If the 1980s were a sharp backlash to the sweeping social changes of the 1960s and ’70s, the last year has revived debates about the results of the sexual revolution.
The Supreme Court’s recognition of a right to marriage equality has the New York Times’ Ross Douthat pondering how we conceive of freedom, happiness and the relationship of one to the other. In considering the rise of affirmative consent laws, Judith Shulevitz looks at how we’ve handled sexual liberation and suggests that “the more casual sex becomes, the more we demand that our institutions and government police the line between what’s consensual and what isn’t.”
In this moment of meditation on the victories or consequences — depending on where you’re coming from — of changes in American sexual life, it has been interesting to watch well-regarded pop culture examine broader strains of countercultural thinking from the same era.
Both the last season of “Mad Men” and the current season of “True Detective” have told stories about New Age culture and the human potential movement, which suggested that helping people exercise their full capabilities would transform society. The shows’ conclusions, at least to this point, are not particularly optimistic. At worst, they imply that schools of thinking that were meant to supplant religion and psychology are just as capable of doing terrible damage.