Benet Davetian
THE RISE OF THE
OPPOSITIONAL SELF
AND THE NEW THERAPEUTIC SOCIETY
Chapter 8 from
CIVILITY: A CULTURAL HISTORY
î2005 Al rights reserved
And as I sat there
brooding on the old, unknown world, I
thought of
Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green
light at the end
of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to
this blue lawn,
and his dream must have seemed so close that
he could hardly
fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was
already behind
him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity
beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic
rolled on under
the night.
---F. Scott
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
Our desire becomes an oracle we consult. It is now the last word,
while in the past it was the questionable and dangerous part of us.
---Harold Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind (1987)
Today everyone is in the know, and no one has the
faintest clue.
---Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love (2003)
In Part I of this book an attempt has been made to
present a comparative study of civility standards prior to the 20th
century. Changes in political and economic organization, advances in
technology, and expansions in human awareness did have salient influences on
civility standards prior to the 20th century. Although the restraint of the
body was increasing in tandem with the complexity of social organization and
the new divisions of labor necessitated by industrialization, a parallel
process was in effect: accelerated social and technical changes were
facilitating a critical awareness providing individuals with the capability of
eventually causing a reversal of some of the restraints previously considered
hallmarks of civilized behavior.
Just
at the time when individuals were being exhorted to restrain their natural
desires in the service of 'social propriety' these same individuals were being
given an opportunity to develop varied ways of relating to their social
environments. While, prior to the 20th century, the restraint of
primary emotions was on a steady rise in tandem with increasing rationality,
such restraint seems to have diminished steadily during the 20th
century even though social institutions have not abandoned their rational
foundations. Diversity has facilitated a considerable amount of emotional
expression and legitimized many practices previously forbidden. Accompanying
this liberalization has been a more informal interaction style. This has been
especially noticeable in America. Because
of this paradoxical occurrence we question in part Norbert Elias' view of the
civilizing process as a process of increasing restraint.
Anticipating important reversals in the 20th
century, we have reserved a theoretical and topological discussion of civility
for a later section. Good manners and
emotional restraint no longer suffice (if they ever did) as indicators of a
well-integrated civil society. We have retrospectively observed the injustices
committed in the name of civility in the past and are hesitant to suggest that
there is a direct correlation between civility and social equity. In fact,
debates over civility and the ideal civil society during the 20th
century and the beginning of this century have not been as much related to
issue of manners as they have been to a series of questions addressing the
possibilities and limits of self-interest and individual and group identity.
What are to be the limits if any? Can there be a rational selfishness? Is civil
behavior to simply consist of polite interaction with others, or is it to be
normative and energized by a desire to contribute to the betterment of society?
To what extent can a person pursue his or her own interests without adversely
affecting the lives of others? What roles do stress and anger play in the
maintenance or loss of social civility? And how are we to remain civil with one
another when we live in a society in which a variety of lifestyles and claims
weaken the consensus that comes with homogeneityÉis a surface civility ethic
enough to respond to these social challenges, or do we need a complete
redefinition of civility in context of the complex interconnected world in
which we live? Furthermore, is rudeness a transitional stage leading to a
higher level of cultural emancipation or is it a sign of a degenerating
society?
The sum of all the changes that have happened in the
past ten decades is that we now have a society in which the delicate balance
between personal choice and communal solidarity is sorely tested. At stake in
America (and increasingly in other countries) is a difficult question that
might have to eventually be faced as we experience rapid changes in demography,
family organization, economics, immigration and social philosophy: can
morality, diversity, and the personal psychological and sexual freedom promised
by a technologically fueled conception of consumer-oriented capitalism co-exist
without creating alienating contradictions? (Bell, 1976). Most importantly, how can a society that has always
championed human rights retain its cohesion when faced with competitive interests
that frame their requirements within a dialogue of competing claims? Can there
be an ideal ethics of discourse in a field of raging emotions and unsettled
historical claims? (Habermas, 1987, [1989], 1997); Taylor, 1994).
And, very importantly, can all countries be expected
to respond to capitalism and consumption as are the Americans and Europeans? In
posing this last question, we are faced with two further questions, answers to
which considerably affect our understanding of social change at the national
and global level. Is America on an inevitable path of 'development' through
which all cultures will pass? Or, is the early and contemporary American
experience a culturally and geographically specific reaction to modernity and
not necessarily a template for universal civil society?
Although, at the turn of the century, America,
England and France all shared similar ideas regarding how much of human
sexuality and hedonism should be repressed in the favor of social cohesion and
the preservation of the family, America was on the verge of developing a
particularly individualistic approach to social relations. American
constitutional ideals, together with increasing diversity in America,
predisposed Americans to be very critical of their own society---it was this
self-critique that weakened generational continuity and facilitated the
expression of impulses and emotions that might have previously been kept
silent. This cultural transformation now provides us with a departure point for
a more contemporary understanding of the mechanisms that are at play in civil
and uncivil behavior. It allows us to go beyond Elias' theory of state
formation and address issues directly connected to the formation of culture and
interpersonal relationships.
The story of the 20th century has not simply been the story of a gratuitous collapse in formal civility, but, also, a rise in emotional expressiveness. Changes in civility and emotional freedom have not only been observed in the degree to which pain and anger are restrained or expressed, but also in the manner in which citizens relate to duty, identity, guilt, shame, embarrassment and prideÉmajor factors that affect civil and uncivil acts and sentiments. All these factors need be considered in the formation of a contemporary civility theory.
And, indeed, the 20th century has been a time of considerable criticism and nihilism. A review of developments in 20th century America reveals a series of 'mini-eras' each given to questioning the values of the precedent era. There is a through-line of social critique linking these periods, beginning with the tentative sensual experimentation of the 1920's, then proceeding to the optimism of the 1950's and the rebellion of the 1960's, then the 'therapeutic culture' of the 1970's to late 1980's, and, more recently, to what some popular writers have termed 'a culture of entitlement' and 'a culture of irony and cynicism.'
According to our study, the history of the late 19th century and the 20th-21st centuries is one of paradox. Along with increasing social doubt has come increasing personal confidence and personal choice, causing contingency at the collective and private levels. What has distinguished the 20th century and these first few years of the 21st century is a considerable amount of self-reflection and social reappraisal.
Such massive moral and intellectual questioning of existing habituations began just before World War I. A great deal of uncertainty was suddenly unleashed in Europe and America at the turn of the century. Although the Enlightenment had questioned the fixity of a divinely managed universe, it had made the comforting promise that humankind could progress steadily by virtue of the sovereignty of reason and human sentiment. It was thought that human intervention would successfully correct the exaggerations and abuses of a free market. For its part, the late 19th century industrial project and the scientific rationalization of man's place in nature had provided industrializing societies with a taste of what they were capable of accomplishing by harnessing the power of nature.
Whether one felt doubtful or
hopeful depended very much on one's opinion of industrialism and the expansions
of capitalism. If there was anything distinguishing the 'conservative' from the
'liberal' viewpoint it was the degree to which one was ready to accept the
physical and moral dislocations of an accelerating capitalism. The poet Rudyard
Kipling sensed the uncertainties of his time when he wrote his poem-hymn Recessional ([1897] 1898). He warned that humankind would be
lost if it abandoned its faith in the transcendental---neither empire, nor
power, nor the steel and miracles of industry could repair loss of faith and
heart.
Similar warnings came from American thinkers trying to make sense of the formidable changes that were occurring in family organization and work at the beginning of the 20th century. The Victorian father, who had ruled his household with considerable authority, no longer possessed the status that he had once enjoyed. Most late-Victorian men worked over 10 hours a day, six days a week. Much of the household's governance, including its daily moral supervision, was transferred to the lady of the house. While the father could (and often did) assert his authority to settle disputes, much of this authority was exercised due to ritual male privilege rather than all-around involvement in the round-the-clock governance of the family. One very important change that occurred as a consequence of the increased distance between workplace and dwelling was that the mothers became more intimate with their sons and daughters. By the 20th century, the budgeting of expenses and payment of bills of a great portion of America households were being handled by the woman of the household. Many men were even given to being edgy when at home, not quite able to separate their work from their leisure (Rose, 1994: 162-177).
The growing unease with rapid social change and new divisions in labor might have dissipated had it not been for the aggravating effect of World War I, an event that caused widespread demoralization in Europe (Eksteins, 1989). Just as Europeans and Americans were beginning to feel that 'reason' and 'civilization' might triumph, they were faced with an event that left millions dead and survivors feeling that little had been accomplished (Mackaman and Mays, 2000). Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) was a profound novel of the period; it demonstrated the futility and powerlessness of individuals who are faced with the massive and anonymous destructive force of modern weaponry. The hero in Remarque's story tries to save a comrade who is shot but not mortally wounded. He carries him through miles of enemy territory only to have his friend die from a flying piece of shrapnel seemingly come from nowhere. Remarque was commenting on the futility of war and even the futility of heroic action---he did not allow the hero to live to tell his story but had him collapse at the end of the novel. Remarque's ability to capture the youthful sadness of his characters exemplified the rising melancholic nihilism of the new generation. It also questioned the idea that virtuous behavior could triumph over that which was base. A new idealism and moral outrage began chipping away at reassuring certainties.
