Throughout the semester, we have been analyzing the events of 1968. With all that has happened, I cannot help but draw similarities to our current year of 2020. I think these two years are similar because of a few events from each. 1968 is remembered by the Civil Rights Movement, the United States Presidential election, and the Vietnam War. These three main events were so important and polarizing that it forced people to pick a side. You could not remain neutral for any of these topics because people’s lives were on the line. Citizens had no choice but to form an opinion and defend it. Did you support the civil rights movement? Which political candidate do you side with? Is the Vietnam War just? These are all questions that people had to answer and much of the population disagreed on them. For this reason, 68’ was a time where our country felt extremely divided and filled with tension.
In a way, 2020 has been defined by three main factors too – a Presidential Election, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. This year was one of the most publicly followed elections in the history of the United States and certainly divided people between different political parties. With the emergence of social media, people were able to voice their differing opinions on a platform like never before. Secondly, the Black Lives Matter movement was sparked primarily from the murder of Goerge Floyd in May. When videos and details of his murder were released, the country erupted in protests and unrest. Millions of people came together to protest systematic racism. During this time, merely standing on the side, while others protested was no longer acceptable for combatting racism. Lastly, above all the other events from 2020, we have been living in the midst of a global pandemic. This unforeseen event that has life or death implications can be compared to the effect that the Vietnam war had on the United States in 1968. The subject matter between the two events is loosely related, but they are certainly similar in the sense that they demanded the attention of the American people. Different people hold different views of the virus, creating tension and divide amongst each other. Throughout this year, people have been forced to choose where they stand on certain topics, and this has created a culture where you need to defend and voice your opinions. With all this said, I do not think it would be entirely crazy to think that there may be a class 50 years from now that focuses on the events of 2020, just as we have done this semester with 1968.
5 Replies to “Pick a side”
I think the first and foremost purpose of protests is to get the public’s attention and inspire them to act in their favor. Obviously as humans it is easy for us to think that we can’t help or the protests don’t affect our daily lives, and we pass them off. So the protestors made as much fuss as possible and also used moral arguments to urge the general public to act. However, this is where “picking a side” comes in and becomes problematic. When someone makes a moral argument, such as the Vietnam War is evil, we as humans inherently feel judged. If we do think that the War is evil, we should oppose it actively, and if we don’t, the protestors just called us morally inferior. There is no middle ground, and the public gets polarized. Yet this does not change much, because those that oppose the cause originally are even more solidified in their position. So perhaps from the parallels between 68′ and 2020 we can learn something differently. Partly to William’s point, what we need may not be more sizable protests, but sustained efforts to have conversations with those who disagree and not make immediate judgments.
Personally, this is something that has been on my mind all year. 2020 made me realize that I couldn’t just stand on the sidelines and opt out if I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. While times like the late 60s and 2020 make people realize these things, its actually something we should worry about always. I think times like these and the late 60s present a stage occupied by heroes and villains. However, we don’t need heroes. We need consistently good people who make the right decisions often, no matter how small. It shouldn’t take volatile times to convince people to take a stand, nor do we need that stand to go down in history.
I think this concept of people being forced to pick a side is an interesting one when it comes to the manifestation of violence. As we saw in the Voices of the Chicago Eight, the protests that started at the DNC in 68 were meant to be peaceful, but with the high tension surrounding the Vietnam War, the protesters were met with polices forces who used violence to calm the situation, which actually just escalated the issue. I think similar parallels can be drawn to the BLM protests we saw this summer. We saw mass mobilizations of people protesting racism and police brutality that for the most part, were peaceful, but others who were frustrated confronted the situation with violence and looting. Trump condemned the BLM protests, calling BLM a symbol of hate, because of the violence that occurred. This type of response from the President of the United States only causes more divide between the people who support BLM and those who do not.
Regarding the comparison of the Coronavirus and the Vietnam war that you mentioned, I think it will be interesting to see if violence ever becomes a response of people who are frustrated with how the government is handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the semester has gone on, I’ve began to think of 1968 and 2020 as a sort of chicken or egg problem. I think you are spot on when saying that 2020 reflects 1968 in many facets, which makes me wonder why these cascade of events seem to happen so close to each other. Personally, I think after learning so much about 1968 and (obviously) living through 2020, these monumental years are set off by some ground-breaking, once-in-a-lifetime event. In 1968, this was the Vietnam War, which despite not being the first war for many people living back then, was the first foreign conflict that received severe and legitimate pushback from the American public. Similarly, I the coronavirus pandemic opened the floodgates for all the social movements that we’ve seen explode this year. These movements may have happened regardless, but I think these events that turn our lives upside down end up encouraging people to push for change that may be unrelated.
