When Vanessa Kensington told Austin Danger Powers her job was to acclimate him from the ’60s to the ’90s, Agent Powers replied:
“…as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners without protection while at the same time experimenting with mind-expanding drugs in a consequence-free environment, I’ll be sound as a pound!”
While an amusing line about an era that has almost become a caricature in popular culture, it also reflects the darker side of the late 1960s pretty well. But is the modern era any better off? Did the revolutions that rocked the 60s make for a more enlightened American society today? Or are we simply dealing with the consequences of poor choices? Chucking a millenia of societal conventions has not created a freer, more content culture in the new century. Instead we’re more restless and edgy than ever, never satisfied and always drifting to the latest next big thing in hopes of that elusive fulfillment we’ve been promised by the culture at large.
The ’60s told us ‘it’ was about freedom from repression, but the consequences have been more about denial—denying the design of human nature and our place in the world. And the festering sores of free-wheeling choices of the ’60s continue to erupt throughout the nether regions of American Society.
Stick It To the Man
Whether it’s mom or dad, a boss, or a “big corporation,” leftists continue to rage at anyone in authority.
Boundaries create a security, a fallback when we can’t control ourselves. Stop signs can keep people from getting killed — but not always. Should the use of stop signs be discontinued altogether? What about the banks of a river? They Keep the water where it’s supposed to be, allowing us to picnic next to it. Floods suck. Just ask the city of Nashville. They would’ve preferred the Cumberland to stay in it’s boundaries, thank you very much.
It’s the same logic when it comes to authority. Society naturally forms itself into a government. There’s always a hierarchy — a pecking order. Sometimes it’s a good one, and sometimes it needs correction. But disposing of it all together is stupid and dangerous. People can be awful, so boundaries and authority keep them in check. Casting off all restraint means anything goes—and it’s always the most innocent who pay the highest price.
Consequences that continue today include permissive, confused parenting, the cult of youth/celebrity worship that ignores anyone over the age of 30, and the inability to discern hard facts instead relying on feelings and emotionally persuasive propaganda. At some point, we find ourselves asking amidst the confusion “Who’s in charge here?”