In 1920, Warren G. Harding, President-to-be of the United States, tried to sum up in an election speech what he thought were the desires of Americans in a post-war era: ÔAmericaÕs present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrum but normalcy; not revolution but restoration; not surgery but serenityÕ (Longley, Silverstein and Tower, 1961: 196). He was partially right; America needed a period of political stability. Yet, the 1920Õs unleashed a new uninhibited social spirit in certain social circles, a spirit that questioned many turn of the century customs and behavioral codes. Not only did some Americans rebel, many sought new heroes to heal the wounds of the past. And those heroes were not only political leaders, but artists, writers, actors and musicians.
When the American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein coined the term 'the lost generation' she was thinking of the young anonymous jobless men coming back from a war in which one out of five soldiers had died. Civilization was a counterfeit for these disillusioned men. Many of them blamed their elders for having allowed the war to disrupt their career prospects and took to questioning the traditional idea that age and competence were related. Their disillusionment was captured in John dos Passos' Three Soldiers [1921] 1932) and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926) and Farewell to Arms (1929). The response to this trauma was a carpe diem mentality; F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920) showed the frenzied lifestyles of the disillusioned and disaffected. The social anomy of the 1920's troubled the famous American conduct writer, Emily Post, who delivered the following warning to American parents in 1920:
No child will ever accept a maxim that is preached
but not followed by the preacher. It is a waste of breath for the father to
order his sons to keep their temper, to behave like gentlemen, or to be good
sportsmen, if he does or is himself none of these things....In the present day
of rush and hurry, there is little time for 'home' example....Any number of
busy men scarcely know their children at all, and have not even stopped to
realize that they seldom or never talk to them, never exert themselves to be
sympathetic with them, or in the slightest degree to influence them. To growl
'mornin,' or 'Don't, Johnny,' or 'Be quiet, Alice!' is very, very far from
being 'an influence' on your children's morals, minds or manners (1920,
intro.).
Aggravating the growing skepticism towards historical justice and the legitimacy of a long civilizing process was the rise of a movement in America that was a reaction against rural conservatism and 19th-century propriety. Wild parties, promiscuity, speakeasies that operated despite alcohol prohibition laws, and a popular music industry given to idealizing 'romantic' and 'passionate' love struck at the core of American Victorianism. T. S. Eliot added to the glum mood with a major poem entitled The Waste Land (1922) in which he eulogized the passing of a wasted generation. Novelists and playwrights now took up the theme of the tragedies that befell people who lived in dreams not supported by reality. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) tore into the American ideal of the self-made man---Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, learns the crushing cost of success when he realizes that he has lost love and inner contentment and that all his wealth cannot help him find inner peace. Sinclair Lewis added insult to injury with Main Street (1920), a work that demeaned the moral values of the 'staid majority' by describing little-town Americans as thoughtless, mean-spirited, uninspired and inordinately impressed with their own civilization. This anti-American literature emanated from the shores of America long before the build-up of an off-shore anti-Americanism.
We notice in this critique of American bourgeois society a deep disillusionment that contains the same elements of Romanticism that appeared in England during the industrial revolution. Robin Campbell goes far enough to locate the rise of a distinct modern personality in the intersection of 18th century sensibility and 19th century Romanticism. The act of willing emotion according to preference rather than externally-determined propriety standards gave individuals a fairly rudimentary 'autonomous control of emotional expression' ([1987] 1993: 75). Romantics contributed to the growth of a separation between personal preference and social institutions by assigning special moral worth to a 'belief dependent emotionality' quite different from a moral sensibility conforming to external moral standards. Passion, especially when connected to indignation over social conditions, became legitimized in this growing movement towards individualism, and became considered part of the reformation of social conscience rather than a purely self-interested egoism. Whether the Romantic was passionately working to improve social conditions, or withdrawing from the world in order to preserve his creative and moral character, he could consider his social role as one of heightened commitment to long-term civilizational progress.
Ernest Bernbaum has astutely located the logic underlying the character of the Romantic, a character given to viewing the private and public worlds as separate (and often irreconcilable) realms:
ÉOne was the world of ideal truth, good news and beauty: this was eternal, infinite, and also absolutely real. The other was the world of actual appearance, which to common sense was the only world, and which to the idealist was so obviously full of untruth, ignorance, evil, ugliness and wretchedness, as to compel him to dejection and indignation (1962: 91).
Lionel Trilling has similarly described the Romantic personality as harboring an 'intense and adverse imagination of the culture in which it had its being' (1971: ix). J. Gaudefroy-Demombynes also describes turn of the century Romanticism as an oppositional passion:
A way of feeling, a state of mind in which sensibility and imagination predominate over reason; it tends towards individualism, revolt, escape, melancholy and fantasy (1966: 138).
The passionate belief in humankind's ability to transform social reality through the use of personal imagination and genius led to a high valuation of heroic action. It also rendered the Romantic very vulnerable to sudden disappointment. The revolution in manners and morals set in motion after the Great War was not simply a consequence of the desire for hedonistic experiences, but the manifestation of the high expectations of a generation raised on Romantic idealism. This tendency would resurface again in the 1960's.
A new woman appeared during the 1920's---her skirts were shorter (much to the consternation of the aging Victorian matrons), she sometimes smoked, and could be as boisterous as the males with whom she socialized. And she was not averse to discussing sex; Sigmund Freud's Three Contributions to a Theory of Sex had been translated, was in its fourth edition and the talk of American campuses (1930). So was Havelock Ellis' Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1919-28). Informed now that human libido had been repressed, some youth sought ways of liberating it. The titles of the songs of the 1920's show this growing pre-occupation with sexuality and romance. 'I need loving,' and 'Burning kisses' were some of the songs that represented the yearnings of an emerging youth culture that took the Victorian ideal of 'spiritual union' and added sensual passion to it. Just a decade or two ago, etiquette experts were advising women not to be in the presence of a man without a chaperone because it might appear 'sinful.' Now they were advising young unmarried women on how to 'appear' of good breeding despite their amorous adventures.
In the Hollywood of the 1930's-1950's, the well-behaved, sexually circumspect leading lady was supplemented by the vamp. A new image of sensual boldness was being promoted to American cinema audiences. The Victorian ideal of the sexually restrained gentleman was set aside in favor of a new man who, although he still seemed to have the answer to everything and treated the woman as a quasi-daughter ('Will you be my girl, darling?'), was also dashing and seductive. He was charming towards women (something calling his wife, 'the little woman'), yet able to be ruthlessly aggressive with other males. This obsession with romance and passion was quite a new experience for Americans, especially American men who were habituated to considering their heroes the tough loners of cowboy films or the 'Can do, sir!' corporate stereotypes appearing in Hollywood interpretations of company men in America.
As for England and France, they had enjoyed a long literary and artistic heritage based on the recognition of romance and sexuality. Anyone who doubts that needs only compare American and European art from the 16th to the 19th century: there are far more nudes and scenes of passionate love painted by the Europeans. They had passed through libertine as well as conservative periods and were not as free as the Americans were to build a grand narrative of human behavior based on sexual purity. European mores seemed to proceed in cycles. But for a nation that had gone from the Calvinistic asceticism of the early Puritans to the tough living conditions of a frontier and then suddenly to a highly industrial state without a long history of sexual maturation and frequent reversals of mores, this sudden appearance of literature and film on sexuality had an unsettling (and extremely titillating) effect.
A countermovement even appeared to protect Americans from the influences of the Continentals. Frightened by a series of murders and divorces that left the Hollywood industry's image tarnished, studio moguls hired Will H. Hayes, a former Republican National Chairman, to lay down a code of behavior for artists and studios. Hays began by trying to drive out of Hollywood those he considered of loose morals and then laid down a code of behavior that survived (on screen at least) well into the 1950's. Some of Hay's rules of comportment stipulated that directors should avoid:
Ékissing that lasted for more than seven feet of film, clergy in comic or villain roles, the 'explicit,' 'the attractive,' or 'justified' treatment of adultery and fornication, nudity under any circumstance, sympathy for 'murder, safecracking, arson, smuggling etc in such detail as to tempt amateurs to try their hands,' and 'all low, disgusting, unpleasant though not necessarily evil subjects'ÉHays went into considerable detail: if an actor or an actress were seated or lying on a bed, albeit fully clothed, one and preferably both should have one foot on the ground (Johnson, 1997: 711).
