The 1960s were very different from now. But there were similarities to 2001 to now. The biggest difference I think is that by 1973 the draft ended which had existed ongoing from about 1940 to 1973 when it was discontinued due to popular demand.
However, what was similar to the 1960s was that we have been in a war for about 10 years or more. But, the draft was not acceptable to my generation (I was 21 in 1969) because Viet Nam was a police action and not a war to the death as in World War II. It was believed by most educated people in regard to the Viet Nam War that a police action should have a voluntary police type of military and that the draft should only be used during an all out war to the death with another nation or nations. This popular sentiment went into law in 1973.
So, much of the social and student movements in the U.S. galvanized around ending the draft before even ending the war. And this galvanization across college campuses nationwide eventually morphed into Women's rights, children's rights, Black Rights, Brown rights, Gay rights and everyone else's rights. But, what brought together across college campuses nationwide was the feeling that, "Our high school friends are being drafted and killed in Viet Nam and we feel helpless to stop the slaughter!" This was the universal scream of students across the U.S. and this led to many suicides in frustration either directly or indirectly, as boyfriends or husbands, brother and fathers of American Girls were killed (50,000) as well as 250,000 were wounded. So, when people look back at the drug culture of these times, it is important to see it all in this very frustrated context of people feeling raped by the system in a variety of ways and feeling helpless to change it before a drafted loved one died or was maimed and would never be the same.
So, unless one views the social revolution in this way one gets the wrong impression of what actually was going on then. For the most part only the very fringe called soldiers "Baby Killers" and things like that. Most of us, just saw drafted soldiers as victims of the system and that they deserved our compassion and understanding. Because it was going to be hard enough to interface back into society with both physical and wounds like Post traumatic stress disorder which was fairly universal for anyone who came back who was on the front lines of war.
Many many soldiers killed themselves or their families or both over the next 10 years after the Viet Nam War ended because PTSD was not as well understood as it is now. So, it took some time to mobilize psychiatrists and psychologists and other therapists to help these soldiers interface back into normal society once again. If you are interested in seeing what soldiers actually went through in Viet Nam watch movies like "Platoon" and all the others written by veterans who survived it.
I was one of the lucky ones who did not have to go to war because I had had Childhood Blunt trauma epilepsy caused by a blow to the back of my head during childhood. It was very strange to me to be classified 4F which likely saved my life or sanity or both because blunt trauma epilepsy had already almost killed me because my father wouldn't let me take phenobarbitol as a medicine. However, phenobarbitol was a terrible medicine in retrospect so I'm kind of glad now all I had was mind over matter to survive those terrible nights from age 10 to 15 years of age.
However, my best friend went to Glendale College to get his jet engine certificate so he could join the Air Force and repair fighter jets and large multi-engine jets and thereby stay off of the front lines of the Army infantry. So, when he left I didn't find him again until we were both in our late 40s through yahoo because I moved out of Glendale and so did his mother so we never found each other after the war until our 40s. So, this is one of the things that the Viet Nam War also did to people. Even people who didn't die often lost touch with each other. Likely this has happened a lot in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan too.
So, when my friend and I graduated from High School in 1966 in May things were changing quickly in the world on many fronts. I think things started changing in the world in about 1929 or 1930 and they kept moving forwards in a really chaotic way until about 1980 to 1990 when the Cold War ended and people stopped being terrified of Global nuclear annihilation quite as much as they were before. Often nervous people would commit suicide from the constant pressure people felt during the Cold War.
So, once again the Drug Culture which took place primarily between 1965 and about 1980 eventually throughout the U.S. had its roots in hopelessness and fear among multiple groups of people nationwide.
Another factor most people don't think about during the 1960s is just how ignorant the average American was compared to now. Most people didn't even have a High School Diploma then in the U.S. because a man could often support 5 people easily from age 16 or 17 until he couldn't work anymore. So, this was a very common thing for young people to get pregnant between 15 and 17 and get married and move on with their lives from 16 or 17 years of age. And even when I went to High School I knew of many girls deciding to get pregnant at 15 just because they wanted a baby to love and to be loved by. So, times were very different then in this way too.
However, now almost everyone needs some college or a 2 year credential or a Bachelor's of Arts or Science to be able to go anywhere in life. So, what college is to the average person has changed drastically since the 1960s. In the 1960s college was optional but today college is a necessity in order to have a very good future. For example, the unemployment rate for college graduates is only 4% compared to over 8% for the entire populace of the U.S.
Another difference from then to now was that people were mostly grown up by age 15 to 17 in the U.S. then. Now often kids can be a lot emotionally like kids were at 15 to 17 in the 1960s up until they are 25 years of age or more. But it is important to understand that when kids go to college they intellectually get to places those 15 to 17 year old might never get to in the 1960s. However, emotionally often a 25 year old college graduate is about the same place a 15 to 17 year old was at emotionally in the 1960s. So, this distinction should be made in order to make more sense of all this.
And if a student goes for his or her masters or PHD this emotional immaturity might last now in some until they are 30 to 35 before they have to fully hit the world head on, which is why the old addage used to be "Born died 20 buried 60". This was very true still in the 1950s and 1960s. So, there is something to be said for staying emotionally younger until one is in their mid 20s to mid 30s. And it is also one of the reasons why now a young person aged 30 can expect to see 90 which wasn't true in the 1960s.
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