by all the redactionist romanticizing by Hollywood and the Press. The truth is that it was a terrible time in America. We had to put up with ugly psychedelic art, an explosion of drug abuse, riots in the streets, the assassinations of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. The nation's morale was terrible because of the Vietnam War. There were hippies in the large cities and they were dirty, lazy, disrespectful, and sometimes dangerous. Clothing styles and car styles both looked better in the 50s and 70s than they did in the 60s. I suspicioned in those days that many years down the line there would be marketers & social commentators trying to get us "nostalgic" about this lousy time, and as it turned out, I was right. Today, the Sixties are lauded in books & movies, and in interviews with former radicals, as if those were the salad days in America. Give me the Decade of the Eighties anytime!