With this control of sexuality came a high valuation of pure romance. The stars were allowed to express sentiments of profound love for one another (some may remember the mid-century screen match-ups Lana Turner and Robert Taylor; Doris Day and Rock Hudson), provided they remained at the proper distance from one another and occasionally came together for a quick desperate kiss. French movie stars were kissing one another with full open mouths when these prohibitions were being laid down in Hollywood.
Yet, it was not the counter-movement of anti-sensualism that ended the American 'jazz generation' but the generation's own loss of heart; it did not find a satisfactory antidote to its own boredom and sense of futility. And before it had a chance to find a solution to its low morale, America went through the general demoralization of the Great Depression and, then, World War II.
The Depression had a marked effect on American intellectuals and writers. Describing the new literary generation in America, Edmund Wilson wrote with wonder: 'Éthose years were not depressing but stimulating. One couldn't help being exhilarated at the sudden, unexpected collapse of the stupid gigantic fraud. It gave us a new sense of freedom; and it gave us a new sense of power' (1952: 498). Wilson noted that while American intellectuals had previously championed individualism, they now called for a planned economy (Johnson, 1997: 760).
The Great Depression and the War had a salient influence in moving America in the direction of a society of restraint and consensus. Both events dealt blows to faith in historical justice. World War II frightened many Americans and Europeans into believing that humanity was governed by irrational forces that could erupt at any given moment and unleash a wave of barbarism. The Europeans who initially faced the Third Reich's fury unaided learned the meaning of living with considerable restraints. Although America eventually joined the War, Americans living in America were not subjected to the civil disruption and fear that engulfed England and France. These two nations had an opportunity to test their traditional approaches to adversity and emerged even more stoic than before. In the post-war period, while Europe set about rebuilding its infrastructure, America managed to surge forward into a period of prosperity and political dominance that made it the most powerful and most influential nation in the world. Yet, it retained a continuing fear of what could happen to American democracy if forces such as those of Hitler or Stalin were to be let loose on America. As a protective measure, it adopted a corporate culture that restated the American narrative of freedom, but within communally-rationalized values.
The rise of corporate cultures built on narratives of solidarity did not silence the artistic critics. It even helped energize them and gave them new social purpose. Artistic style changed radically following the war, moving away from traditional forms and searching for 'originality.' Many of the novels were given to delivering nostalgic critiques of American culture. John SteinbeckÕs The Grapes of Wrath (1939) mourned over the ruining of the land by corporations, banks and dubious commercial interests. While SteinbeckÕs novel championed the fate of migrant workers in the vineyards of California, it sent an angry warning to Americans about American society in general and its penchant for unbridled development. Steinbeck's other works of fiction were equally skeptical about American capitalism.
In the South, Tennessee Williams, in nine full-length plays and over a dozen shorter ones, catalogued a suffering Southern aristocracy that was dangerously close to savagism were it not for the veneer of civilized decorum (Longley, Silverstein and Tower, 1961: 212). And Margaret Mitchell explored the psyche of a vanishing Southern aristocracy in Gone With the Wind [1936]. In the novel, the heroine Scarlett OÕHara seemed to be lacking in virtue but was an exciting portrayal of the potential energy of a woman not dominated by turn of the century Victorian Puritanism. New York Times reviewer J. Donald Adams described the novel's heroine as Ôa heroine lacking in many virtues---in nearly all one might say but courageÉalive in every inch of her, selfish, unprincipled, ruthless, greedy and dominating, but with a backbone of supple springing steelÕ (July 5, 1936, cited in Longley, Silverstein and Tower, 1961: 249). America was searching for heroes and heroines that counter-balanced a culture of standardization, and it was willing to admire personages who had qualities very contrary to what centuries of conduct books had preached to be the ideal virtues.
The combined effect of this literature of reappraisal was to disconnect avant-garde Americans from many of the reassurances of their former ideologies. The moment was now seen as a unique experience, not requiring connection to historical precedent. This severance from the authority of customs also entailed a change in established standards of public civility; that which was 'old fashioned' was beginning to be considered suspect, as not 'modern' enough (Davis, 1972). In America, this penchant for the modern became accelerated and validated by the proliferation of a new manufacturing sector that provided Americans with convenience and luxury products that still remained out of the reach of many working class Europeans. While Europe also admired modernity and welcomed its products, it continued to look to America as the affluent society, economically and psychologically less inhibited than the Old World. On one hand Europeans yearned for the political freedom enjoyed by Americans, while, on the other hand, they rested secure in knowing that they possessed a very long history that included long stretches of economic and political hardship. They had survived numerous tyrannies and were, therefore, less given to the type of uncompromising idealism that leads to crashing disappointment.
By 1950, America contained 6 percent of the worldÕs population while producing and consuming more than one-third of the worldÕs goods and services. An exploding consumer demand that had been suppressed during the Great Depression and World War II, plus the build-up of a military complex determined to keep the threat of Soviet supremacy at bay, assured Americans of employment. The arrival of personal credit further facilitated the buying of goods and services. In 1946 there were less than 17,000 television sets in America. Two years later, a quarter of a million sets were being installed every month. By 1953, two-thirds of families in America owned a TV set (Harris, 1992: 135). The enthusiasm of on-camera announcers introducing new products was remarkable; listening to their upbeat deliveries, one has the impression that Americans were certain that they were on the verge of entering a golden age. The advertising industry was ensuring that the engine of consumerism would remain continuously turned on. 'Ownership,' 'consumption' and 'contentment' became mutually associated, setting the stage for considerable later disappointment in the 1960's.
Now what must be considered in comparisons of American, English and French industrial and corporate cultures is the differences in the size of the countries. England and France are smaller countries and able to maintain administrative cores that act as unifying forces for their populations. The high mobility of Americans across spans stretching 4,000 miles and more did not afford them with the unifying conditions enjoyed by countries such as England and France. Undoubtedly, a series of civility traditions came to be practiced in AmericaÉone in the south, another in the West, and still others in the Mid-West and the North where migrants were doing their best to develop a common interaction ritual that would cause minimal ethnic conflict.
The one unifying value that transcended regional differences was the ethic of consumption, a carefully engineered social practice. One of the leading architects of the new American consumer society was a public relations expert, Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud. During the 1920's he became the master builder of the American public relations machine. He was the innovator of a psychological public attitude control system that stimulated the 'desires' of people and then offered to satisfy them through the purchase of products. The American department store was one of Bernays' important inventions; it surrounded the buyer with multiple temptations. Using what was known of crowd psychology, Bernays succeeded in adding to the democratic citizen the character of the 'consumer.' Calling this 'the engineering of consent,' this magician of the new consumer society proceeded according to the premise that most people possessed destructive irrational and aggressive drives which had to be distracted with the fulfillment of artificially-created 'wants' and 'needs.' The influence of Freud's writings regarding a 'death instinct' (1950) are noticeable in Bernays' philosophy (Tye, 2001; Bernays, 1936). 'Born to shop,' 'shop till you drop,' and 'when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping' became American catch-phrases, the consequences of Bernays' astute use of psychological manipulation in the services of pleasurable consumption.
Ernest Dichter extended Bernays' work by creating the 'focus group,' a tool of market research designed to uncover the hidden motivations of the female consumer and her resistance to the new convenience products ([1960] 1985). His success brought a slew of psychoanalysts into the corporate world...men and women entrusted with using 'depth market research' to investigate the hidden roots of human behavior. Like Bernays, Dichter believed that masses were fundamentally irrational and that a marketing elite should be entrusted with controlling such irrationality in the interests of a prosperous, democratic culture. While England and France continued believing that civility standards were the prime determinants of social order, America turned to organized business and the retail sector for cultural assurance. American civility took on a 'managerial' tone, efficient, clipped, bravely optimistic, and economical.
In fact, one notices a distinct difference in the advertising of the period in England, France and America, even though the three countries were sharing similar industrial projects. Americans were approached by advertisers with a particularly 'hard sell' that exhorted them to save 'time and money' through the purchase of products. The English and French advertisements, although they sometimes presented similar arguments, were quite different in tone and softened the sell through humor or by appearing as if they were serving the public with information. These differences are observable even today.
Although public relations and advertising agencies tried to control emotion by channeling it in the direction of material desire, the conditions were set for an actual rise in emotionalism in the American population. Despite the sobering effects of the Great Depression, Americans had succeeded by the 1950's in creating a new American family in which 'teenagers' occupied a central place and took on the identity of consumers just as their parents had done. A few factors contributed to this emergence of a vocal youth culture distinctly set off as a culture with its own rituals and codes: prosperous parents who took to giving their children 'pocket-money,' thereby increasing their ability to socialize amongst themselves in shopping districts, restaurants and amusement places; an expansion in the economy which permitted teenagers to get jobs while in school and acquire their own cars and circulate far from the surveillance of parents and relatives; and a steady decline in the extended family and decreased contact between teenagers and members of their family outside their own households.
