Sociology of institutions week 4
Righart – Moderate versions of the ‘global sixties’: A comparison of
Great Britain and the Netherlands
One of the most fascinating aspects of the sixties as a decade of cultural and political change is their
cross-national character. It is hard to imagine these ‘boundless’ sixties without the British
contribution. At least until 1967 Great Britain set the trend in pop music, fashion and youth culture in
general.
While the Thatcher-years represent the first serious breach in a postwar history that is soaked with
consensus and continuity, the sixties are at their best some sort of vague cultural revolution.
In this process political change came after cultural and social change; in Marwick’s words: the sixties
set ‘the cultural and social agenda for the rest of the century, whatever the subsequent political
vicissitudes.’
The countercultural revolution failed in the field of power politics and in overthrowing oppressive
capitalist structures, but was successful in enlarging the area of personal freedom: in sexual matters,
artistic expression, the family. It’s just another phase in romanticism.
Hypothesis: the global sixties is the pattern where all the different ‘national’ sixties coalesce: a strong
presence of the so-called babyboomers, affluence and new patterns of consumption, the birth of a
rebellious youth culture, a new permissiveness in sexual matters, the pervasive influence of new
media, especially television. These ‘global sixties’ represent a discontinuity in the postwar histories of
most Western countries and the British case offers no exception here.
The fact that this cross-national discontinuity manifested itself within the fixed boundaries of
centuries old nation states, produced different national ‘versions’ of the sixties.
- US the sixties were heavily politicized by the black civil rights movement that had been
gaining momentum and support since the late fifties, and of course by the Vietnam War
- France the sixties were no less political than in the US
- Western Germany the sixties did not live up to their frivolous (nonchalante) reputation
either
Britain
The only major capitalist country which has not produced a comparable student movement. There
have been isolated cases of student insurrection and students have been dominant in the anti-
imperialist struggle, but there has not been a mass student movement.
Did Great Britain follow a different path in the sixties?
The moderate and rather apolitical character of the British sixties by reference to a typical
British state of mind, namely secular Anglicanism (combination between political consensus
and the tradition of religious tolerance)
Comparison with the Netherlands: same postwar histories, both cherish the search for
consensus and moderation as one of the highest virtues, both witnessed the birth of a
sophisticated welfare state as the most important political outcome of this consensus, both
counties suffered considerable loss of status and international prestige (because of the loss
of colonies) which in both countries led to a certain degree of collective introspectiveness
The Netherlands
, The (radical) politics came in at a relatively late stage. This is not to belittle the influence of the sixties
on Dutch society. On the contrary, their influence has been estimated as even more powerful and
further reaching than that of the Second World War with its occupation and hardship. More than
politics it includes standards for sexual behavior, family life and popular culture. The sixties also
brought an end to pillarization.
Explanation: Kennedy’s explanation could pass as a Dutch version of Marwick’s secular Anglicanism-
theory. Like Marwick, Kennedy explains the continuity in Dutch history from a longstanding tradition:
the ability of the elites to generate consensus in a country that has been riven by religious conflicts
since the late sixteenth sentury. Kennedy is inclined to deny any significant discontinuity between the
fifties and the sixties. He argues that the Dutch elites during the fifties were so obsessed by the
themes of progress and modernity that they were in fact preparing th ground for the noisy
babyboomers fo the sixties.
Critics: Here, I think, Kennedy overstretches his case, in the sense that the sixties loose their meaning
as an important cultural shift.
In my own book I have suggested that the cultural revolution of the sixties was brought about by a
simultaneous crisis of two generations: the prewar generation and the protest generation.
Prewar: the collective character of this generation can be described as austere, thrifty and hard
working.
Protest: as a result of prolonged schooling the no man’s land between youth and adulthood
expanded. This raised among youngsters the need to create their own rituals and symbols, which
they found in a teenage culture and in popmusic.
The gap between the two generations was large and children found it hard to identify with their
parents. In my view both generations experienced a crisis as a result of the economic growth that
took off in the late fifties. Among the members of the prewar generation this crisis manifested itself
in processes of depillarization and dechristianization, but also in a struggle for higher wages.
Some standards (about authority and sex) remained unaltered. Meanwhile the protest generation
had created a subculture that was characterized by opposite standards: in opposition to their
parents, teachers, preachers and other traditional sources of authority, they adhered to a more
hedonistic lifestyle.
The paths of both generations crossed in 1066 and from that moment on things became political. The
Dutch had their may ’68 in June ’66, be it in a moderate and therefore typically Dutch way.
Britain alone escaped invasion in World War II; and she was comparatively wealthy prior to World
War II, but subsequently has had a relatively low economic growth rate. In respect to both physical
and economic security, change has been less pronounced in Britain than elsewhere.
Although the role of population figures is hard to decide, one could add that the numerical presence
of the so-called baby boomers was perhaps less pronounced in Britain than in the US and the
Netherlands.
Could a lack of generational tension perhaps account for the moderate character of the British
sixties? Some political and economic factors also have to be taken into consideration. The first is that
in Britain, as opposed to the Netherlands, Germany, France and the US, the left was in power during
a crucial part of the sixties: 1964-1970.
