The US had increased its science funding by ten times during WWII, the major outcomes of which were the discoveries of atomic weapons and radar, both essential to the outcome of the war. Changes in scientific developments, like those within MIT were changing the way scientists were employed, and dissolving boundaries within science - producing vast results. Despite this, and Eisenhower’s predictions the changes in science have not expanded to a degree as to threaten government control.
The images of a lone scientist in a laboratory may have been rather old fashioned and idealistic, even Einstein worked in university laboratories with fellow scientists. Although there were sweeping changes in science during the sixties, to an extent science always has existed to serve society, and to meet needs generated by society. Science has developed to meet changing needs; from a need to understand basic concepts (such as the theory of relativity) to being able to manipulate this knowledge (into quantum mechanics). During the sixties, increased funding was made to meet increased needs, leading to big changes in the way science and technology operated within society, but there is no evidence that these changes had the kind of severe long term implications on wider society described by Roszak or Eisenhower.
Edward Shils also felt that the scientists had become subservient to the demands of the government, the military and the private industry. He was not so extreme as Roszak or Eisenhower, making the distinction that most anti-scientist movements were not against science itself, but against what they saw as scientific misuse. He claimed some scientists themselves were angry about the damage being caused by scientific developments. In January 1969, 46 academics signed a petition expressing their opposition to the war in Vietnam and wanted to turn the uses of science away from military ends. Concerns were being raised about the power of destruction scientists were now wielding. Rachel Carson’s wrote about the hidden dangers of pesticides Silent Spring. The events of the sixties signalled the start of a new environmental movement.
Advancements in reporting and science meant that people worldwide saw photographs of the suffering being caused by developments such as the atomic bomb and napalm. Questions started being asked about what limits should be placed upon scientific developments as it showed signs of growing out of control. These developments were one of the bigger changes to science culture to come out of the sixties. By 1969, Greenpeace had conducted its first action, and it has now developed to activism in over 40 countries. Court cases are being heard regularly, questioning the boundaries of science. Pesticides and genetic engineering are still big issues today. The huge developments made in science around the sixties, had far reaching implications which are still growing today and have changed the face of science, but in a different way to that seen by Roszak.
One solution by activist to building a more humane science was a demand for more women in science. Despite the increase in the numbers pursuing science, fewer women participated, and higher proportions of those who did withdrew, while of child bearing age (25-44). Alex Rossi believed there had been major changes in the gender roles expected of mothers in the sixties. Women were being encouraged to return to the workplace, but at the same time, they were still expected to conform to subordinate stereotypes. Issues of gender stereotyping have been lively for a long time and continue to be debated to the present day. EC legislation actually permits positive discrimination in an attempt to address the long term problems of gender stereotyping. Events of the sixties saw no particular advancement in long running issues still present today.
Roszak’s demand for a change to non-intellectual rule within society reflected one of the central aspects of the events in the sixties. Many individuals were looking for a form of escapism or understanding of events within society. For many individuals this was found through experimentations with drugs or religion. Roszak saw the ‘path to enlightenment’ as a central part of a counter culture which would overthrow the ‘militantly sceptical secular tradition’.
Different stratas of society were attracted to hallucinogens as a drug culture spread. Influential individuals such as Aldous Huxley promoted experimentation with drugs and spirituality as a means of experiencing truths for the upper class intellectual, promoting the use of mescaline, which was expensive and only readily available to the wealthy. Writers such as Timothy Leary popularized the experience for all, advocating LSD use as a direct route to enlightenment. LSD was much cheaper, and also more powerful. Hallucinogenic experiences were seen as an altered consciousness that was described as ‘therapeutic’ or a ‘religious pilgrimage’. At the time people were largely unaware of the dangers of drug abuse, and the culture could not last once the side effects were realised.