While the extended family had motivated children to want to become adults as early as possible (for adults seemed to have more freedom than children and were frequently criticizing children), the emergence of a 'teen culture' now gave children a far more attractive goal to aim forÉ'teenhood,' a state which accorded freedom to youngsters to enjoy activities separate from those of the family while sparing them the sobering demands made on adults. Teen culture became a rehearsal ground for adulthood and a profitable marketing ground for corporations. European youth watched American films and marveled at the freedom and affluence of American youth. American youth experts tried to explain the 'wildness' of some youth by stating that teenhood was a time of metabolic turbulence. Yet, as early as 1928, Margaret Mead had warned in Coming of Age in Samoa that the American hypothesis that puberty and adolescence were very stressful and straining due to hormonal changes was, in her opinion, without foundation. She attributed the problems of youth culture to the imperative of 'free choice':
A society which is clamouring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have, chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice' ([1928] 1961: 235).
Corporations contributed to the breaking up of the family circle by regularly transferring their employees to where they needed them. The majority of corporate employment application forms more often than not included the question: 'Are you willing to relocate?' The question seemed to be a test of loyalty to the corporation. Tindall and Shi explain that the women's clubs and association of the period were intended to serve as hospitality units for families arriving in new communities. Proverbial American communal hospitality has always been based on this recognition of mobility and the need to integrate new arrivals in order to strengthen the community. The 'settler' is recognized as a sort of kin as long as he or she is willing to fit into the circle and live by its codes ([1984] 1999: 1443). 'Fitting-in' became the mantra of the mobile. Frequent relocations created this need for anchoring in unknown towns and cities and contributed to a rise in conformity and standardization.
The emerging 'nuclear family,' consisting of two parents and two children, became a venerated institution, promoted as the highest good. The parents conformed to the image of agreeable corporate workers while their children, waiting to take on their own corporate careers, amused themselves in a culture increasingly separate from those of their parents, a culture complete with its own slang and music. Government officials, including J. Edgar Hoover of the F.B.I., were baffled by the subsequent rise in juvenile delinquency. Hoover believed that lack of religious education was causing the car thefts, the incidents of rape, and larceny. He based his opinion on the premise that morality could be internalized and prove effective even in the absence of close supervision. It was an idea also argued in Elias' theory of internalized restraints ([1939] 1978: 140). Yet, as Tindall and Shi have suggested, it was the increasing mobility of youth and the use of the automobile that facilitated such a sudden lifting of restraints; the delinquents were often of middle-class, religious backgrounds; they got away with what they did because their cars allowed them to leave the immediate vicinity of their towns and free themselves from the surveillance of parents and kin (1984] 1999: 1432). The motive for the delinquency was more complex than lack of moral or religious instruction. These were youngsters who had sufficiently internalized restraints against aggression and crime. What facilitated the reversal was anonymity.
Increasingly, films of youth culture featured scenes of discontent and violence. The hallways of the American high school became corridors of emotion where a few misused words could trigger considerable conflict. This portrayal of an agitated youth culture sat parallel to a romanticized image of male-female teenage relationships. While Victorian youth had contended themselves with infrequent contact with members of the opposite sex, American youth sought the companionship of one another in co-educational facilities that legitimized and encouraged 'dating.' Dances held in schools contributed to this formation of a distinct teen culture. This was a particularly American development. A comparison of films produced in America, England and France during that period demonstrates that American youth were a distinct social group, testing the limits of youth freedom and self-affirmative emotional expression. Hollywood took great care to colonize and saturate the youth market with special films replaying life in high schools.
Pop icons appeared to formalize and support adolescents' belief that they were part of a unique group with behavioral qualities that needed not always conform to the standards and mores of the adult population. Having one's 'own space' became a symbol of this separate and distinct identity. Behind their own closed doors, teens fabricated their own identity and moved further and further away from parental authority. The walls of a teenager's room became emblems of the self. And, as the decades progressed, the entry of parents into those rooms became more restricted and contested. Parents worried over this sudden desire of independence on the part of youth, forgetting that improved education and media were causing children to age faster and to demand rights of initiation that included increased privacy from parental interference and surveillance.
Although the social-political rebelliousness of the youth of the 1960's was not remarkably observable in any majority sense in these earlier youth, they were, nevertheless, establishing their place in a society that was becoming increasingly youth-centered and less given to insisting on vertical authority relationships. 'Father' became 'dad' and 'mother' became 'mom.' 'Sir' and 'maam' were lost somewhere at the beginning of the 1960's. Intimacy between parents and their children in the absence of kin led to further informalization and a consequent increase in permissiveness. Teen culture became considered a practice-ground for social relations and social competence. What had previously been learned in the extended kin group now became learned in the domain of school grounds and public places. 'Hanging-out' became a way of leaving the house and being with one's own peers. And media became a part of the new extended peer network, helping form new attitudes and facilitating the reformation of old ones.
And the status-quo was the one thing that worried those American youth who wanted to test the limits of experience. Submission to precedent meant loss of new freedoms and pleasures, certainly a decrease in the prestige of their new 'unique' identity. Margaret Mead has written extensively on the 'ghettoization' of the American teenager ([1928] 1961) without enumerating the benefits of that differentiation; what an adult may find regrettable about a teenage subculture may be considered a liberation and blessing by the teenagers themselves; the human personality does not happily welcome restraints.
While the delinquent might have frightened the straight American teen he also appeared as a quasi-hero because he was charting additional new space for youth. Even though a given teenager may not have wanted to occupy the risky and frequently violent epicenter of this new space, he remained aware that its outer fringes would be original as well as relatively safe. The delinquent had the 'guts' to go against the system. Gradually, the image of the 'noble criminal' emerged in American society as a counter-point to the uninspiring promises of the establishment. An individual who was helpless to change the system had a way out: he could turn against it and break its rules. Cool became what was novel. The Wild One, West Side Story, the Blackboard Jungle were some of the films that showed the sensational benefits and risks of being an emotionally-expressive non-conformist fighting for the normalization of a new style of behavior.
Although in the previous century the truant was subject to shunning and ridicule, American media in the 1950's and 1960's began denigrating the straight-living teenager as a bore who was devoid of passionate commitments. This sudden reversal must have put considerable pressure on youth, forcing teens to evaluate the social opportunity costs of conformity and rebellion. As late as 1939, Elias himself had observed that the behavior of children was controlled through references to abnormality and normality:
...the censorship and pressure of social life forming their habits are so strong, that young people have only two alternatives: to submit to the pattern of behaviour demanded by society, or to be excluded from life in 'decent society.' A child that does not attain the level of control of emotions demanded by society is regarded in varying gradations as 'ill,' 'abnormal,' 'criminal'' or just 'impossible' from the point of view of a particular caste or class, and is accordingly excluded from the life of that class ([1939] 1978: 141).
The standards of 'normalcy,' however, were already beginning to shift in the 1950's. While adults continued to consider the 'impossible' child as a social aberration, the deviant child began developing his own interpretation for his non-conformity. It might have hurt emotionally to be considered inferior to other 'well-adjusted' youth but those at the avant-garde of the new youth culture accepted their own behavior as rational and even made moral judgments of those youth who continued to uncomplainingly submit to parental controls and standards. The 'nerd' became the studious one wearing eye-glasses following the 'cool people' around, hoping for their social approval. The retrospective TV series Happy Days has shown this shift very effectively---the idol is now the 'Fonz,' an academic under-achiever who is a socially brilliant and iconoclastic individual. His brainy friends remain in continuous awe of him. His street-wise competence overshadows their academic accomplishments even though he is always warning them not to drop out. He relates to the parents of his 'straight' friends with considerable chivalry, but addresses them as people rather than authority figures. He is his own authority and quite pleased with it. He is the antidote to bureaucratized life and he manages his identity by being a proficient problem-solver who knows how to cut unnecessary corners.
'You're so so crazy!' was no longer a negative judgment but a compliment affirming the originality of the other. As this steady affirmation of liberty (and independence from small-town communal ties) occurred, social competence became as important as academic excellence. The degree to which someone could be 'wild and young' seemed to bring with it the social approval of peers. Being 'popular' became the religion of this new youth movement. This was an instance in which long-standing values of American moral propriety became reversed: the body and its presentation became a source of power; reputation based on communally known acts became supplemented by 'look' and 'image.' A teenager could gaze with admiration at a passing peer without knowing the least bit about his character. The pressures put on the American teenager were enormous. Success no longer counted on the learning of lessons or fixed rules of behavior; popularity consisted not only of imitation but the self-generation of trendy speech and action. Ironically, the old aristocratic requirement of 'wit' became a prime vaunted quality of democratic youth culture. Media programs became the new conduct manuals and took on a socializing function.
