Peace, Love and Pseudo-Intellectualism, Man

My Alma matter hosted a 'conference' on '60's scholarship' (dear god) this past week and apparently it was taken seriously.

One reason why I don't miss academic life:

"As children conceived in the Summer of Love approach 40 and their Boomer parents retire, Sixties scholarship is "coming of age," according to Karen Dubinsky, an historian and conference organizer. The Sixties have entered the canon: "It is now part of the historical narrative."

Second reason I'm glad I'm in the 'real world': "Christabel Sethna of the University of Ottawa, for example, drew an explicit link between harassment of hippies by undercover police officers and the more recent harassment of Muslims at airports."


Third reason: "All of you have been talking about 'we,' " protested one Danish scholar, who felt left out of the love-in. He then asked for a more precise definition of "The Sixties," so as to compare it to other times of social unrest, but he never got it."


Best quote: "We did not want this to become a bunch of old guys talking about the glory days," Prof. Dubinsky said."

Yes. Well. Right. How can it be anything but? I suppose we will have to endure this as the Baby Boomers get older and slowly fade away and start to mythologizing (even more so) that Golden Era when love was free, drugs were plentiful and bathing was scarce. No mention of the awful aftermath of the '60s -- HiV, political correctness, racial quotas, the welfare state, platform shoes, tye-dyed shirts, the Grateful Dead-esque jam bands, pot head philosophers, overbearing smugness and a sense of self-entitlement.

At least this gives me a good excuse not to donate to the alumni association. Not that I have, but if they ever track me down (and, oh, they will, since they once called me in Japan, on my cell phone while I was riding the subway to work) I can tell them that I don't believe in the exchange of currency for material goods, man.

If this trend of 'canonizing' decades continues(and let's hope it doesn't), does that mean my daughter will have to endure a course on the '80's? Extra credit: write a dissertation justifying Van Halen's decision to expel David Lee Roth. Or worse, a '90's course. Your assignment: discuss the political, social and economic implications of the goatee and/or flannel shirts.