(no subject)
When people think of the sixties, they think of civil rights marches, antiwar demonstrations, and sex, drugs, and rock and roll - a culture dramatically and flamboyantly in upheaval. But I was on the other side of the generation gap. I'd turned forty in 1966, which meant I'd become an adult in the 1950s, when you wore a jacket and a tie and smoked a pipe (with tobacco in it). I was still listening to Mozart and Brahms, and to Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. Popular music became almost wholly alien to me with the arrival of Elvis - to my ears, it was on the edge of noise. I thought the Beatles were reasonably good musicians; they could sing well and had engaging personalities - and compared with some of what soon followed, their music was almost classical. The culture of the sixties was alien to me because I thought it anti-intellectual. I had a deep conservatism and a belief in civility. So I didn't relate to flower power. I had the freedom not to participate, and I didn't.
(c) Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World