Adult culture was under similar pressures. Examining the newsreels, television programs and magazines of the period, one has the impression that public commentators were little concerned with people living outside the comfort-zone of the middle-class. There was a homogenization of behavior and it was actively promoted in all media, despite the cinematic appearance of the youth rebel. The 50's were a period of consensus and conformity. It was expectable, considering that America had emerged from two World Wars and needed time to grow economically and establish some social stability. The deviant was considered as much a danger to mainstream Americans as he or she had been to the English Victorians.
Yet, there was an undercurrent of spiritual doubt and social anxiety despite this up-beat tempo and the sunny smiles of Americans shown close-up in television commercials. Frequent relocation and suburban architectural uniformity were robbing middle-class Americans of their individuality. A family that moved away from its kin was that much less a part of a supportive kin network and that much more vulnerable to having its identity transformed. Tindall and Shi confirm this unexpected consequence of American industrial mobilization:
The traditional notion of the hardworking, strong-minded individual advancing by dint of competitive ability and creative initiative gave way to the concept of a new managerial personality and an ethic of corporate cooperation and achievement ([1984] 1999: 1440).
It was expectable that there would eventually be a backlash against such conformity in a culture that had always prided itself in being original. This resistance emerged in artistic and literary circles. In their search for new values to counteract the leveling effect of middle-class conformity, the writers and artists of the 1950's established experimental genres that often used shock methods to awaken their audience to new possibilities. Art took on a spontaneous and organic form, sometimes being minimalist to counter the overstatements of traditional forms. 'Beat' poetry, for example, attempted to return to the original promises made to Americans: a coherent culture that respected the individual. Beat poets used incoherence as a mirror of how things had become in a consumption-driven society. The beat of the poem was the beat of the human heart in relentless protest. Whether the protest was coherent or not was less of an issue than the fact that the heart was still alive. Allen Ginsberg's poem, Howl ([1956] 2001), was a cry of pain and rage against the manner in which America had, through unbridled development, abused its human and natural resources:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
for an angry fix.
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
A successful corporate executive might have found Ginsberg's poem incomprehensible, but young intellectuals responded to its cry of pain. Writers were reacting to (and dramatizing) a growing alienation in the 1950's culture of plenty. Men who worked in the corporate world now had the opportunity of enjoying the benefits of a secure life, but on condition that they demonstrated a quasi-spiritual devotion to corporate objectives. As for women, they were required to be 'optimistic' guardians of the household, cheerfully administering to the needs of their husbands and their children, enjoying the time they spent in their kitchens surrounded by their 'ultra-convenient' 'time-saving' appliances. Not all men and women succeeded in this Herculean task, as poignantly dramatized in Arthur Miller's theatrical masterpiece, Death of a Salesman ([1948] 1998). Miller succeeded in eliciting sympathy for the American common man caught in a world not of his making.
Protest against the new corporate homogeneity was embedded in many works of the period. Personal alienation was the predominant theme. Some sociologists have explained that industrialization is in itself an alienating experience. That was the point also made earlier in Charlie Chaplin's widely-acclaimed film, Modern TimeÉthe hero in the film is so occupied trying to keep up with the machinery he is operating that he becomes pathetically frazzled and depersonalized. Yet, the literature of the period suggests that what was alienating was not industry itself but the manner in which industry had been elevated to the most important human activity and owners of industry posited as models of society. The problem was that this elevation of technology and salesmanship to a quasi-divine status had not resolved issues of moral laxity, corruption and injustice. Nor had the emotional needs of citizens been addressed. A slew of skeptical works appeared questioned this incongruence: Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955), David Riesman's The Other Directed-Man (1958), William Whyte's The Organization Man (1956), Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957) and The Status Seekers (1959). In the social sciences, C. Wright Mills investigated the new wealth-owners with works such as White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956), and economist J. K. Galbraith offered up The Affluent Society (1958), an uncompromising critique of short-term economic thinking.
These writers were addressing the consequences of the 'mass conformity' that had arisen as a by-product of America's accelerated development. The frontier individualism that had originally energized the American experiment was modified in this journey towards affluence, prestige and security. This need for 'security' was a quasi-obsession during the McCarthyism of the 1950's; on the surface it was rationalized as vigilance against the threat of communism; on a deeper level it was motivated by the need to preserve the American capitalist system and minimize the influence of socialist ideologies.
It did not take long for 'Making money' to become equated with 'making friends.' The original industrialists had measured their performance based on action and results. There is little biographical literature demonstrating their desire to be popular with their employees. They managed their staff by promoting duty, conscientious performance and loyalty, and then rewarded them with job security and retirement funds. Many of them were fervently patriotic and considered their role as industrialists a calling. But a different corporate leader emerged within this new culture of 'corporate personality.'
Rev. Norman Vincent Peale embodied this new social philosophy of personality-presentation by putting a seal of religious approval on commercial optimism and sociability. In The Power of Positive Thinking Peale explained that all that was required for unlimited success in life was a positive attitude and the ability to win friends and influence people (cited in George: 1993). A link was established between belief in God, the surrender of the self to Christian faith and the act of optimistic salesmanship. Influencing others gave authority to the individual to construct his own personal social image. What had previously been dependent on the good or bad reputation that follows from specific deeds now came under the influence of successful 'impression-management.' Certainly, Rev. Peale held to a moral life, but the idea of turning public opinion in one's favor through personality-management did not go unnoticed by business people who cared more about making a dollar than entering heaven. God and the dollar entered a mutual alliance, permitting the continuation of the Evangelic movement in America within a capitalist system.
The social ethic of the time was
the 'mastery of passion' and the cultivation of a well-rounded personality.
'Adjustment' to 'reality' was supposed to be the consequence of such mastery.
Regrettably, not enough consideration was given to the legitimacy of the
reality itself and its consequent effect on personal happiness. The great
salesman became the idol of American corporate society. And he was a new breed
of American, combining business acumen, unabashed enthusiasm and a
down-to-earth friendliness. If Americans have a feeling that certain of their
civility rituals are simply extensions of the American penchant for
'deal-promotion,' they are not far from the truth, for managerial efficiency
somehow managed to invade relationships within and outside the family. We have
listened to hundred of hours of audio and television soundtracks of conversations
in documentaries and in encounters between family members, and then compared
the tones of voices to those of managers discussing projects. We find very
similar cadences of speech. This similarity is less apparent in English and
French comparisons of family and corporate conversations.
The futility of individual action in a collective other-oriented culture insisting on cheerful commercialized agreeability was masterfully captured by J. D. Salinger in Catcher in the Rye (1951), which rapidly became a cult classic on college campuses. Its hero, Holden Caulfield, realizes that his life is becoming a dead-end, but, nevertheless, submits to his fate: he accepts to get along with others even when he has no desire to do so. There seems to be no exit. Had Salinger written his book in the 1960's he might have had his hero drop right out.
The American actor, James Dean, although he lived to only make three films, managed to become the idol of a generation seeking the heroic in itself. The fact that Dean was a 'rebel without a cause' made no difference; the exciting thing was that he was rebelling against the rules of conventional society.
Works by psychologically concerned writers were equally unforgiving of the prevalent ethic of the 1950's. Commenting in 1961, Philip Roth, author of the best-selling Goodbye Columbus (1959), said:
The American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full in trying to understand and then describe, and then make credible much of American reality. It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one's own meagre imagination (cited in Tindall and Shi, [1984] 1999: 1451).
Thus, many of the novels of the period presented a prototype of an intelligent innovative mind driven to despair in a culture of superficiality, conformity and exploitation. The values of 19th-century Romanticism are very much apparent in this new era of supposed in-your-face realism. Novelists wrote of 'restless, tormented, and often socially impotent individuals who can find neither contentment nor respect in an overpowering and uninterested world' (1452). Saul Bellow's Seize the Day (1956) was a poignant comment on Americans' fear of failure and the compensatory cock-sure behavior used to cover up that fear. Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) mythologized a group of 'beatniks' touring America in search of some integrity and beauty and a communal life liberated from the restrictions of commercialism. What counted more than meaning was 'movement,' anything to counter-balance the hypnotic effects of standardization. In The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, a waitress asks Brando what it is exactly that he is rebelling against. He responds provocatively, 'Whaddaya got?'
