The Me Decade

During the 1960s, America was still shaken up and recovering from WWII. In that period of time, the idea of war and solving international conflicts were fresh in people's minds with the Cold War in constant threat of ballistic missiles. During this point, Americans were mostly concerned with improving their country and society as a whole. Referred to sometimes Communitarianism, Kennedy said in 1961, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." However, when transitioning into the 1970s, the entire conflict and tension began to tone down and people during this time experienced a huge shift from communitarianism to the idea of bettering themselves, individualism.

This idea of individualism became a popular trend in the 1970s as they became more dissatisfied with war and politics. People began to become convinced that war and politics could not fix society and only to focus on bettering and nurturing the individuals. Rules and fashion in this decade were breaking tradition, women asserted themselves socially and some people took it as far as streaking or running naked through streets while others wore odd combinations of cloths. A quote from Tom Wolfe's New York Magazine issue on 1976 says, "They had all marched right up to the microphone and 'shared,' as the trainer called it. What did they want to eliminate from their lives? Why, they took their fingers right off the old repress button and told the whole room. My husband! my wife! my homosexuality! my inability to communicate, my self-hatred, self-destructiveness, craven fears" While this decade founded many of the ideals of individualism in people, do you think the methods people is almost a bit to the extreme?