60s adages and attitudes critiqued

1. "Make love not war," came to mean the wish to get "laid," outside of any longterm commitment. Love became a synonym for an orgasm outside of any meaningful context, or mutual caring.

Like fast food, the idea was to stuff one's own face ASAP.
Like not caring what happened to the Vietnamese.
The evolution of selfishness in one area were seen as symptoms in others:
Abortion, and euthanasia, and suicide.
Diseases (the government should fix my sexual diseases, and pay for my abortions).

2. "'Sup?" Became the new mode of address.

The form of address used to be, "How are you?"

This was changed in the sixties to the context of getting high. What is up? What is high in this area that I can horn in on? The highs of various things: sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Stand-up comedy replaced the sermon. Piety became impiety. Reverence became irreverence. The notion of the high, and the orgasm became the new communion wafer of a church of selfish solipsistic pagan communism. The event "'Sup?" replaced the state of being in relationship to God "How are you?" has all but disappeared.

3. "Love of nature" became zoophilia, or bestiality. Nonhuman diseases advanced through the human sphere, and people became more animalistic. Sports replaced farming. Barn-building was no longer a community issue. Instead the people of the sixties turned toward art. Art became a kick, but a solipsistic kick divorced from a wish to understand or be in communion with God.

Beauty became an end in itself, the thing in itself, it became synonymous with the orgasm.

Nature tourism became a kick.

French philosophy becomes cool: Foucault said that there should be no such thing as a sexual crime. It's all good. Whatever gets you through the night. Locke and Smith are opened by Keynes, and savings deposits disappear. Banks no longer have money, they have credit.

4. "All you need is love." Simplification of lyrics slurred by instrumentation that is too loud. The leader of Black Sabbath bites the head off a chicken. (Love becomes something savory and desire-based, but innerly empty, like the empty calories that come to dominate the palate in cereal boxes in which the primary ingredient is sugar. Sugar, becomes the way people talk about the one they "love.")

Food becomes louder: snack food and vending machines and microwaved dinners replace family meals and conversation and concern for one another. Candy is popular. 57 new varieties of ice cream. The notion of "fun" replaces the "work ethic."

Candy replaces nourishing food.

Henry Miller and Mickey Spillane replace Isaiah.

Food becomes entertainment: cheese doodles! Pretzels! Animal crackers! Caramel popcorn.

Spectacle replaces ethos.

5. The explosion of flavors in the snack machines is equaled by the explosion of drug use, promiscuity, and the 57 new varieties of religious sect in the name of diversity (fun), while divorce (plentifulness and emptiness) becomes the new norm. Children turn to sno-cones, Sponge-Bob, yogurt-sticks, and get green gooey eyeballs to distract them from the problem that their father has left. A consensus of the new left centers on Zen as the elevation of couch potato-dom to an art form as men and women look for "perfect moments" outside of meaningful narrative.

"What a rip-off!" is often heard, because the economy turns to quick knock-offs and rip-offs: pet rocks, cotton candy, steroid-enhanced baseball players, plastic surgery, haiku, telling jokes, Tarot Readings, and giggling while sharing a joint.

6. Against this tendency to turn life into a sit-com stands the old Protestant religions. "What God has united man must not divide" (Matt 19: 4-6).

"Oh man that's so square" the hipster sayeth in response.

"My kingdom is not of this world."

"Mine, neither, dude."

Obama's mother Stanley divorced twice.

Divorce goes over 50% in many communities, becoming the new norm.

"Love never ends." Corinthians 13:8.

7. "Peace," came to mean we're not willing to fight for anything. Hitlerism triumphs in the universities. The superiority of nearly every splinter group! All humility gone, all sense of fallenness disappears, as everything and everyone falls apart, & waist lines blow up to absurd new proportions, until the Callipygian Venus looks like a realistic sculpture of a contemporary woman.

8. The pilgrims were an amazing group. Once a year we eat like them (larger portions?) while the rest of the year we snack on cheese doodles. What would the pilgrims think of cheese doodles and saying to each other, "'Sup?"

Was their central value, "Fun"?