Leary’s catchphrase was ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’, and the idea of turning on spread to religion, marking a direct relationship between the drug culture and the spread of new religious movements. John Lennon claimed that if the Beatles ‘went around the world preaching about Transcendental Meditation, we could turn on millions of people’. Many new religious movements were initiated, or grew in popularity during the sixties, made popular by support from pop idols such as the Beatles and the Doors. The Maharishi soon lost his high profile adherents, but the support had enabled the spreading of teachings to a wide audience.
Wallace identified three main types of such new religious traditions, of which organisations would display traits of one or more than one type. He saw religions as either ‘world rejecting’, ‘world-affirming’ or occupying a more middle position as ‘world accommodating’. Many of the new movements had their roots in Eastern traditions such as Hinduism, and had an attractive air of mysticism about them. Case studies such as Joan Harrison’s experiences describe a gradual initiation which was attractive as it promised answers and she says ‘many of my friends were getting into it’. It was a fashion for the sixties. Groups such as ISKCON have grown since the sixties and are widespread today, but they still only appeal to limited members of society, and have not overthrown the major religious institutions.
World rejecting religions were more demanding of members, and many formed communes and required followers to cut off all ties with the outside world. Groups such as the Jesus People caused levels of concern with accusations of ‘brain washing’ youths. Group members saw the commune as a replacement of the nuclear family and attacked traditional institutions such as the Catholic Church. However, the success and popularity of new religious movements was short lived, and although some have remained, they are in small clusters. They formed new religious cultures in society, offered people a means to participate in a counter-culture which was never to be fully completed. They did not to any extent replace the existing religious institutions in society, and so could not be described as revolutionary movements. The most they may have achieved is to have contributed to the trend of people turning away from the traditional church based beliefs, an ongoing tendency throughout the past 70 years.
The sixties also saw innovations in art, with bold new artists who conflicted with traditional expectations and values. Cultural art might be defined as the traditional standards of that which dates back to Greek and Roman traditions, of representation, and decorative styles. Rothko contravened these traditions through work such as the Seagram Murals by audacious use of colour, to create abstract paintings with malicious intentions to disturb and unsettle the observer. Rothko was not the first painter to experiment with emotion and mood in paintings. Van Gogh’s The All Night Café, Arles aimed to ‘express the terrible passions of humanity by means of reds and greens’. The idea that tone could be conveyed by other manners than simply the objects pictured was an ongoing idea explored by artists from around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Sylvester identifies Rothko’s work alongside this tradition of reconciliation of Apollo and Dionysus forms of art, part of a long tradition in artistic styles.
Warhol was one of a number of so called ‘pop artists’ disliked by Rothko, who also created pioneering works during the sixties. He used a new medium of silkscreen which did contain images, although presented in an unusual fashion. The images were particularly evocative of current events, using carefully treated photographic images. In some ways it is less counter-cultural than Rothko’s work, as it does retain many techniques which have been used for the past centuries. It is evocative of the sixties, and used innovative methods, but these methods have led to questions as to whether it can be classified as art at all.
The period since the sixties has often been characterized as post-modern – some critics claiming that nonconformist art is no longer relevant to present art culture. It does seem that perception and treatment of artistic works did change. The changes within art were largely to do with monetary reasons. Rothko experienced conflict between monetary value and artistic value, whereas as the ‘pop art’ culture of artists such as Warhol allowed art to be available to mass consumerism. Art in the sixties is demonstrative of counter culture activities of the time, and underwent big changes in its treatment, still very much evident today. However as in other areas, there was not a revolution, in that the old methods were not totally abandoned or disregarded, but the sixties were very important to artistic development.
The sixties were a turbulent period, of mixed values and cultures. This may have been due to a number of factors, such as the increase in standards of living, the distress of the Vietnam War and exposure to different cultures. Many aspects of the sixties have remained to date, but Roszak’s counter-culture that would see systems of logic and objectivity overthrown by emotional abilities never occurred. Much of the Cultural Revolution was a myth, society evolves constantly, and although the sixties saw a high degree of cataclysm, the basic tenets of cultural society have remained unchanged.
Bibliography
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Open University 2004, A103 An Introduction to the Humanities, Resource Book 4, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
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