Revolution in The Head: The Beatles' Records and The Sixties - "Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade"

"Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade"

In this essay, MacDonald argues that the Beatles represented a meeting-point between three cultural trends that were crucial to the 1960s (at least in the economically developed world): that is, a materialistic individualism that formed the main stream of popular thought and behaviour; the revolutionary radicalism of the New Left; and the psychedelic pacifism of the so-called "hippy" movement. MacDonald reaches the unusual conclusion that the New Left and the hippies had little lasting influence upon the mainstream, and that, if anything, they represented reactions against it.

MacDonald begins by remarking that the 1960s was the decade in which various cultural phenomena that had been current in elite circles for some time came to spread throughout society. The most significant of these was the collapse of religious belief in favour of a materialistic viewpoint that, according to MacDonald, eroded the idea that happiness was to be deferred until the afterlife, or for future generations. This viewpoint fostered the notion that instant gratification is permissible and is, in any event, made feasible by a period of economic well-being, and by technological developments that made available a wide range of pleasure-giving goods and services – from labour-saving domestic devices to hi-fi systems and hallucinogenic drugs. In short, the deferential, staid 1950s gave way to the sensual, libertarian 1960s.

This was, MacDonald emphasises, a popular phenomenon upon which, in the end, the urgings of both the hippies and the New Left had little effect. In this way, he suggests, it is disingenuous for conservative politicians and commentators to blame contemporary problems upon leftist radicals and hippies because the legacy of the 1960s – frequently interpreted in terms of social and economic malaise – is not substantially that of either dissenting group, but rather that of the materialistic and acquisitive individualism upon which the electoral triumphs of the New Right in the 1980s were based. To put it crudely, the children of the 1960s, so determined to do their own thing, became the adult voters of the 1980s who were determined to own their own things, and so put leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in power.

The early Beatles’ records, then, represented the prevalent mood among the young of liberation, joy and freedom. Although this mood prevailed in much of their later recordings, MacDonald’s analysis proposes that this positive frame of mind was subverted by the darker tones of much of their later work. This was in keeping with the contemporary critique of the "affluent society" voiced by the New Left and the hippies as a reaction against all that remained of the authoritarian order, hidden beneath the thin veneer of consumerist contentment.

The New Left advocated the violent overthrow of capitalism but, influenced by what MacDonald regards as the instantaneity of 1960s' aspirations in general (the insistence on having everything in the present rather than work gradually and patiently towards the future), they lacked a rigorous or realistic strategy. In any event, claims MacDonald, the idea of attacking the very consumerism that had given the masses unprecedented levels of physical comfort, as well as the optimism expressed in the music of The Beatles, had little general appeal. (Similarly, the record of most Iron Curtain countries seemed a less-than-tempting prospect to all but a tiny minority in the West.) Moreover, the increasingly individualistic nature of mainstream society militated against the collective orientation of the New Left model, and had the effect of diverting radical politics into a series of fragmented single-issue interests (ecology, gender, race) whose demands did not necessarily demand the overthrow of capitalism.

The hippie movement, too, was adversely affected by the rise of individualism and by the creature comforts offered to the masses by consumerism. The hippies, MacDonald argues, preferred internalised, spiritual change, frequently based upon the advocacy of psychedelic drugs, to violent revolution as a riposte to the alienating effects of life in contemporary Western society, but this type of dissent, while collectivist in that it sought to break down the barriers imposed by "straight" existence, was also marked by the individualism and instantaneity (apart from other more immediate dangers) inherent in drug use.

MacDonald demonstrates that, among the Beatles’ members, it was John Lennon who was most strongly associated with both the New Left and with psychedelic pacifism, while at the same time acknowledging Lennon's complex and contradictory attitudes towards these subjects. Paul McCartney, despite his dabblings with the artistic avant garde, is most representative of mainstream thought and behaviour. George Harrison, through his faith in Indian religion, is proposed as the only Beatle to offer a coherent belief system that would offer an alternative to the cultural quandaries thrown up by the 1960s.