HOW USEFUL IS THE TERM CULTURAL REVOLUTION
HOW USEFUL IS THE TERM 'CULTURAL REVOLUTION'I propose to define and to argue the question "How useful is the term 'Cultural Revolution' when applied to the Sixties?" My objective is to include examples from history, history of science and religion. Let us first consider Arthur Marwick's decision to periodise the sixties from 1954 to 1975 and Eric Hobsbawm's periodisation (within his book Age of Extremes, written in 3 parts) with the sixties contained in the 'Golden Age'. These dates of periodisation are certainly interesting hypothesis. War dominated the culture existing at the beginning of the 20th Century, i.e. the 1914-18 War, followed a few years later by the World War II 1939-45. Europe and Britain suffered massive losses of life. Then came the spread of Communism after the World War II. America became paranoid about the spread of Communism, and because of this entered into a war with Vietnam; with disastrous consequences; they lost hundreds of thousands of young men; and completely failed to stop the spread. The Vietnam war came to an end through 'people power'. Country-wide mass protests were held; people were sickened by the numbers of lives
" I am sure not only America's 'conservative' population, hankered for the 'warm and kindly fifties', but also Britain and Europe, but the past is always viewed more favourably than it actually was, and it must be remembered that it is gone for ever, even though the sixties are so close. Young unmarried women who became pregnant outside marriage were ostracised. The Christian church, during the period of Enlightenment, went through great revolutionary upheavals. This was really radical thinking, but also at this time people were beginning to travel to Europe and new words pertaining to far eastern religions came into being such as, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism. As many of the events I have mentioned were unique to that time, and their effects on mainstream culture were so radical that the term 'revolution' could be used. America soon followed and was the first to land a man on the moon. The working classes at this time were quite poor, with little or no modern amenities; for example housing was poor, without bathrooms, electricity or inside toilets. America did not abandon, religion, at this time, it only appeared to abandon 'mainstream' religion and by doing so many divergent faiths, NRMs arose; albeit many appeared rather ingenuous with names like Jesus People, Divine Light Mission, Krishna Consciousness, Children of God and the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, (the Beatles were members of this group for a short time. This caused a great transformation in popular music. The staid BBC radio were forced (through the popularity of illegal pirate radio ships), for the first time, to broadcast popular music all day. Universities staged protests against many things, e. Does this make the historian's work easier because he has this form of primary source where he can actually watch an historical event unfolding on the actual date and time. Adherence was given to the churches' strict moral teachings; and the class system was still very deeply entrenched in society. He felt the misdeeds of the campus New Left were an intellectual catastrophe comparable only with the experiences of German professors under the Nazis. The masses could now afford to buy a television This made a huge impact on people's lives in the widest cultural sense.
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