Thursday 3 July 2014

What the 1960s counter-culture got *right*

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The effect of 'the 1960s' is a decidedly mixed picture - with evil swiftly predominant, but originally some good. 

The good stuff was, I think, seeking a cure for what was perceived as alienation and aiming for the ‘re-enchantment’ of everyday life. 

This included an insightful and accurate of the radical deficiencies of traditional and mainstream Christian churches: their cold heart-lessness, abstraction, the obtuse failure to address core aspects of the modern malaise.

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But this good was soon (quantitatively) overwhelmed by the destructive effects of the sexual revolution (on marriage and family), and of the politically correct counter-culture (on all traditional forms of social order). 

The net effect of the sixties has therefore been overwhelmingly destructive.

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Sex and politics have also (quantitatively) overwhelmed the New Age spiritual movement (or whatever it may be called). 

There was, and is, a genuine element of what might be termed 'spiritual progress' going across and through the decades... 

Yet in most people and institutions and places, the 'progress' is almost entirely diagnostic - and the prescriptions and results are generally appalling.

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So, when learning from the post-1960s movement, I feel a need for a great deal of filtering. The people, the institutions, are mostly corrupt, worldly, prideful.

However, the effort is sometimes necessary – because often the counter-cultural  diagnosis has been acute; and it is a diagnosis which is still unappreciated and unaddressed by mainstream Christianity; yet until the nature of the problem has been understood, treatments will continue to be ineffective.

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