did the baby boomers contribute anything

[okeedoe]

My point was how can art or any other aspect of cultural activity can contribute to anything without some sort of a market?
And I don't like Bruce Springsteen.
By the way,have you seen '' Being There '' with Peter Sellers ?

[nicktecky]

Referring to developments in the arts specifically, there is nothing that compares with the developments in music even over the whole of the last century.
Painting: abstraction has given way to self parody, and ultimately satisfies no one, apart from for the same wealthy patrons that have always sponsored this art form, there has been little change. Is Guernica essentially different from Battle of Anghiari?
The Athena poster has replaced the Victorian print, mass reproduced and valued for decorative purposes, both of equally little artistic merit.
Sculpture: You might have me there: Henry Moore.
Architecture: Some jolly structures over the last few years, but they are almost entirely expressive of technological change and client requirements, not artistic endeavour. Again wealthy patrons (individual and civic) push the boundaries.
Dance: There are some highlights of endeavour, in expressive modern ballet, but the rest is essentially evolution. If you want a boomer not from music let's have Matthew Bourne b1960.

All these art forms have evolved over the centuries, and the post war generation has contributed in the same way as any other generation, so it is understandable that it is proving difficult for contributors to agree with the initial posting, especially in light of its brevity.

[redrabid]

Yes, I've seen that movie. But I am not so enamoured with especially American movies. Those are too "verbal", if you understand what I mean.
What attracted me to pop/rock in the first place was its anti-high-brow stance: We're not artistic, we don't care about "cultural values". I always liked that "fluffiness," its day to day character (next month, new single, new album. In those days groups released a new album every 6-8 months. Nowadays it takes 3-4 years and the results are not better or worse). I liked and still do its ordinariness, its hummability, its forgettability.
But of course all groups discovered the advantages of a marriage of convenience with the recordcompanies. They went into tax-exile, just like big business conglomerates. "Guys, yo got to make it a special event, a new album, it will sell much more. It will buy you a new Ashton Martin. a mansion in the country. We'll build a big campaign around it". So we ended up with all kind of pretentious shit like Sting, U 2 and Radiohead. "Finally, after 4 -5 years a new event. Don't miss it". So the main contribution of the baby boomers in pop/rock is their selling the music out to marketing and consumerism. Pop/rock was made into what it was by nature not: a cultural event.
I am shutting down for the moment, There is a real heavy thunderstorm going on.
The storm quieted down a bit. But i lost my focus. Maybe more tomorrow.
But for now, to us rock lovers, it may be incomprehensible, but pop/rock was a minor phenomenon, important only for a part of the youth. It was the coneseqeunce not the cause of social change.

[okeedoe]

Music is the coneseqeunce of social change and than it participates with more or less influence on further changing of society.

[usedtobebabson]

Music was the "glue" of the counter-culture. It's importance was unsurpassed then, but that was then, and this is now...

[Susan Butcher]

The question has been answered for me by the example of Roky Erikson. But so what? Psychedelic music and art are still regarded as an embarrassing sidetrack by the cultural experts.

[usedtobebabson]

The question has been answered for me by the example of Roky Erikson. But so what? Psychedelic music and art are still regarded as an embarrassing sidetrack by the cultural experts.

As well as the counter-culture itself!

[oldblue]

The question has been answered for me by the example of Roky Erikson. But so what? Psychedelic music and art are still regarded as an embarrassing sidetrack by the cultural experts.

you've obviously been reading and listening to the wrong cultural "experts"

[Susan Butcher]

I'm being sarcastic. I know a few people who are sure that civilisation made a great leap forward around 1966.

When I was in high school I read an art encylopedia, published around 1969, that had a whole chapter on psychedelic art. The next time I picked up that book, it was a Seventies edition, and the psychedelic stuff was completely missing. Isn't that the sort of thing we were told happened in Russia?

[usedtobebabson]

I'm being sarcastic. I know a few people who are sure that civilisation made a great leap forward around 1966.

When I was in high school I read an art encylopedia, published around 1969, that had a whole chapter on psychedelic art. The next time I picked up that book, it was a Seventies edition, and the psychedelic stuff was completely missing. Isn't that the sort of thing we were told happened in Russia?

Yes the War on Drugs/Counter Culture Was a lot like what we were told went on in Russia. This whole 8 years with Bush was a lot like what we were told went on in Russia. I believe the Russians are raised pretty much the same as we are. The only real difference is the color of the flag. Our press releases, and politics are exactly like the propaganda we were told went on in Russia. I think it is just a designated enemy game, with big money as the stakes. When the economy is in a recession, or there is a lot of unrest, or the president can't function at his job, it's so much easier a profitable to start a war, than to deal with these problems, at all...

As far as who is really the Axis of Evil, well, it takes one to know one, right?

[plasticfantastic]

Ah, censorship.I have written many a school assignment on censorship, which is ironic, considering how squeaky-clean everything we write has to be. Among the many examples of hypocrisy at my old school.

1984 by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 (although I've heard that the author, Ray Bradbury denies that it is about that at all), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and a multitude of other science fiction books concern it quite directly. And with that multitude of sci-fi references, one may be led to believe that it is simply the product of over-imagination, and being blown out of proportion. However, I do not believe that is the case.

Obviously very real, and quite a formidable problem, it is painfully true that censorship is highly limiting to an artist who wants to get a specific message out there, perhaps one that not everyone will appreciate. What some would call controversial. I admit, it does have its short term benefits of preventing widespread panic, and keeping the public in a state of blissful unawareness of what's going on. And I am no one to say that that is altogether a bad thing, although I do disagree with it philosophically.

I tend to go more towards the "knowledge is power" sort of philosophy, but again, I realize that I am not really in any position to judge this sort of thing, partially because no one in the public (I can probably speak for everyone here, to some degree) really knows exactly the extent of censorship in their own life is, because that is the nature of it.

[Susan Butcher]

That's one of the worst things about it, not knowing. In Australia the government used to publish lists of the books it had banned. Then it stopped telling us what was illegal. This created the false impression that there was no censorship, but in fact made things worse, because bookshops had to self-censor to avoid a vague threat of prosecution. Ask for something with "psychedelic" in the title, and you'd be told it was "out of print", even though it wasn't. (Censorship was also applied to books criticising our role in the Vietnam war, and anything that smacked of vile pornography, like Playboy or the National Lampoon.)

[PsychedelicRabbit]

Psychedelic music can either be really good, really long and time consuming, or incredibly cheesy. That's my take on it. There are good baby boomers, bad ones, in between. Just like everything else in life.

As for censorship, I do mind it when it comes to saying how you feel, speaking your mind, etc. But it makes me mad when people say these outrageously stupid things just to piss off the government or whoever they're targeting the comment at. They get all surprised or get even more pissed off when someone yells back at them for it. Well, if they stopped causing all the unwanted attention to themselves, maybe they wouldn't get hell for it...