I think you’re very fair to draw these comparisions. Obviously the presidential elections and the social justice movement components line up perfectly, but the comparison between COVID-19 and the Vietnam War is an interesting one. I agree with you that both are defining life-or-death matters of their respective times, but I think COVID has created division to a higher degree this year than the Vietnam War did in any particular year. My reasoning for that is because of how partisan the issue has become, with Republicans advocating for loose COVID restrictions and Democrats advocating for stronger COVID restrictions. Essentially, I feel it caused people to dig their heels even deeper in support of whatever political party they chose as the issue became clearly a very partisan one from a legislation standpoint. While I don’t know a ton about how partisan the Vietnam War was with regards to political parties, I do know both Lyndon Johnson (a democrat) and Richard Nixon (a republican) escalated the conflict. With that in mind, it seems that although a very hot topic, Vietnam was its own source of division between people and not so tightly linked to division of party allegiances
I think the first and foremost purpose of protests is to get the public’s attention and inspire them to act in their favor. Obviously as humans it is easy for us to think that we can’t help or the protests don’t affect our daily lives, and we pass them off. So the protestors made as much fuss as possible and also used moral arguments to urge the general public to act. However, this is where “picking a side” comes in and becomes problematic. When someone makes a moral argument, such as the Vietnam War is evil, we as humans inherently feel judged. If we do think that the War is evil, we should oppose it actively, and if we don’t, the protestors just called us morally inferior. There is no middle ground, and the public gets polarized. Yet this does not change much, because those that oppose the cause originally are even more solidified in their position. So perhaps from the parallels between 68′ and 2020 we can learn something differently. Partly to William’s point, what we need may not be more sizable protests, but sustained efforts to have conversations with those who disagree and not make immediate judgments.
Personally, this is something that has been on my mind all year. 2020 made me realize that I couldn’t just stand on the sidelines and opt out if I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. While times like the late 60s and 2020 make people realize these things, its actually something we should worry about always. I think times like these and the late 60s present a stage occupied by heroes and villains. However, we don’t need heroes. We need consistently good people who make the right decisions often, no matter how small. It shouldn’t take volatile times to convince people to take a stand, nor do we need that stand to go down in history.
I think this concept of people being forced to pick a side is an interesting one when it comes to the manifestation of violence. As we saw in the Voices of the Chicago Eight, the protests that started at the DNC in 68 were meant to be peaceful, but with the high tension surrounding the Vietnam War, the protesters were met with polices forces who used violence to calm the situation, which actually just escalated the issue. I think similar parallels can be drawn to the BLM protests we saw this summer. We saw mass mobilizations of people protesting racism and police brutality that for the most part, were peaceful, but others who were frustrated confronted the situation with violence and looting. Trump condemned the BLM protests, calling BLM a symbol of hate, because of the violence that occurred. This type of response from the President of the United States only causes more divide between the people who support BLM and those who do not.
Regarding the comparison of the Coronavirus and the Vietnam war that you mentioned, I think it will be interesting to see if violence ever becomes a response of people who are frustrated with how the government is handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the semester has gone on, I’ve began to think of 1968 and 2020 as a sort of chicken or egg problem. I think you are spot on when saying that 2020 reflects 1968 in many facets, which makes me wonder why these cascade of events seem to happen so close to each other. Personally, I think after learning so much about 1968 and (obviously) living through 2020, these monumental years are set off by some ground-breaking, once-in-a-lifetime event. In 1968, this was the Vietnam War, which despite not being the first war for many people living back then, was the first foreign conflict that received severe and legitimate pushback from the American public. Similarly, I the coronavirus pandemic opened the floodgates for all the social movements that we’ve seen explode this year. These movements may have happened regardless, but I think these events that turn our lives upside down end up encouraging people to push for change that may be unrelated.
I think you’re very fair to draw these comparisions. Obviously the presidential elections and the social justice movement components line up perfectly, but the comparison between COVID-19 and the Vietnam War is an interesting one. I agree with you that both are defining life-or-death matters of their respective times, but I think COVID has created division to a higher degree this year than the Vietnam War did in any particular year. My reasoning for that is because of how partisan the issue has become, with Republicans advocating for loose COVID restrictions and Democrats advocating for stronger COVID restrictions. Essentially, I feel it caused people to dig their heels even deeper in support of whatever political party they chose as the issue became clearly a very partisan one from a legislation standpoint. While I don’t know a ton about how partisan the Vietnam War was with regards to political parties, I do know both Lyndon Johnson (a democrat) and Richard Nixon (a republican) escalated the conflict. With that in mind, it seems that although a very hot topic, Vietnam was its own source of division between people and not so tightly linked to division of party allegiances