I am reading several books on culture to expand and refine some teaching notes.  One book I’ve had, but never read is All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes by Kenneth Myers.  It was written in 1989 so does not have anything to say about the Internet, but wisely addresses our American love affair with media and entertainment.

Myers cites Roger Shattuck’s work (The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I) to describe the four major features of the era we dub “The Sixties.”

They are: “the cult of childhood, which attacked education and society at large for introducing concern about self-control; the delight in humor, especially in the absurd; the confusion between reality and fantasy; and a preference for ambiguity over clarity.” (All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, p. 109).