How would the 60’s and society in general have been different. With no war, there really could be no counter culture. With no war, there would have been no overall distrust of the “establishment”. I feel, that without the overall disdain for the establishment, other things that happened in the 60’s, like the civil rights movement, would not have had the same energy and backing. I think that had the war never happened, American society would have remained more like the 50’s for many years/decades. It took something to rebel against for changes to occure. Without the social rebeling that occured in the 1960’s & 70’s, life today would be much different than it is:
*the sexual revolution may not have occured, a social change of emmense magnatude of effect upon our culture.
*casual use of drugs probably would be even less accepted that they are now. Even lesser drugs like pot. There probably would be less use, but much, much harsher penalties.
*Music, movies, and other media would be much different. Swearing and vulgar content would probably be much rarer than it is.
*Dopes like Clinton & Bush would only get inside the White House during a vacation tour.
Well, I’m tired and can’t think of any more.
My view is, without Vietnam, the U.S. would have been a “Leave it to Beaver” type society for a long time. Not all bad, not all good. But extremely different than it is today.
The war in Vietnam was not the only cause for the counter culture. It had little or no effect on the deaths of John, Martin or Bobby. The civil rights movement was already up and running. Music had started to change even in the 50’s and movies were naturally changing because of technology. I personally see no connection with the sexual revolution and Vietnam any more than maybe the men being away, which happened during WWI, WWII and Korea. I’ve always heard it was because of the pill and Kinsey, but the truth is probably all those teenagers in the back seats of cars. Also drugs had become a problem long before anyone knew where Vietnam was located.
The biggest thing that happened was that the baby-boomers came along and anytime you have that many youths per capita there is going to be a rebellion against the establishment. Vietnam fit in well as a cause to rebel against, but perhaps that side tracked some from demanding more changes in racial relations. Things would have been different without Vietnam, but they would not
[Quote] have remained more like the 50’s for many years/decades.
Questions like this are really really tough to answer and the best one can hope for is an educated guess. Not that I’m an expert on recent history but I’ll take a whack at it. There was counter culture, whatever we want to define as counter culture I suppose, in the 50’s, 40’s, 30’s, 20’s, and the 10’s.
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The 60’s gets all the credit for the Civil Rights movement. That just isn’t fair to the 50’s and I can hear it crying from time to time. You had some pretty important foundations being built during the 1950’s that led to the things that happened in the 1960’s. Seperate but equal was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1954 and in 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.
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Why would American society stay the same? The 50’s weren’t the 40’s, the 40’s weren’t the 30’s, and the 30’s certainly weren’t the 20’s. Things change, and the lack of a war in the 60’s would not have prevented change.
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Did the 60’s spawn the sexual revolution? The birth control pill was invented in the 50’s and there were women before that who were jailed for giving out birth control information. The sexual revolution didn’t just happen in one decade it took time.
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Maybe. But then drugs like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana were around long before the 60’s.
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Again, maybe.
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That’s just wishful thinking.
The Vietnam war certainly has an important place in American history. However the 60’s did not exist in a vacuum and it would be silly to ignore the influences of the decades that came before.
Might I recommend the book “The Fifties” by David Halberstram, which debunks the squeaky clean idea about the 50’s. Most of the things that you had mentioned were already brewing beneath the surface.
The baby boomers rejected the materialism of the their parents. The tract homes. Keeping up with the Joneses.
The pill allowed women to have sex as easily as men, and would have invariably brought about a sexual revolution.
I think the drug use would have happened regardless. I actually believe the alarmist films such as “Reefer Madness” only helped spread drug use. Tell young people that marijuana is dangerous, and they find out it isn’t so bad, they begin to question everything else.
Everyone seems to forget that JFK was not all Camelot. That administration made up of the Best and Brightest minds of the era, managed to get us involved in the Vietname quagmire.
Just to agree with previous posts and state that no events exist in history separate from the events preceding them.
The Civil Rights movement and sexual revolution as stated before really began in the 50s.
That being said:
The War in Vietnam had more of an effect on the 70s rather and 80s and 90s than the 60s.
There is a fear of a free press presence by the Military during any large operations.
There is also a fear of political ramifications of getting involved in world events or any prolonged campaign without an immediate benefit. Look at Somalia, the Government’s will to carry on dried up with the first setbacks, for fear of a public backlash. Then look at the tragedy of Rowanda.
How many times have you heard “We don’t want another Vietnam”
Setting aside the OP’s (IMO, misguided) assumption that, were it not for the Vietnam war, America would have had sixty years of “Leave It To Beaver” bliss…
Just IMO, but if there was never a war in Vietnam, the biggest change to America would be a more aggressive military. In other words, without an American defeat in Vietnam, the US military (and the hawkish members of the political spectrum) would have been more eager to jump into conflicts with other nations. In such a Vietnam-free history, we probably would have merrily shipped off our troops for fights in Panama, Libya, Iran, and elsewhere, fully confident that American know-how (and, no doubt, some form of divine intervention and/or manifest destiny) would have made us the eventual winners.
As far as the sexual revolution is concerned, MGibsoncovered that one nicely. My basic philosophy on this whole thing is somewhat simple. The Vietnam War wasn’t important in American history because the people who villified it seemed hell bent on protesting something. All of the fallout from the Vietnam war was created by those who did villify it and they most definately would have found some other major cause to protest.
That something else would have been the thing that we are today trying to figure out “what if it didn’t happen”.
I would think that there would be greater trust in government.
If Lyndon Johnson hadn’t dug into Vietnam, but stayed focused on civil rights and the Great Society, he probably would have had a good chance at a second term in 1968. If he had won re-election, it’s possible that Nixon would never have become president, or that if he did get elected later (1972, for example), Watergate might not have occurred, with its corrosive effect on the public’s trust.
We surely would have made war on Iran during the hostage crisis. Our “Vietnam Syndrome” kept us from doing so.
If we had gone to war with Iran, we might well have found ourselves bogged down there, just as in Vietnam, and just as the Soviets later were in Afghanistan.
I’m not so sure. There was something about having a low number in the draft or having your boyfriend killed in combat that had a radicalizing effect on people. There might still have been hippies without the Vietnam War, but I think they would have been much more of a fringe element.