For young people during the sixties, life had freedom and freedom had opportunities. Education became more efficient and opportunistic, which provided the young with more money to spend on the things that they craved and there was generally a more enjoyable atmosphere with the revolution in popular culture. Some youths became involved in ‘culture culture’ groups e.g. Hippies. ‘Turn on, tune in and drop out’ was a phrase that was used in these groups. However, many people that were pro-establishment saw these groups as dangerous to the traditional values of authority and order.
Whilst there were big achievements nationally and internationally such as England winning the world cup and the first man to travel to space, as well as the moon, there were also damaging political events. The building of the Berlin wall officially began a cold war between superpowers, which left the world with anticipation of not knowing what was going to happen. The Cuban Missile Crisis threatened nuclear war. In America, there was the assassination of President Kennedy and the Vietnam War. Both were destructive and sad events. Locally in England, there was the profumo affair where a British politician had an affair with a Russian who was considered an enemy because of the cold war. This struck chaos into political values in England.
The sixties had many, if not too many, ‘big’ moments. The contrasting attitudes towards the very different events, always sparks huge debates and make the question very hard to answer.
During the sixties, there were many changes to the legal system in England. The death penalty became abolished. Many people thought this would encourage crime and make the legal system look weak. This was a debated decision as was the legalisation of abortion. Some thought and still think that abortion is killing a living creature and therefore, it is murder. Others believe abortion should be allowed to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Even nowadays, both decisions are countered. In the 1960s, Homosexuality was legalised. As the numbers of homosexuals increased, this decision gave granted freedom to many people who never had it before. The men were in control of birth until the women were given the right to choose after the invention of the pill. As over half of the population of England were women, this invention was generally considered as great to the population. However, this greater power given to women seemed to lower marriages and general partnerships. The number of illegitimate births rose from 5.8% in 1960 to 8.2% in 1970 and the number of marriages ending in divorce rose from one in fifteen to one in ten. However, these two statistics had begun rising from 1945 and there was no significant increase in them throughout the 1960s. The fact is that men and women were gaining more independence and deciding to use it in different ways.
One key question is ‘Would the changes that took place during and since the sixties have taken place anyway? The answer is almost certainly yes. With more mature, better educated and higher earning young people it is inevitable that these changes in society would have taken place anyway. However, there is a question that will always be contested and argued about, ‘were the 1960s the best of times, or was it a period where many things went wrong in society?’ There are strong views each way but there is no clear answer.
