# What's your opinion of the early 1970s (1970-1971)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 29, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710 "2020-02-29T17:26:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/21 "2020-03-01T01:08:23Z")
> [@jerez](#): > > Music was excellent, fashion sucked. Just look at these horrors: [The Good, the Bad and the Tacky: 20 Fashion Trends of the 1970s](https://flashbak.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-tacky-20-fashion-trends-of-the-1970s-26213/) Agree wholeheartedly with the idea that the music was great. Fashion might have sucked, but good looking girls with great bodies always look fabulous no matter what they are wearing. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/22 "2020-03-01T01:34:19Z")
I love my 1971 BMW. So fun to drive! ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/23 "2020-03-01T04:17:25Z")
I think early into the 70s, we started laughing at ourselves in our burgundy leisure suits with paisley shirts, and said OK that was fun, but now let’s get back to business. Although I was in Canada then, and then the Middle-east from '73, so I might have seen it from an odd angle. ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/24 "2020-03-01T08:35:11Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Agree wholeheartedly with the idea that the music was great. Fashion might have sucked, but good looking girls with great bodies always look fabulous no matter what they are wearing. What does that have to do with anything? I like women, too, but I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. The point of my post, if you’ve got something meaningful to say about it, is that some of those fashions made _anyone_ look silly. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/25 "2020-03-01T09:08:51Z")
for a lot of people … Altamont and kent state were the ends of the 60s … and when we totally left vietnam for some … ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/26 "2020-03-01T17:58:17Z")
> [@jerez](#): > > What does that have to do with anything? I like women, too, but I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. The point of my post, if you’ve got something meaningful to say about it, is that some of those fashions made _anyone_ look silly. Some fashions make people look silly. That reference makes it’s author look silly. But hey, it’s the internet, we don’t expect internet pages to actually have anything educational to say about 50 year old clothing. ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/27 "2020-03-01T18:41:21Z")
What reference? ---
**Author:** ![jerez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/28 "2020-03-01T18:52:47Z")
Posting again because it might look like I’m trolling. If you mean the link I posted, I’m more interested in the photos than the text. I was young but I remember the Batman collars and the awful leisure wear (about halfway down, at point 8 in the text. I think highly of the 70s in other regards. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/29 "2020-03-02T00:54:12Z")
> [@Kennedy1960](#): > > What I mean is, do you look at those years as being part of the 1970s, or as being sort of the hangover from the 60s? Culturally, fashion wise, music wise, where does it fall for you? I’d personally draw the line between the Sixties and the Seventies in the summer of 1971. The spring of 1971 saw the last major antiwar protest, the May Day protests. By the fall, it was already plain that the era of major protests had come to an end. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/30 "2020-03-02T19:51:29Z")
> [@1972: The beginning of the postmodern era](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1972-the-beginning-of-the-postmodern-era/848746/1): > > … the amount of **notable events** that occurred that year There’s [another thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=890865) running right now here in IMHO about the the 1970’s which also discusses specific notable events. Everybody is talking about their favorite specific event --in various fields: musical (Woodstock, Altamont), political (Nixon resigning) ,historical (Kent State, Martin L King assassination), etc. But I’m gonna disagree with the whole concept. Events are interesting, and we remember them. But they don’t change your life. Your read it in the newspaper, and then the next day you still get up and go to work as usual I’d say that the “new era” of the 70’s, wasn’t defined by any individual events that you saw on the news. It was defined by a new, and huge, threat that affected every single person in his own personal life: the oil crisis. In October 1973,the price of gasoline jumped from 19 cents per gallon to over a dollar. (Minimum wage was just over $1 an hour).And more importantly–the crisis resulted in a severe shortage of gas at the pump. Suddenly people were in a panic over how to live their daily lives, how to get to work. People --everybody, rich and poor, realized that this was a problem which they and the government simply had no ability to solve. The optimism of the 1960’s died, and new angst was born. Previously, there were a lot of problems–civil rights, riots, Vietnam and the draft, etc–but everybody knew that there was a way to solve those problems, which the government had the power to implement. The oil crisis was a deep shock, because it left everybody feeling powerless, and _scared_, facing a situation where other nations defined the problem and the American government was helpless. Over a period of a year or two, a whole new psychology developed,as people realized that they had lost control–not by something they read in the newspaper, but by something they experienced hard in their own personal lives. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/31 "2020-03-02T21:07:15Z")
In 1970-71 I learned just what a procrastinating, low-achieving fool I could be. I binge drank and loved a West Virginia high school girl for a little while. In February 1972 I survived my draft lottery and then discovered the pleasures of marijuana later that year. I was almost the worst person imaginable yet still remember those years with fondness. Maybe it was the rock and roll. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/32 "2020-03-06T19:55:54Z")
> [@Kennedy1960](#): > > So basically: > > 1953-1963 - Cultural 1950s in US Nitpick: I would say the 50s began in 1948, with the Berlin blockade, which more or less began the Cold War. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/33 "2020-03-06T20:17:37Z")
> [@Kennedy1960](#): > > What I mean is, do you look at those years as being part of the 1970s, or as being sort of the hangover from the 60s? I’ve long said we shouldn’t divide recent history by decades, and one of my points is that '70 and '71 (really up until Nixon’s resignation and end of the Vietnam draft) are definitely part of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hippie Era\*. \*Formerly known as the 60s… though '60-'62 are certainly NOT part of that… they feel more like the 50’s. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/34 "2020-03-07T06:30:39Z")
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Oh, wait. Wrong era. But it sort of fits. I have fond memories, but at the same time I was bullied mercilessly by redneck Neanderthals in my West Texas school. I would not mind going back to that time but as an adult who managed not to be drafted. And maybe in some place like New York or San Francisco. Hell, even Pyongyang would be better than West Texas. I had a history professor who claimed the '50s ended with the JFK assassination, the '60s with Watergate. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/35 "2020-03-07T07:10:18Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > And maybe in some place like New York or San Francisco. Hell, even Pyongyang would be better than West Texas. I spent little time in west Texas and none in Pyongyang but LA (Hollyweird), NYC (East Village), and SF (Haight-Ashbury) were home from 1967-74, and better than many alternatives. I don’t at all mind not being shipped to VietNam. > [@](#): > > I had a history professor who claimed the '50s ended with the JFK assassination, the '60s with Watergate. Those are my index points too, at least in the US. My Central American relatives regard eras rather differently. Who will or won’t be taken out and shot? ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/36 "2020-03-07T08:49:18Z")
I moved from small town Nebraska to Detroit , Michigan then to Madison Wisconsin. All when I was in my teens. Then went to UW Madison for University. Talking about a cultural shock. ! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710/37 "2020-03-07T15:51:38Z")
I was in high school. Times were good. Music was great, all the girls in school dressed like Marcia Brady, instead of looking down at phones we rode bikes around the neighborhood rounding up guys to play baseball or basketball. Simpler times. Television was limited as cable hadn’t really taken off yet, we’d get three channels sometimes more depending on the weather. We had LPs instead of iTunes. The really serious sound geeks had reel to reel. Cars had more muscle and were simpler. Sure their gas mileage sucked but gas was never more than 40 cents. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-opinion-of-the-early-1970s-1970-1971/848710.md?page=1)