An American public previously exposed to optimistic films singing the praises of progress and suburban bliss was now exposed to films showing disordered mental states. Women who had been presented as paragons of family virtue were featured in films showing the disturbed side of their lives (Barbara Stanwick's and Elizabeth Taylor's films stood out as prime movers of this new cinematography of discontent). These films used a minimalist method that did not overtly reveal the director's intention; the 'oblique' method of cinematography allowed directors to subtly introduce new ideas to their audiences without triggering their resistance. What might have not passed in the declarative statements required for print communication now passed in the visual medium through the telling of stories. Action filled in for dialogue that might have been rejected; facial expressions represented changed inner states whereas an outright confession of the inner state might have elicited objection and shock. Hollywood was not only entertaining its audiences but beginning to play an important role in directly and indirectly reflecting and forming the needs, ideals and dreams of Americans (Walker, 1970). Especially in the 1970's and 1980's stars acquired the power to compensate for the decline in local culture to build a virtual culture in which they occupied positions of privilege and influence; this had an important effect on the behaviors people adopted and transformations in the shame threshold (Jarvie, 1970).
This new culture of 'disappointment' and 'disagreement' was an unexpected development in a society that had maintained that 'being agreeable' was proof of good citizenship. The enthusiasm and conformity of the 'yes-man' was demeaned because of the nature of those things to which he had been agreeing. The American philosopher-novelist, Ayn Rand, founder of the American 'objectivist' movement, in her philosophical novels, The Fountainhead (1945) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), made uncompromising criticisms of American collectivism and the moral corruption of citizens who pretended to be altruistic while being morally and philosophically unworthy due to mindless conformity. Her heroes restate the original American democratic promise: integrity is defined as an uncompromising loyalty to a lofty ideal regardless of consequences. Rand's Promethean philosophy was objecting to a bottom-line mentality and its willingness to sacrifice quality and excellence in the interests of quick profit. She wrote that it is the creator, 'the true lover of humanity,' who 'stands alone' and 'disagrees with the crowd.' Rand's philosophy presented a conundrum in courtesy: was it moral to 'handle others' in order to secure their social approval? Or did true morality require uncompromising self-affirmation? Certainly, the heroes in her books were very direct, to the point of what some might consider unapologetic bluntness.
Rand was promoting a rational selfishness intended to protect the individual from assimilation by collectivist values. She held that 'rational individualism' would protect the collective from the apathy that overwhelms it when it is left bereft of the regenerative powers of creative opposition. Atlas Shrugged was her tribute to a purified capitalism freed of the supposedly corruptive influence of what she considered 'parasitic' socialism. On a political level, Rand was fiercely opposed to Dewey's action-oriented progressivism and felt that it had encouraged moral irresponsibility. Her mistrust of instrumentalist action was shared by Hannah Arendt who held Dewey responsible for making American students feel 'that you can know and understand only what you have done yourself' ([1954] 1972: 182).
Meanwhile, the American media, heavily influenced by the financial interests of corporations, continued to broadcast films and sit-coms promoting the American dream of affluence: the dream house, the dream car, the dream wife and the dream husband. The placement of the sponsors' products within the programs was a key method used in the indoctrination of the population to consume as much as possible. Products were the cause of increased social and physical mobility and their celebration and consumption was the ultimate thanksgiving. It is interesting to note the amount of cigarettes and alcohol consumed by movie stars on screen between 1930 and 1960. So often, whenever a stressful situation occurred, the actor poured a drink and lit a cigarette.
Yet, during this entire time, a transformation was occurring in the same media that were promoting corporatism. Governed by the need to make profits and retain their viewers, they became obliged to represent dissenting factions. Media moguls belatedly awoke in the 1960's to the realization that the mood of the population was changing---they decided to move ahead with the times, giving the emerging counter-culture a powerful tool for mass propaganda. Over the ensuing decades, American media became important forums for the discussion of social issues. It is hard to imagine that a broadcast media replaying the ideals and vertical hierarchies of American society in the 1950's would one day be broadcasting shows hosted by globally influential commentators on personal development, self-realization and ideal conduct and that these personages would be commanding millions of viewers around the globe (Opray Winfrey and Dr. Phil being not the least of them). This was a seminal development in American civilization, for media took on descriptive as well as transformative functions. The self-help movement of the Victorians found a new voice in America, this time paralleled by considerable criticism of the 'system' and the innocence of its 'victims.'
...the consequences of what happened in the sixties were long-lasting: the sixties cultural revolution in effect established the enduring cultural values and social behaviour for the rest of the century. This had not been a transient time of ecstasy and excess, fit only for nostalgia or contempt (1998: 806).
Marwick indicates that the greatest turmoil in the 1960's was experienced in America. And, certainly, a great many social changes occurred in America during that period: the Civil Rights Act (1964), Equal Opportunities Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), Medicaid Act (1965), Older Americans Act (1965), Head Start Act (1965), Higher Education Act (1965). Allen J. MooreÕs analysis of the period similarly identifies the American youth of the 1960Õs as a very socially concerned generation. His analysis of this generation and the parents who fathered and mothered them is worth considering in the interests of understanding what followed later:
In previous generations young adult rebellion took the form of frivolous activities, such as swallowing goldfish, panty-raids, and sitting on flagpoles. The purpose of most youthful rebellion was to get attention or to playfully provoke adults. In fact, rebellion seldom became more serious than the expected every-generation crusade on behalf of free love....Although the present generation can be very fun-loving and playful, their rebellion tends to be deeply serious, and is directed not so much toward parents or authority figures as against the basic structures of society. For the most part they have selected those concerns which are already big issues for the larger society and have succeeded in turning some low-key social debates into explosive issues. In a society that has been in the habit of expecting playful pranks from its young people, it was a surprise when young adults took up the big causes of education, politics, and international affairs (1969: 49).
So, a distinction needs be made between the anti-traditional behavior of the youth of the 1920's and 1950's and those of the 1960's. During the 1950's, youth were struggling against restraints for the sake of their own identity and pleasure. There was no widespread movement of social criticism amongst the mainstream youth of the time. The appearance of Elvis Presley was the first instance when the entire persona of the middle class was put into question. Presley was a paradox. He came from an evangelic background and started as a singer of gospel music. Without speaking against religion and while always speaking lovingly of his mother, he managed to become a very sensual public sensation. Historians of America sexuality would make an error by minimizing Presley's great influence on 20th century American sexuality norms. He managed to get away with a defiant, self-satisfied smile and a gyrating pelvis that sent a clear message of sexual liberation to his audience. By reconciling the image of a dutiful youth with that of a romantic/sexual adventurer, Presley broke the link that had previously existed between sensuality and sin. The same person who sang Amazing Grace went on to become 'the king of rock and roll,' singing such suggestive songs as Love Me Tender, Surrender, Are You Lonesome Tonight? and It's Now or Never. An American congressional report responded to Presley's super-star status by stating that 'the gangster of tomorrow is the Elvis Presley of today' (cited in Tindall and Shi, [1984] 1999: 1434). The Congressmen who prepared that report grossly underestimated the singer's ability to appeal to conservative, law-abiding citizens---Presley was singing about something long-idealized in the American Romantic tradition: the idea of long-lasting romantic love based on mutual consensus and support.
Presley preached at precisely the time when American media was broadcasting specially-prepared television commercials showing that the proper and best way to see a young lady home after a date was to not try and kiss her in any way. The woman was still being presented as someone who did not welcome nor enjoy the advances of the male (History Channel TV, July 3, 2003). Presley made a very big contribution to the changing relationships between genders. While in his films he played the womanizer who was openly attracted to the bodies of women, he never appeared critical or insecure about the positive attentions he received from the women he pursued; this helped legitimatize a female sensuality free to respond to the male's advances without exaggerated protocols of demureness.
Early pop singers such as Presley facilitated the work of socially concerned musicians in the 1960's who addressed many topics previously considered taboo. Considerable social disobedience of traditional codes of restraints and a rising disrespect towards existing institutions was made possible by a burgeoning music industry specifically serving youth. The cutting of records as 'singles' permitted youth to buy music without considerable investment. Words that would have been censored in print or film managed to survive buried within the melodies of the songs. A marked change occurred in the lyrics of songs. While the theme of romantic love (requited or not) was still part of the overall sound mix, many of the pop groups concentrated on social issues and released controversial songs criticizing the American way of life as well as the government that stood behind it. Jimi Hendrix's technically brilliant and cynical 'machine-gun' guitar rendition of the national anthem of the United States was a telling example of the depth and severity of the critique. John Lennon's wistful song, Working Class Hero, struck at the heart of the Western ideal of equality by rejecting the claim that class differentiation was being eliminated by rising affluence. His song Imagine acted as a banner for the peace movement and reflected the idealism and optimism of a new generation willing to ask 'what if the system were to operate differently?' Of course, many were too stoned on drugs to think straight, but thinking straight had lost some of its reputation. With glee and pride, youth listened to stars such as Sly and the Family Stone promise to take them Higher and cheered at the implications of a society free from the constraints of exploitative capitalism. Nirvana seemed so within reach. It could be found as close as Woodstock, New York, where hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate without any major incidents at the now legendary Woodstock Festival. Less destructive than their alcohol-consuming parental generation, members of the pot generation laughed at mainstream critics who tried to brand them as a danger to society.
