Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

But there is widespread tolerance and endless discussion of all these issues. This discussion, like most of the adolescents’ endless talk, never reaches any decisions but leaves the question open or decides that “it all depends on how you look at it.” As part of such discussions, there is complete casual frankness as to who has had or is having sexual experiences with whom. Widely permeated with an existentialist outlook, the adolescent society regards each sexual experience as an isolated, contextless act, with no necessary cause or consequence, except the momentary merging of two lonelinesses in an act of togetherness. Among middle-class youth it is accompanied by an atmosphere of compassion or pity rather than of passion or even love (the way Holden Caulfield might experience sex). Among lower-class persons it is much more likely to be physiologically inspired and associated with passion or roughness. This often attracts middle-class girls who become dissatisfied with the weakness and undersexuality of middle-class boys. But petty-bourgeois youth, as befits the final defenders of middle-class conventionality and hypocrisy, still tend to approach sex with secrecy and even guilt.

Because of the breakdown of communication between the generations of middle-class families, parents know little of this side of teen-age culture, at least so far as their own children are concerned. They usually know much more about the behavior of their friends’ children, because they are more likely to catch glimpses of the behavior of the latter in unguarded moments. On the whole, middle-class parents today are surprisingly (and secretly) tolerant about the behavior of their daughters so long as they do not create a public scandal by “getting into trouble.” Mothers usually feel that their sons are too young and should wait for sexual experience, while fathers sometimes secretly think it might do their son’s immaturity some good. When middle-class children get into trouble, or any kind of a scrape, their only large anxiety is to prevent their parents from finding out. Petty-bourgeois parents, as the last defense of middle-class conventionality, generally disapprove of any illicit sexual experiences by any of their children. Naturally there are great variations in all these things, with religion as the chief varying factor and variety of local customs in secondary significance. However, even in religious circles, the behavior of the young is not at all what their adults expect or believe. For example, the number of Roman Catholic young people who have premarital, or even casual, sexual experiences is much larger than the number who are willing to eat meat on Friday.

One reason for the spreading of these relaxed ideas on behavior is the devastating honesty of the younger generation, especially about themselves. This seems to be based on their gregarious garrulity. An earlier generation had its share of illicit actions of various kinds, but they kept these a secret and regarded each as an aberrant action that was psychologically excluded from their accepted social patterns and would not, therefore, be repeated. This view continued, no matter how often it was repeated. But the younger generation of today has accepted the existentialist idea, “I am what I do.” The adolescent tells his group what he did, and they usually agree that this is the way he is, however surprising it is. Their whole attitude is pragmatic, almost experimental: “This is what happened. This is the way things are. This is the way I am.” They are engaged in a search for themselves as individuals, something they were called upon to do in the early grades of school, thanks to the misconceptions of John Dewey, and they are quite alien to any theory that the self is a creature of trained patterns and is not a creature of discovered secrets. Now, in the 1960’s, this opinion of man’s nature is changing and, as a consequence of George Orwell, mishmash conceptions of brainwashing, and the revival of Pavlovian psychology through the work of men like Professor B. F. Skinner of Harvard, the idea of personality as something trained under discipline to a desired pattern is being revived. With this revival of a basically Puritanical idea of human nature reappears the usual Puritan errors on the nature of evil and acceptance of the theory of the evil of human nature (as preached in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies ).

The new outlook emerging from all this is complex, tentative, and full of inconsistencies, but it will surely play an increasing role in our history as the younger generation grows older, abandoning many of the ideas they now hold, with increasing responsibility; but at the same time the new outlook will force very great modifications in the American point of view as a whole.

This new outlook of the rising generation of the middle class has a negative and a positive side. Its negative side can be seen in its large-scale unconcern for the basic values of the middle-class outlook, its rejection of self-discipline, of future preference, of infinitely expandable material living standards, and of material symbols of middle-class status. In general this negative attitude appears in many of the activities we have described and above all in a profound rejection of abstractions, slogans, clichés, and conventions. These are treated with tolerant irony tinged with contempt. The targets of these attitudes are the general values of the petty bourgeoisie and of middle-class parents: position in society, “what people think,” “self-respect,” “keeping up with the Joneses,” “the American Way of Life,” “virtue,” “making money,” “destroying our country’s enemies,” virginity, respect for established organizations (including their elders, the clergy, political leaders, or big businessmen), and such.

The shift from a destructive or negative to a positive view of the new American outlook is, to some extent, chronological; it may be seen in the former popularity of Elvis Presley and the newer enthusiasm for Joan Baez (or folk singers generally). There is also a social distinction here to some extent, as Elvis remains, to a fair degree, popular with the lower classes, while Joan is a middle-class (or even college-level) favorite. But the contrast in outlook between the two is what is significant. Joan is gentle, compassionate, unemphatic, totally honest, concerned about people as individuals, free of pretenses (singing quietly in a simple dress and bare feet), full of love and fundamental human decency, and committed to these.

The rejection of acquisitiveness and even of sensuality may be seen in the change in tastes in movies, especially in the popularity of foreign films directed by men like Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. The latter’s La Dolce Vita (1961), a smash hit in the United States, was a portrayal of the meaningless disillusionment of material success and of sensuality in contrast with the power and mystery of nature (symbolized by a giant fish pulled from the sea and left to die by thoughtless men and the direct honesty and innocence of a child watching the scene).

This rejection of material things and of sensuality is, in some strange way, leading the younger generation to some kind of increased spirituality. Property and food mean very little to them. They share almost everything, give to others when they have very little for themselves, expect reciprocal sharing but not repayment, and feel free to “borrow” in this ‘way without permission. Three meals a day is out; in fact, meals are almost out. They eat very little and irregularly, in sharp contrast to the middle classes early in the century who overate, as many mature middle-class persons still do. The petty bourgeoisie and lower classes still tend to overeat or to be neurotic snackers, but middle-class youth is almost monastic in its eating. Food just is not important, unless it is an occasion for a crowd to gather. Much of this decrease in emphasis on food is a consequence of their rejection of the discipline of time. Everything in their lives is irregular (including their natural bodily processes). They usually get up too late to eat breakfast, snack somewhere along the day, refuse to carry watches, and often have no idea what day of the week it is.