PeniG said:
... but the 70s weren't dark. Neither were they light. They were just these years, y'know.
Right. My previous post on this topic was quite self-indulgent and off-topic but I've had a few thoughts on the subject.
That perception of darkness is not just determined by our own extremely limited subjective experience but also a Western popular media projection of a 'downtime' socially and politically in a converse way from how the '60s have been lauded as an age of enlightenment through memes like the free-loving hippy Woodstock imagery. This has been raised on the thread by others already: They
were enlightening times, more or less, but so were the '70s, the 80s, 'the 90s and the noughties in their own way.
In regards to decades, it occurs to me that our Western human perception is locked into this linear progression thing and the tendency to compare this and that era, while amusing and analytical to a certain extent, is destined to become a relegated approach. It is too limiting, but is it really all we have to work with?
We on this thread share much of a Western middle-class upbringing and our primary tendency is to self-mythologise our online personalities and their histories by this sort of comparitive reminiscence in order to establish and maintain a legitimate place within this netizenship (don't we?). It's fun. Outside of our own narrow cultural framework, that time, and indeed time itself is not perceived the same way by all societies. The '70s itself is a cultural meme, not a real thing. For example, in the early '70s in the western desert of central Australia a school teacher observed Indigenous elders painting traditional motifs on the school classroom doors and decided to tell the world about it, launching a highly positive and significant revival in traditional culture and art (ever heard of 'dot' paintings? - they weren't even on the radar of art afficionados until this event), raising the consciousness of the public about their plight and their poverty and consolidating the value of those cultures in the eyes of many outside those cultures from then on. Those elders would probably measure life not primarily in terms of time, but more in terms of social progression and knowledge as an expansive, extra-concentric experience rather than just a linear one. The 'art' they were producing was of very deep cultural significance pertaining to ancient established cultural knowledge, lore and law. For many of them, that 'period' was a very positive one because it was for most of them the first time whites had viewed them positively and shared an optimism about their culture. Furthermore, those non-Indigenous participants of this and other events related to this semi-awakening of Australia's general conscience regarding their Indigenous compatriots remains a social and cultural peak, rather than a time of bleakness. The '60s in that part of the world were shite for most Aboriginals, as was their whole experience of European domination of their land and life up to that point. Aboriginal politics became strengthened and the fight for rights became part of the mainstream meme after the recognition of Aboriginals as citizens in the mid 60s referendum. The early '70s was also a time of strong optimism during the early years of the Whitlam government, at least until Gough went mad with the his social dreams and had to be escorted from the premises before the budget was shot to hell completely. One positive act of massive symbolic power during this period was the literal handing back of land to the Gurindji people by Whitlam, which is probably the moment of greatest pride I have in my nations history. Whitlam, after all the policies had been agreed to and all the papers signed, poured a handful of sand into the patient palm of Gurindji elder Vincent Lingiari, signalling the beginning of a new paradigm in Australian culture - the concept of prior ownership (and maintenance of cultural custodianship) of country.
Image source: portrait.gov.au
There's a song about it called From Little Things Big Things Grow.
This concept of decades as having singular traits is not so much about the times, but about ourselves and our Greek addiction to defining and categorising everything (yes I know, guilty) and our fixation on linearity. Most of us adhere steadily to the cultural norms and toe the line as best we can until death ends it, as our culture teaches us is right and healthy. It ain't like that to probably half the world. Their 'right and healthy' responses to existential perception might well horrify us, just as our cultural approach has shocked and dismayed the groups our colonial forefathers forced this European paradigm onto. ... not that there's anything wrong with that ... oh hang on ...
Anyway. Were the the '70s dark times? It depends which movies you were watching I guess.