To Find Roots of America’s Social Ills, Look to the 1960s | Opinion

The following essay is an excerpt from Timothy Goeglein’s new book, Stumbling Toward Utopia, out now from Fidelis.

In the centuries since 16th-century humanist Thomas More first coined the word “utopia,” man has sought to create their own utopias where everything, in human understanding, would be perfect—a heaven on earth. Everyone would get along—there would be no poverty, no war, no conflict of any kind.

Unfortunately, all attempts to create a utopian society have been abject failures. But that has not stopped people from trying. In 1971, John Lennon penned the utopian anthem, “Imagine,” in which he called for a world without religion, without countries, with no possessions, no greed or hunger, and a brotherhood of man “sharing the world.”

Lennon’s wistful song became the anthem for one recent attempt to create another utopia: that of the radical activists of the 1960s who tried to create a perfect, at least in their view, American society.

We have become the antithesis of the utopian dream of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Like so many other efforts to create a utopian society, a dystopian one, filled with suffering and injustice, was the result.

Many of today’s social ills can be traced to the cultural revolution of the 1960s. For instance, today we see young people—particularly young men—struggling to find purpose, settle down, and become productive members of society.

We see young women who want to be married and start a family, but finding a dearth of eligible men, resign themselves to living alone as their biological clocks tick ever so much louder with each passing year.

Consequently, many men and women are not marrying and instead live lonely and disconnected lives, which in turn spells a future demographic disaster for our society with regard to producing children who will care for them in their later years as well as provide the tax base for expensive entitlement programs, many of which were implemented in the 1960s, for older generations.

Thus, we are experiencing ever-rising national debt with a day of reckoning coming that will result in devastating economic consequences.

The 1960s also turned our schools into social experiment laboratories instead of institutions of learning. Our educational system is broken, with major ramifications for all aspects of our culture and future as individuals and as a nation.

Government programs instituted in the 1960s to lift people out of poverty have, instead, trapped them in an endless cycle of generational poverty—stranding children, and their children, in a world with little or no hope of escape.

And finally, as a nation, we are adrift spiritually. The common moral values we endorsed—if not always followed—are gone. What was deemed right is now wrong and vice versa. Without a moral foundation, we make decisions that only make bad situations worse. The result is the dispirited and divided America we find ourselves in today.

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY – SEPTEMBER 17: American flags are seen waving during a Naturalization Ceremony at Liberty State Park on September 17, 2024 in Jersey City, New Jersey. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services…
JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY – SEPTEMBER 17: American flags are seen waving during a Naturalization Ceremony at Liberty State Park on September 17, 2024 in Jersey City, New Jersey. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services celebrated Constitution Day and Citizenship Day by hosting a Naturalization Ceremony for 50 new U.S. citizens. The ceremony included remarks from New Jersey Lt. Gov. Tahesha L. Way, NJ State Park Service Regional Superintendent Joshua L. Osowski, and President of the Friends of Liberty State Park, Sam Pesin. The new citizens come from 26 countries including Bulgaria, Chad, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, South Korea and Taiwan.
More
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Hardly a day goes by without someone asking me, “What happened to America?” or “How did we end up in such a mess?” Many feel they are living an American nightmare, rather than the American Dream.

The answer is simply: “The latest attempt to create utopia has failed.”

It was in the 1960s that America discarded its fundamental underpinnings of faith, family, and respect, and our nation has never been the same since. Our relations with each other across every conceivable spectrum have only worsened, our inner cities have become more decayed, our educational system increasingly inept, our families splintered, and our national civility anything but.

And we have been at war with each other ever since, with the hope of a ceasefire growing dimmer and dimmer. Worse yet, the war is both internal and external.

Thanks to the 1960s, even decades later, we find ourselves in a cultural, political, and spiritual mess that continues to pit Left against Right, religious against non-religious, men against women, gun control advocates against gun owners, pacifists against the military—all in a zero-sum game neither side can win.

In the 1960s, America replaced hope with despair, unity with division, and civility with hatred.

What happened in the 1960s, and continues to this day, did not occur overnight. It was the culmination of incremental efforts by determined progressives to remake America into something the Founding Fathers would not recognize.

Those 10 to 15 years older than I still have memories of America before the cultural earthquake that was the 1960s, before the so-called “counterculture” became the dominant culture, and the dominant culture either acquiesced or went into hiding. The stories they’ve told me of America before the progressives took control describe a simpler time—not without faults, especially with regard to civil rights—where Americans respected each other, had reverence for God, and were unified in national purpose.

Understanding the past provides us with a roadmap to the future. If we are to build a future recapturing America’s past glory and reversing the damage of the 1960s, we must study the tactics of those who successfully implemented their agenda while America was asleep. No battle can be won without doing some reconnaissance first.

Ultimately, we need to have hope, not just heap on another helping of despair on America’s overflowing plate. The damage of the 1960s is not irreversible, but it will take time and perseverance to slowly reclaim each institution the progressive Left captured during the 20th century.

I am an eternal optimist, and I believe we can make America once again the “shining city on a hill” for which Ronald Reagan so eloquently advocated. I believe we can leave a legacy for future generations to enjoy such that when they are asked, “What happened to America?” they can respond, “She threw off the shackles of the 1960s and is moving forward into a glorious future.”

That is the utopia I hope and pray for.

Timothy S. Goeglein was special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008. Since January 2009, Goeglein has served as vice president of external and government relations for Focus on the Family.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.