There was nothing inevitable about the 1960s. It is simply false to assert that, given the choice, human beings will opt for what is immediately pleasurable. Throwing off social norms and cultivating “individuality” are not natural impulses. On the contrary, as social animals we’re inclined to live in accord with dominant opinion, as Popper recognized, which is why he made the open society an urgent project (and which is why it now requires the policing of political correctness). Neither inevitable nor natural, the trend toward liberation from traditional cultural norms took hold because it
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