Are we still living with the 60s?

By Duncan Walker
BBC News Online Magazine

A scathing attack on the legacy of the 1960s was delivered by Tony Blair as he launched a five-year war against crime. Is he right to say our attitudes are still shaped by the decade?

So, have we moved on since the 60s?

Turning on the era in which he did much of his growing up (he was born in 1953), the prime minister said the 60s had been a time of great change, but "some took the freedom without the responsibility".

He said people now want a society based on respect and responsibility and that liberalism had gone too far.

Announcing tough new plans to fight crime, Mr Blair said the era spawned a group of young people without parental discipline or a sense of responsibility.

But while nostalgia for the 60s may remain strong, there is disagreement about whether we are really still living with its values.

LAW AND ORDER

In the 1960s the minor crimes of young offenders aroused far less interest from the authorities, says criminologist Paul Kiff.

"The feeling was that they would grow out of it. Now the feeling is that we have to intervene."

The mythology around crime is enormous, but the reality is it has not really changed Paul Kiff

There are few people today who argue that criminals can simply be left to realise the error of their ways, says Mr Kiff, who is also secretary of the Penal Affairs Consortium.

The current argument is between those who want to deal with the social and economic causes of crime, like bad housing and poverty, and those who share Mr Blunkett's desire to come down hard on the individuals responsible.

The government's pledge to deal with offenders follows Tory leader Michael Howard's move away from a more liberal approach, when he was home secretary in the 1990s, says Mr Kiff. He suggests it is the nature of crimes that the year 2004 has in common with the 1960s.

"The mythology around crime is enormous, but the reality is it has not really changed," says Mr Kiff.

EDUCATION

Education saw very important changes during the 1960s, with the rapid expansion of comprehensive schools and more freedom for teachers.

Schools are still influenced by the 1960s

The reforms took place under the Labour government of Harold Wilson and many of those which came later, such as the creation of the Open University in 1971, also had their roots in the previous decade.

It was a time when greater attention was paid to the needs and rights of pupils, regardless of ability. More unusual techniques, such as facing tables away from the front so children looked at each other were tried.

"What people often think of teachers in the 1960s is that they had much more freedom," says Gary McCulloch, professor of education at London's Institute of Education.

While pupils in the 60s still had to sit exams, there was no national curriculum and teachers had much more leeway, says Prof McCulloch.

Today, there is a strict national curriculum and the government has announced its intention to replace comprehensives with independent specialist schools. Despite the changes, Prof McCulloch says: "In a sense all these debates are still with us and very influential and very much alive."

SEX AND EQUALITY

Announcing his war on crime, Mr Blair said one of the good things the 1960s had brought were breakthroughs on individual rights. Among the most profound changes was an improvement in the status of women, with greater freedom and equality.

Women of the 1960s enjoyed more freedom than their mothers

The influence of the period remains strong among those who grew up at the time, says writer and broadcaster Marcelle D'Argy Smith.

"I think they liked being young so much, they decided to stay young," says the former Cosmopolitan editor. The result, she says, has not always been great, with some women - and their partners - failing to be "very good parents".

She is more impressed with the "poised and intelligent" young women of today. "We were idiots in the 60s, we thought we knew everything. We thought we had discovered sex and drugs."

Despite a yobbish undercurrent, men have also improved, Ms D'Argy Smith suggests. "They still like fast cars and loose women, but their priorities are better. They don't want to be a playboy anymore, they want to be a family man."

The chances of a father-to-be being present at the birth of a child were slim back in the 1960s, but today they would be seen as lacking. There is also greater equality in most homes.

POPULAR CULTURE

The Beatles and the Stones, Habitat, concrete tower blocks and snappy dressing all came to the fore in the 1960s and are clearly still with us. To many people it was a time of great innovation, which has continued to shape the way people live today.

Fashions bloomed during the decade

It's not difficult to find influences of the era in any record shop, clothes store, or interiors magazine. But the importance of the decade is one which is routinely overstated, believes designer Wayne Hemingway.

"It was a time of great change after a period of austerity, but we have continued in a similar vein. It's all to do with people's ability to spend money," he says.

The desire to have new clothes, or a new sofa is part of human nature and people continue to want different things.

"I don't know anyone who thinks of the 60s when they're designing," he says.

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Add your comments on this story, using the form below.

I've been a police officer for 30 years. Every Home Secretary I've seen has promised to cut down on police paperwork and get officers out onto the streets. However, all that has happened during that time is that bureaucracy has got worse and worse.
Andy, England

The 60s are "to blame" because parents who grew up in the decade have been unable to adopt the same sense of discipline with their kids that their parents adopted with them. The permissiveness they enjoyed in the 60s has been passed on to their kids, who have run riot as a result.
Jan Dawson, UK

Perhaps the legacy of the 1960's that will always stick with Americans is the pioneering in the field of indivdual rights. Civil rights, freedom of speech right, rights of the accused, and a woman's right to choose are all direct products of the 60's emphasis on the sanctity of the individual.
Ben J, United States

The 60s still exerts such a big influence because there has been nothing notable in popular culture since then that has challenged the establishment on quite the same fundamental grounds. These days everything is just another commodity and we're sold the idea that consuming more and more goods will lead to greater happiness.
Bob, UK

The 60s were about peace, love and sharing. Current attitudes date from the 80s, when the "every man (sorry, person) for himself" culture grew and developed today's self-centred attitudes which lead to binge drinking (because I want too), lack of respect (only the strong survive), and the "I have my rights" brigade.
George Chilvers, UK

I was a teenager through the greater part of the 60s. Then we wanted to make a better, more equal, more peaceful world - we didn't achieve it, but we wanted to. Now we don't even want to.
Roger Steer, UK

All this blaming stuff on the 60s is just an excuse to bring in a more authoritarian system. If we were really living in a liberal paradise we would not be putting so many people into prison.
Adam Hamilton, Scotland

I was a child of the 60s and never stop being thankful for the opportunities I had as a working-class female. University education, foreign travel, a flat and a career of my own. Wonderful!
Madeline Cox, UK

It is typical of Tony Blair to blame anyone but himself for the country's problems. He has been prime minister for seven years - maybe it is time that he took some responsibility?
Tom D, UK

Those left in authority, like our teachers, can no longer enforce discipline without danger of prosecution. Little wonder we've ended up in this state.
Peter Hill, UK

Blair launches a crusade, but the argument for it doesn't stand up when you look into it. Maybe he's just making a noise to distract attention from the last time he launched a crusade, when the argument for it didn't stand up...
Ben, UK

In the 1960s we were still ruled by Edwardians and things like eating in the street or dropping chewing gum were still frowned upon. In the 1970s the country went down hill under the inept governments of Heath and Wilson/Callaghan and too much union power. It the 1980s Mrs Thatcher introduced new concepts of "no society", "Loadsamoney" and "devil take the hind most". These created basis for the mess we now find ourselves in.
Nick Bradfield, London, UK

That it is currently vogueish to treat offenders as if they are victims and victims as if they are offenders - and that it is more attractive for victims to shut up rather than speak out - must surely tell us we have completely lost the plot.
Matt, England

If Mr Blunkett had been around and in power when I was a teenager I would probably be in prison now, living on the streets, or dead. Instead, due to the values and common sense of my parents, who grew up in the 1960s, I got myself away from trouble with the law and I'm now in a well paid job, working hard, paying lots of tax and helping other people.
Joe, England