How Far Were The 60s Distintive In Their Own Rights

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How far were the Sixties distinctive in their own right and how significant were they in bringing about changes? Discuss with reference to any two or three of the disciplines represented in Block 6.

Disciplines chosen: History & Science

The Sixties were distinctive in their own rights and very significant to the many changes that occurred throughout the period. It was a time that saw many cultural changes, these changes spread widely; especially with the young. The changes can be seen through the disciplines history and science.

To understand why and how the changes took place in the Sixties we first need to understand the concept and practicality of historical periodisation. Periodisation is simply different periods of time that have been chopped into a smaller time frame, such as 'the Medieval Period' or 'the Modern Period'. By naming each time frame it makes them distinct. However, in some cases further subdivisions of time are made within the smaller time frame, for example 'The Early Modern Period' or the 'Late Modern Period'. Each period is significant in their own way 'particular periods of time contain a certain unity, in that events, attitudes, values, social hierarchies seem to be closely integrated'. (Block 6, p18) Within each period, points of change can be identified by attitudes and who or what began to dominate. For example, Lawrence Stone named a short period in the 1640s 'Affective Individualism'. Other 'phrases' are 'the Revolution' and 'Enlightenment France'.

For a clearer example of how periodisation works we can look at the contents of a book that covers long periods of time, you will see that each period is divided and these periods indicate changes. This standard practice has been followed by many. Eric Hobsbawn used shorter period labels to point out the characteristics of certain periods, these showed how each period differed. To complicate things further, periods do not start with the beginning of a decade or at the end of a century, for example the Sixties began in approximately 1958 and ended around 1973, which is why historians name each period rather than indicate the date. We must remember though that 'the past' is not what history is about, it is 'the knowledge about the past produced by historians' (Block 6, p19) and that periodisation is a logical way that historians use to select periods that is being studied, however each period must be distinctive in their own rights with a point of change. The Sixties can be seen as a distinct period where social and cultural history is concerned. However they were not distinct in economic, political, diplomatic or constitutional history.
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We next need to take into consideration the different cultures. Culture in the wider sense means 'the network, or totality, of attitudes, values and practices of a particular group of human beings'. (Block 6, pp23-4) There are several different cultures to take into consideration, for example: 'youth culture' and 'Western culture'. Before the Sixties 'Mainstream culture' was thought of as repressed, this was based on attitudes from that period, such as subordination of women to men, and children to parents, repressed attitudes to sex, respect for authority, the prevalence of racism, obeisance to canonized art, respect for the ...

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