The Public Discourse
Weaver, Paul H.
CLOSING OUT THE 1960s As chronological units, decades begin and end at exact points in time; but as historical periods - which is how we usually speak of them - their boundaries are uneven and...
...Usually they have been around for years and decades prior to their brief popular reign, and after their moment in the limelight they seldom become altogether extinct, but merely retreat to the fastness of this or that isolated nook of society, where they persist more or less indefinitely as remnants of the past-and also as prototypes for the future...
...But there is more solid evidence as well...
...Or is what we have been witnessing these past few years only a brief lull after which the decade will come roaring back in all its stylish zeal and rancorous energy...
...Partly this view derives from the trendmakers' current interest in divining the distinctive flavor and concerns of the 1970s - an enterprise which can proceed only on the assumption that the sixties have indeed come to an end...
...This is especially so because the ideas and the personalities and the preoccupations which are at the center of a decade never spring into existence ex nihilo...
...but as historical periods - which is how we usually speak of them - their boundaries are uneven and indistinct...
...The conventional wisdom would seem to be that the sixties are now quite extinct and can be expected to remain so...
...And in fact they do recur, lending to our political and cultural history the cyclical character noted by Arthur Schlesinger, Sr...
...This suggests another reason why decades are so mercurial and so hard to demarcate: they can recur...
...The moods and enthusiasms which define decades slowly drift in and then, after a time, drift out again on the tide of events...
...Thus, the 1950s had much in common with the 1920s, just as the 1960s bore a strong resemblance to, and in this sense were a replay of, the 1890s and 1910s...
...One can therefore never be quite certain just when one decade is over with and another has begun...
...The urban riots that be(contmued on page 21) 21...
...I have just referred to the 1960s in the past tense, as if they were over and done with - but are they really...
Vol. 6 • February 1973 • No. 5
