In praise of decadence

the long version

The legendary 1960s were the seedbed for many of the social changes evident all around us today. In this book, Jeff Riggenbach takes a long, hard look at that fabulous decade and sees something a bit different from anything anyone has ever seen there before. The members of the sixties generation, he argues, were never devoted to left-wing or progressive ideals in the first place - so, contrary to conventional liberal and conservative wisdom, they never had to fall away from any such ideals in order to wallow in the self-actualizing, acquisitive seventies, eighties, and nineties. Politically, the members of the sixties generation - the famed "baby boomers" - have always been more libertarian than anyone expected. In the end, he maintains, the sixties was a seminal decade because it ushered in a period of spreading and deepening cultural decadence which still shows no sign of abating. It is easy to find fault with the turbulent sixties in America, and many do - focusing on such themes as free love and the decline of the family, racial unrest and the crisis of the cities, and the virtual disappearance of civility in the public square. Yet, Riggenbach contends, after a detailed examination of the critics' arguments on these issues, that while decadence does have its downside - it has made our society a ruder and cruder one in many ways - it has also enriched us beyond our wildest dreams and has given us much more to be thankful for than to lament.