Tuesday 21 May 2013
Aged of Aquarius
I read that last week, there has been a celebration in Nimbin, a seaside village on the north coast of New South Wales, in honour of the 40th anniversary of the Aquarius festival there in 1973.
I suppose the Seventies were my decade. I left school in 1969, so I was a witness, mostly from the sidelines, of the age of "turn on, tune in and drop out". In those days, everyone believed we were at the most critical time in history, when all the old certainties would be swept aside, national self interest and wars would be replaced by self realisation, we would make love, not war.
My memories of those times feel like a window into a past age, and when I look around today, I cannot help the feeling that nothing much has changed after all. The Nimbin festival last week only warranted a half page article buried in the paper, next to the football results, the Eurovision song contest and the rumours about the next iPhone.
It is graceless to mock other people's enthusiasms, but I have to agree with the description in the article linked above that the devotees in Nimbin are the "Aged of Aquarius". It seems the hippies have somehow changed from virile, long haired Adonis'es and Amazons (to mix the continents a little), into greybeards.
When people talk of declining church attendance, I think this should also include the empty pews in the chapels of hippies, like Nimbin.
If you take a random group of 18 year olds, how many would be interested in an alternative lifestyle today? Not many, from my experience. I think there were many more 18 year olds in Commerce lectures at university than in the streets of Nimbin last week.
What happened? I think the brief answer is that enthusiasm never lasts if it is not based on reality. The other message I take from this is that every age thinks they are special and are about to make great changes to society. Some things change, but some things always stay the same.
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I agree. I think today's teenagers want to fit into society rather than criticise it. They want a law degree, they want a job with the police force, they want a trade. It's not that they want to be able to afford designer clothes and foreign holidays, they want to be able to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the teenagers have always wanted to fit in, but in the 70's, "fitting in" sometimes meant being a rebel, as contradictory as that may sound. I studied Engineering at university and, believe it or not, there were some hippy rebels among my fellow students. I can give you examples where as soon as they graduated, the same rebels cut their hair, put on a suit, joined an engineering company and started working on technical and financial plans. There were a few who stayed rebellious after graduation, but I don't know what eventually happened to them.
DeleteWhere there are social changes that have happened over the last 40 years, they have been more about removing restrictions than about real change to traditions. For example, feminism has quickly been reduced to equal pay and parental leave.
Paul, I am afraid that not only the '70s were your decade. Every decade in which you have ever lived is your decade In fact, perhaps with more free time giving you the opportunity to do more of the things that are of value to you, such as write this blog, teach scripture and travel the Camino, makes this your decade more yours than any other that has passed. The 70's may have been a decadent decade, but unfortunately the decadence has flown through to subsequent decades. Many teenagers today who want to fit into society actually do things that you, Tonia and I do not and they do not do things that you, Tonia and I do. Actually both of you do a quite a lot more good that I also should do in some form or other, but don't. That might be because I am an Aquarian. Congratulations.
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