Thursday, February 10, 2011
Is "Freedom" Panidealistic?
Something in today's lecture that I found interesting were the lyrics of "Okie from Muskogee." Although Merle Haggard may have wrote the song with the intent to poke fun at the "Okies," his use of the word "free" is worth noting because of the contrast it makes between the freedom ideal of the "country music culture" and the hippie culture, so to speak. He wrote that "We don't take no trips on LSD/We don't burn no draft cards down on Main Street/We like livin' right, and bein' free." This use of the word "free" implies that freedom precludes a duty to love one's country and respect its ideals. Counterculture, however, seemed to understand freedom as the ability to express oneself in any manner one deemed fit, be it through music, drugs, or whatever. I think that the contrast between the two is pretty cool because when most people look back on the 60's they think of the hippie culture, but there was also this whole movement of people who wanted to adhere to conservatism and the "old" America.
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yeah thats true i feel like the similarities and differences between the two different ways of thinking is truly interesting how they both aspire for freedom but their definitions of freedom are contradictory in itself.
ReplyDeleteI think Miriam and I would like to add:
ReplyDelete"I agree."
And it works out really well. I hope you understand.
And I think that this potent duality between lifestyles is one of the most interesting things about 1960's, and plays a huge role in how the decade came to unfold as it did. (I sort of wrote my musicology paper on this haha) Ever since the 50's there had been such a strong tendency and desire maybe for a clean-cut, regimented way of living - seen through not only America's musical but also political developments throughout the decade. And almost directly in combat with this thought is that of the "hip" lifestyle, which also originated early on in America's history and took on varied definitions through the 60's. And I think that though the berth of our study on the decade has been extremely wide and assorted, this idea of two cultures continually in struggle with each other has always somewhat been underlying in some form or another.
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