The chaos of the leftist LA riots right now made me think of this subject. Russia had a cultural revolution beginning in the early 1900’s. China had a cultural revolution beginning in the 1950’s. And the USA had a cultural revolution beginning in 1960. Everyone and their dog knows this. But few have a clear historical understanding of that reality, We act as if we are in denial there actually was a cultural revolution, while simultaneously, continuously, referring to this fact indirectly through an ever deepening of the same revolution, by means of pop culture.
We all know it began in the 60’s, but our concept of the last 65 years is formless and vague. That is what the revolution does, it clouds the mind about its very existence, making us forget there was a way of life so radically different than the way of life that would unfold since after 1960, that it was practically a different world, a different reality. It may as well have been a different planet.
Conclusion: when children learn contemporary US history, they need a crystal clear education in what the country and world was like before the cultural revolution, that the revolution is real, that it was a wholesale rebellion against pre-1960 conservative Christian America, replaced quickly by a secularist, liberal, materialist, and narcissistic new society. The cultural revolution continues past the Advent of the internet, social media, and wokism, into a new world of AI, robots, and neural chips.