Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist refers to the ethos of a selected group of people, and since in this course we are studying the socio-cultural history of a selected group of people (LGBT community) I find it important, at this time to delve a little more into how each of the characters in Duberman’s “Stonewall” relate to and/or reflect the Zeitgeist of the 1960s.

First of all, I think it is perfectly all right, when studying one thing in such depth, to be somewhat general when refering to the context. Because we are so tuned in to the LGBT issues in the 1960s, it is acceptable for some generalizations to be made regarding race issues, politics, etc. Not that these are less important, merely that they are not what we’re immediately concerned with. I feel that this sensitivity to temporary classification is distracting some class discussions from focusing on specific LGBT histories. These generalizations can be clumped, to some extent, into the 1960s’ Zeitgeist. This is probably the most important reason I have for including Zeitgeist in my personal ramblings regarding Duberman’s narrative.

From class I took that 1960s Zeitgeist was primarilly made up of Revolutionary counter-culture and the struggle for civil rights. While there are many parrallels that can be drawn between the fight for LGBT rights and the civil rights struggle, the one I find to be the most interesting and causal is the infectious impatience. It’s the domino affect of one person’s disruptive behavior giving others the encouragement to act out. But instead, it’s as if to say: “It’s ok to act now, it’s ok to be impatient, in fact, it’s the only way this will ever get done.” None of these were new ideas; they just required the catalysis of impatience in order to actually happen.

When we look at history, we see what was accomplished and we see what hardships people went through in order to attain said accomplishments. But what we don’t see are the smaller obstacles that these “revolutionaries” ran into every day, every month, or even every year. Each of Duberman’s characters have some nuance to their life or upbringing that sets them apart from how these “types of people” are remembered in history. Perhaps I can elucidate: Hippies/Yippies, definitely part of the 1960s Zeitgeist, but apparently homophobic. Craig and Foster, same common cause, but intellectually differed substantially.

Duberman’s narrative gives dimension to Zeitgeist ideals. It wasn’t just about angry people rising up against the Man; there were thousands of positions people took on a spectrum, each in it for different reasons and each facing their own specific obstacles.

And now for something random yet relative....



Karen