I have to take exception to the statement that the 50's were the "nadir of American culture." Because it was the decade when pop culture took over, it is left with a very bland, manufactured image. However, not to far beneath the surface a lot was happening. Jazz in the 50's was much more exciting than what followed. Expressionist art in the 50's was much more emotionally satisfying than the pop art of the 60's. The beats were mentioned; the 60's turned that into the cartoonish image of the "beatnik" without producing any comparable literature of its own. In spite of McCarthyism, there was political activism, most notably in the civil rights movement. There was a growing interest in eastern religions and existential philosophy. There were the seeds of the drug culture and the sexual revolution. And, there was folk music, as there had been in the 40's and the 30's and the 20's etc.

What happened in the 60's was that as each of these underground movements rose to the surface they were all thrown into the same stewpot so it looked like a brand new culture was spontaneously emerging. The problem for folk music is that the 60's were not concerned with purity and tradition but with experimentation and improvement on the past. By the end of the decade you could call yourself a folksinger without knowing any folk songs.

Today, I wish there were more venues to hear and play traditional music. I wish there were more young musicians digging deeper for their material. I wish they were teaching folk music in schools (there is less now than in the 50's.) I wish there were more diversity in music on all forms of mass media. But I don't think anything would be gained by going back to the time when Peter Paul & Mary had top 40 hits.