“T he decade that changed the world” reads the dramatic tagline to TV’s latest take on the times that were a-changin’: “The Sixties” on CNN. The period has been all but strip-mined for its memories, but despite the number of times the American media have revisited it, the ‘60s have yet to become a stale sell.
CNN is tapping into popular notions of the ‘60s that strike a chord with the needs of modern viewers. They are selling to a desire for a community committed to the actualization of its potential. For a moment in that decade, ordinary Americans realized how the “acceptable” limits of our public debate and politics were constraining large swaths of society.
How had this happened? Most simply, communities throughout America peered across the social lines thitherto dividing their shared interests, spurring some solidarity instead of estrangement. The ‘60s presented a wide range of social injustices, and people recognized and organized against their common cause: institutions failing to ensure the equality of rights and opportunities for all.
As powerful as these coalitions were, however, they could not be prepared for the radical shifts a globalizing world soon triggered. Suddenly, industries moved overseas, middle-income jobs began to disappear and wages stagnated even as worker productivity still rose.
A powerfully appealing narrative appeared to explain what was happening. Perhaps advances in racial, gender and economic justice had gone too far. Decades later, the notion that the economy can only serve “us” or “them” has sunk deep into the American imagination.
In a cruel twist of fate, diverse coalitions laid the seeds of their own dismantling by promoting consciousness of identity politics.
For Americans of all races and genders, there is a common cause of inequality that can catalyze a new coalition. The leaders of American businesses have successfully responded to a globalizing world, but the decline of middle-class jobs and the stagnation of median wages should make clear that ordinary Americans have not. Americans of all backgrounds have a shared interest in creating an economy that works for all of us; we only have to realize we have the power to create it.
Just as in the past, our political and economic leadership cannot lead the charge for social and economic progress alone. They need a push, and the scale of our institutions requires nothing less than broad coalitions for change. Inequality has ties to race, gender and citizenship status, and to effect real change, this coalition must unite Americans across these lines.
The path to progress for our society will come when we not only acknowledge our dividing social lines, but make our movements and ideals transcend them.