The Vietnam War, highly unpopular with most of America's youth, drove an additional wedge between parents who continued to favor conservative American politics and those youth determined to get across to their elders that authentic American patriotism needed to be applied to daily living and that a war fought for nebulous reasons thousands of miles away was not proof of any real public moral integrity. We may suspect in retrospect that the Vietnam War served to weaken the rising influence of the totalitarian Soviet regime; but, at the time, many Americans, especially those being conscripted into the armed forces, had difficulty understanding why the war was being fought. Some sons who opted to avoid the draft were stunned to see their parents turning them in to the authorities. A.D. Horne's documentation of essays from survivors and analysts of the war, The Wounded Generation, recounts the deep scars left by the war on American patriotism and communalism (1981). Certainly, life for many Americans would have been different had America not become embroiled in a war so far from its shores.
Pop stars achieved legendary status and political power during the war because they became the mouthpieces of a generation in protest. On December 5, 1968, The Rolling Stones released their album Beggar's Banquet, perhaps one of the most influential music albums of the 20th century. One of the songs, Sympathy for the Devil, tore into an older generation that was becoming complacent. During six minutes and twenty seconds of lyrics, Mick Jagger confronted the one subject that had become forgotten in the culture of plenty: corruption. Taunting his audience to 'Guess my name,' Jagger reminded that the devil may very well have found his way into the new world.
One of the most telling works to appear in this period of protest was a novel by Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962). The film version directed by Nick Nichols (1967) became a cult classic. Acted by the incorrigible Jack Nicholson, the protagonist of the movie is a man who becomes interned in a psychiatric hospital. Unrestrained by middle class ideas of decorum and discipline, he proves saner and more compassionate than the people managing the asylum. Kesey was criticizing the mechanical morality of a society that adhered to principles of restraint and punitive discipline at the cost of empathy. He was also idealizing the character of the noble straight-talking anarchist.
This making of moral points through black comedy and poignant drama became an important genre in the 1960's and 1970's and contributed to a rising sense of 'irony.' It was ironic that the madman seemed saner than his keepersÉironic that the teenager demonstrating for civil rights was more worldly and less prejudiced than his parents who urged him to remain 'adjusted' to social norms. Irony followed from disappointment. And irony liberated a generation from conditioned automatic behavior. The ironic individual has believed in an ideal but been disappointed by its non-fulfillment. Irony becomes a way of distancing himself from the disappointment while retaining some sense of the original ideal. And this distancing became a political tactic of the counter-culture, cutting into the long-standing belief in 'agreeability.' It was an important tactic enlisted in the development of an anti-authoritarian self-awareness. Imaginative acts became a means by which moral and political points could be made (Klinkowitz, 1980). By the mid-1970's, a variety of television programs were satirizing the contradictions of American society. Saturday Night Live became an American institution; what gave the show legitimacy was the appearance of actors of solid mainstream reputation. The program satirized nearly every facet of American society, sometimes with considerable malice. A large portion of the American public seemed to be becoming less formal and less attached to the ritual of patriotic rhetoric.
So, in many respects, the movement of the 1960's and the early 1970's was a movement against 'social adjustment.' Many were feeling that American society---in its existing form---was not worth adjusting to because it produced a debilitating lack of critical awareness. Martin Luther King Jr. had himself affirmed in a speech that 'maladjustment' to certain social realities and prejudices was an effective and noble tactic of resistance. The cultural movement of the 1960's in America was, therefore, as much against mechanical social behavior as it was a movement in favor of political and sensual liberty. This dual agenda of the movement cannot be stressed enough. The downgrading of the supposedly upright citizen as an 'uptight square' was not a frontal attack on decency as much as it was a rejection of adjustment to social conventions that were seen to be producing destructive consequences. Suddenly, the Ôgoodie-goodiesÕ became branded as morally deficient. The underlying moral nature of the cultural movement cannot be stressed enough. That the men who ran and managed the corporations and the parents who managed the families had not successfully lived up to the standards of integrity promoted to the population was a major factor for the backlash. What was being criticized was not mercantilism per se, but the self-abnegation, hypocrisy, greed and environmental degradation that were its consequences. Somewhere, somehow, it had been assumed that 'doing business' could be a noble activity that hurt no one. That was the premise in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957) in which the protagonist manages to bring capitalist society to a halt only to make way for a pure form of capitalism based on the ideal of a non-exploitative business ethic supported by a rational use of technology.
Yet, another social conflict had been brewing. The generation of the 1960's had grown up viewing films from the 1940's and 1950's that promoted successful romantic liaisons as the foundation of family life. Even the film The Graduate (1967), a skeptical indictment of capitalism and suburban moral expediency, ended with a scene of the two young protagonists running away to find monogamous bliss. Members of the flower generation, raised on a steady fare of Hollywood romance, may have turned critically on their parents for not having lived up to the summit of this romantic ideal. The large number of marriages in the 18 to 23 year age group in the 1960's attests to this continuing belief in permanent unions. While some began by cohabiting many did end up formalizing their union with marriage vows. Many of the members of the 1960's youth movement who ended up being divorced must have been very surprised and traumatized by a sense of personal failure. The same Romanticism that drove them into early marriage drove them into early divorce. High expectations and idealism precipitated disappointment.
The use of the word 'love' as part of the cultural movement of the 1960's was, therefore, not exclusively motivated by the desire for free sexuality. This 'love-hunger' is an important aspect of contemporary American culture and one which needs be recognized if we are to understand the semiotics of late modern presentations of self and the rising emotional awareness of individuals.
Relations between genders and between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons also came under considerable scrutiny during this time. Daughters became increasingly allergic to the roles played by their mothers. The conflict continued into the late 1970's and was aptly expressed by Nancy Friday's best-selling book, My Mother, myself: the daughter's search for identity ([1977] 1984). What might have motivated the young women of this generation to discount the moral and role preferences of their mothers was the low status enjoyed in general society by those same mothers. The status of the 1940's and 1950's housewife had been considerably high even though it was held that men and women were basically different and had to make the best of their differences. But the mothers of the teenagers of the 1960's were in a mood of discontent. Although they had not yet developed the power to fully assert themselves within their families, they were certainly complaining. The daughters simply formalized and gave voice to a movement already in germination.
Television programs took the cause of women and packaged it in sitcoms. The sitcom, All in the Family, featured a despotic bigoted father who kept ridiculing his hapless wife as a know-nothing. He was always berating her for this or that, eyebrows raised in amused exasperation whenever she offered her conciliatory wisdom. The series was meant to provide the new society with a target for ridicule: the bigoted, all-American father and his American wife who was always pretending to be less intelligent than she really was. This series, along with other sit-coms such as Maude, served to sensitize sons and daughters to the plight of some of their mothers and the alternatives offered by a new American feminism not at all averse to self-affirmation through civil disruption.
As far as sexuality was concerned, many of the youth of the 1960's went a step further than their parents and accepted total sexual intimacy prior to marriage. 'Necking' and 'petting' between teenagers had already existed in the 1940's and 1950's. Yet, there had been considerable sexual anxiety. The young woman of the 1950's was torn between guilt and her sexual desires. The imperative of preserving virginity until after marriage was still an American social more. Many of the Hollywood films of the period dramatized this conflict. Doris Day and Lana Turner were perfectly crafted representations of the sexually undecided woman, prim and proper according to 'wholesome' American standards but periodically out of breath with excitement, much to her own consternation. This tug of emotions between the strong desiring male and the demurring but tempted woman was a common theme in American post-40's cinema. It is doubtful that the theme would have found a ready audience in France. The French were ahead of the Americans in sexual liberation and were exploring the existential angst that both women and men felt when confronted with the contingency of late-modernity. Topless and nude public bathing on the beaches of the Cote d'Azur were there long before American youth took off their clothes at rock concerts in defiance of American codes of public decency. America was late liberating itself from sexual prudery and the acceleration of this liberation within a narrow historical time-frame created a double-standard: defiant liberty to counteract lingering guilt and playful sexuality to soften the embarrassment felt in the presence of desire. This struggle between purity and lust seems to be an on-going issue in American culture; our content analysis of adult porno videos reveal actors who revel in being 'bad,' as if there were still some underlying contradicting standard troubling them or their viewers. Many of the scenes include pointed looks of defiance as if some rebellion were still under way. English adult films also contain this defiant spirit, with frequent use of the phrase 'being wicked.' French films, on the other hand, are surprisingly free from this implicit unease, while being bound by other fantasies, some intensely misogynistic.
