Barbelith Underground > Temple > ShitStorm Times Pattern?

Thank you. That does expand upon your position. I think it is a little simplistic, mind you - as you say, you are over-generalising (which is never helpful unless you are pushing a specific theory and need to gloss over things which undermine it - this is why I have a problem with generalising, especially when it comes to history, as it frequently contributes to a lack of rigour in argument). I take your point that political revolutions are frequently associated with changes in society and culture, though I would add that this is often more to do with revolutionary ideologues pushing their agenda than with 'bottom-up' revolution (as it is in politics - c.f. the English Civil War, the Bolshevik Revolution, &c.) I would argue that feminism and the relaxing of attitudes towards sexual activity in the sixties and seventies was not primarily the property of a political party as such, and therefore can be seen as a little different in character to changes associated directly with political revolutions.

On the Twenties: I thought you might mean club culture: are you talking about continuity in terms of relatively underground movements? Because if so you could draw comparisons across the ages (as you suggest), though I suspect that such an exercise would be more effective in showing differences than similarities. I happen to think that the contraceptive pill did make a difference - it made contraception easier, especially for women who wished to control their own reproduction. Of course contraception was available earlier, but the pill did broaden access to it. I also think that Twenties clubland was a lot more closed to outsiders than the more broad-based movements of the sixties and seventies (especially given the rise of a large number of young people with disposable incomes during the mind-twentieth century).

I dare say this sounds hopelessly nit-picky, and I know it is major thread-rot; perhaps we could move to the Head Shop if anyone is interested?

My problem with your original statement about Iszabelle's post was that you seemed to be saying that the movements of the sixties and seventies had a) not been successful and b) were not 'new'. But surely trying to characterise the sixties and seventies simply as a sexual revolution misses much of what was new and successful about those movements, and it certainly devalues their achievements. To imply, as I feel you did, that nothing is ever valuable, different, successful, or capable of changing aspects of the world just because 'there is nothing new under the sun' is a depressing and rather conservative attitude to take...