Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 February 2008 10:18:49
1968 is a seminal year; one which any student will know has been heralded for being responsible for kicking everything from post-modernism to practically every social movement we are familiar with. It's a time which the right argue heralded the destruction of morals and headlong dive into permissive, hedonistic individualism. It's also a time which the left say held so much but in the end delivered so little, but without which we would not have some of the better aspects of current society.
In There's a Riot Going On Peter Doggett seeks to explain the relevance of late 60's counter-culture. It's not an easy book to wade through (525 pages before acknowledgements, notes and references) but it is an important one. The book covers the period 1965 - 1972 and as it's subtitle of "revoutionaries, rock stars and the rise and fall of 60's counter-culture" suggests it looks at the rise of and relationship between radical leftish politics and music with in the late 60's.
I found it a book which was interesting and problematic in equal terms.
My first problem was that to a large extent Doggett was denying the positives which did come out, partly, out of this period. One could argue without the spirit of the late 60's we wouldn't be having the current Democratic presidential battle, which in turn is leading to the question of is America likely to have a black president or a woman president? One could also say, from a British perspective, without the spirit of that time would we now have civil partnerships or breakfast clubs in our schools? Also, much of our the work being done through things like art therepy and community arts projects was kick started by the idealists from that period who survived.
Yet those questions in themselves lead to the next problem with the book, it looks at this period in isolation and doesn't give proper respect to the ways in which the debates and political battles of this period were part of a much longer heritage and history. Doggett strongly promotes the myth that feminism didn't exist until the rise of second wave radical feminists. I would argue this is not just a myth it is a dangerous distortion of history which is part of what has led to the invisibility of women's history.
Yet this is a good book. It has a raw sense of honesty which is not tinged by the romanticism that is sometimes associated with the period. I came away from the book clearly aware of what has stopped alot of change in western society and what destroyed much of the hope of the late 1960's; drugs, alcohol and violence. Doggett at one point highlights one of the black power leaders who recognised the way drugs were destroying people.
It is also a book which points out a key element which has been and must be retained from that period is theatre and fun.
So all in all a book which raises all sorts of contradictions which can't easily be answered.