Social rules forbidding the loss of
virginity had been substantially connected to the possibility of pregnancies
outside marriages. In a very considerable measure, the arrival of the birth
control pill took sexual mores out of the hands of the state and the church and
put it in the hands of experts. Sexual enjoyment, rationalized as 'sexual
experimentation,' was further legitimized by the appearance of many best-selling
books, amongst which were Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex (1974), Shere Hite's The Hite Report: a
nation-wide study of female sexuality
(1976) and Masters' and Johnson's The Pleasure Bond (1975). These best-sellers stood in
stark contrast to the Victorian conduct books preaching against the evils of
sexual pleasure. The permissiveness of the 1960's (and disco 1970's) provided
youth with the space they needed to take the inhibited bodies inherited from
their ancestors and dance till they had reclaimed the grace and energy of those
bodies. What occurred during this period was a re-balancing between the mind
and the body. The Protestant ethic had subjugated the body in the service of
goals created by the mind; this restraint of physical impulse was at the root of
Puritanism and later Victorianism. The Romanticism of the years 1850 to 1950
created the preconditions for bodily pleasure by permitting its imagination.
The 1960's and 1970's turned the imagined into the experienced. Conduct books
that appeared during the mid-part of the century also focused heavily on gender
relations. In America, in particular, efforts were being made to level
inequalities between genders while continuing to extol the virtues of modesty
in sexuality (Wouters, 2004). This is particularly noticeable later on in the
1990's when conduct books begin advising members of both genders to be 'sensitive and flexible in all relationships' (150).
But the sexual revolution of the 1960's and 1970's was only the beginning of what the History Channel has called The Sexual Century (History Channel, July 3, 2003). The initial phase of the revolution made women more easily available for men; the decades following the 1970's have involved the feminine aspect of this revolution during which women have searched for an active and satisfying sexuality unrelated to previous notions of duty (July 3, 2003). Sex in the City and a variety of other television series have presented female characters as much given to pursuing the perfect orgasm as have been males. This equalizing of access to satisfying sex is also observable in the rapid growth of the pornography industry. When the classic Deep Throat appeared on the screens of American theaters in the 1970's after winning a Supreme Court Ruling in its favor, some men were taking their wives to erotic movie theaters to make them privy to the emerging porn. A few years later in 1976, with Sony's invention and widespread marketing of the home videotape machine, the American adult video genre was brought right into the home. Again, the themes of many of these videos and the eventual names adopted by some of the production companies (i.e. Evil Angel Productions) was the theme of rebellion against Puritan asceticism and the association of lust with sin. Titles such as The Devil in Miss Jones, and the sudden appearance in a porn title by the contracted TV spokesperson for a detergent commercial, scandalized conservative America, but it did help make the point that a woman who seemed very wholesome according to proverbial American standards could also have a very active sexual desires (July 3, 2003). Today, the American pornography business dominates the world pornography market with films that satisfy every fantasy that does not clearly violate American sexual laws. And it is, like all capitalist endeavors, informed by the imperatives of the 'bottom-line.' One porno star being interviewed on television explains that she is a strip dancer and a porno star because the money is good. 'I'm just like the girl next door,' she says, 'except I make my money by having sex' (July 3, 2002).
So the sexual revolution of the 1960's was only a departure point; most of America's sexual liberation has come during subsequent decades. In an interview with the History Channel (July 3, 2003), Helene Gurley Brown, long-time chief editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, the same magazine which years ago preached that a young woman should hold out on sex in order to secure a suitable mate, now declares:
The fact that we have now given ourselves permission to feel these wonderful feelings; that's the most fabulous thing that's happenedÉ.We have learned to enjoy it and glory in itÉI'm fond of saying that sex is one of the best three things we have; I don't know what are the other two' (July 3, 2003).
The cover of the August 2003 issue
of Cosmopolitan's American edition
announces the following features: 'Our Most Shocking
Sex Survey 15,000+ Men Tell What They're Aching For. Girl, the Power's in Your
Hands NowÉBeyond Kama SutraÉWe Teach Your How to Give Him the Most Intense Pleasure
PossibleÉGet Naked! Does Stripping Down Stress You Out? How to Feel Sooo Sexy in the BuffÉ' (August, 2003).
*
The 'creative extremism' of some of the youth of the 1960's tested the limits of many social paradigms. Marxism, anti-bourgeois rhetoric, libertarianism, and anarchism became part of a platform of political and social ideas that led to a proliferation of subcultures. A disoriented generation of elders had little power to stop the spread of this new quasi-Renaissance. A mass-produced car bumper sticker of the 1960's succinctly expressed the changes that had occurred: 'I'm rude as hell, but fucking sincere.'
These youth were not fighting against American ideals as much as they were bringing attention to their corruption. What mattered to them was whether something was 'real' or 'bullshit.' The exclamation 'thatÕs unreal' was heard repeatedly in the daily interaction of youth. So was the exclamation, 'right!'...sometimes delivered with amused disbelief in the face of government pro-war propaganda, while at other times thrown up with enthusiastic approval for the press when still another betrayal of public trust was exposed. The near-impeachment and subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon was the final straw in this tragic-comic period. The Watergate scandal created further impetus for a culture of irony in which disbelief became a property of both the Left and the Right. American patriotism had been built on a firm belief in the integrity of the Oval Office; the sudden discovery that a President had actually been a willing participant in a political conspiracy was a blow to that patriotism. Even conservative Americans came to taste of the bitterness of irony.
Oddly, enough, this irony, which the early Puritans might have found heretical and self-indulgent, was motivated by a contemporary commitment to purity. This was reflected in some of the terminology used by the new generation. The struggle with the establishment was sometimes equated with the Roman-Palestinian conflict of 2,000 years ago. There were frequent references to the hippies as the 'Jesus freaks' and many hippies took to calling members of the establishment 'the Romans.' It was as Farber and Foner have stated, an 'age of dreams' (1994). It was also an age during which many of the young generation sought purity of motive and action. Nietzche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra ([1883] 1969) and his other works, notably Beyond Good and Evil ([1886] 1996), appealed to the generation not because of their nihilism but because of Nietzche's merciless critique of the contradictions of 19th century Christian morality. Berating Christianity's self-congratulatory asceticism and abnegation of physical desire, he railed against the 'despisers of the body':
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother,
stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage – he is called Self. He lives
in your body, he is your bodyÉ.There is more reason in your body than in your
best wisdom' ([1883] 1969: 62).
This was tantamount to saying, 'trust your feelings' and stay free of ideology. There was a very strong streak of idealism in Nietzche's writings as well as the generation that welcomed his ideas. Going 'beyond good and evil' required an assiduous application of personal reflection. It was in a way an attempt to transcend a corrupted Protestant ideology by practicing precisely its original search for perfection.
This search for sensual and moral purity soon overtook Hollywod. In the late 1960's, old guard studio executives were dazed by a cultural revolution for which they had made few provisions. Young talent moved in to fill the vacuum and produced a series of daring films that not only represented the mood of the times but changed the entire mission of cinema (Biskind, 1999). Films became the new novels of America, presenting believable characters capable of evoking emotion just as had the characters of 18th and 19th century novels. Directors, writers and actors took on a new role, that of social moralists. A list of the some of the actors and directors involved in this new wave of films helps remind of the massive change that swept over American film in the 1960's and 1970's: Dennis Hopper, Hal Ashby, Sam Peckinpah, Dustin Hoffman, Francis Ford Coppola, Richard Dreyfus, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Mia Farrow, Milos Forman, Mel Brooks, Robert Rossen, Mike Nichols, Robert DeNiro, Peter Yates, Elia Kazan, George Roy HillÉ..they and others became the new models of a generation in search of believable and morally courageous heroes. The artist in America, thirsting for justice in the midst of capitalist expediency, found a voice in the mainstream through the medium of cinema.
What Elias has considered a long process of evolution of manners was cheerfully reformed within a few months by the bolder members of the 1960's cultural movement. The stiff formal American dinner-table manner in which one arm was left on the lap while eating and taken onto the table only when necessary to manipulate utensils, was replaced with elbows on the table. The restraint of bodily functions, described by Elias as a sine que non of the civilizing process, was substantially abridged. Fork and knife were handled more casually than before; food consumed and chewed while talking; nudity accepted as a good; breaking wind amongst friends occasionally tolerated with the semi-embarrassed humorous exclamation, 'You're so gross!' What counted was being 'free' and 'natural.'
That certain segments of culture dared become less inhibited---and consequently more spontaneous---may not have been an indication of a de-civilizing process but of how secure (or bored) Americans had come to feel with their rational approach to reality. The rational dared now act irrationally, believing that they would not lose their bearings. It was an act of faith which history might prove not wholly justified.
Cass Wouters (1986: 1-18) suggests that this informalization and 'decontrolling' was made possible by the efficiency of previously imposed restraints. His view accords with that of Elias who maintained that the abandoning of controls was possible 'because the level of habitual, technical and institutionally consolidated self-control' was previously established. Elias considered the reversal a 'relaxation within the framework of an already established standard' ([1939] 1978: 140). T