I was born at the very end of the 1950s - a child of the swinging/hippy 60s..
a teenager of the glamrock / punk rock 70s...

I at least benefited from growing up in an era of progressive counter culture and radical politics..
Those extramural influences of lurid exciting popular culture which made it easier to see a different approach to life
than the authoritarian conformist brainwashing at school and in mainstream society & culture....

We thankfully no longer suffered National Service to make us get our hair cut and form us into compliant obedient militarised model citizens,
but we did have to endure the pernicious attempts of prominent organised right wing christian pressure groups
forcing their restrictive beliefs upon us
by their constant lobbying of government, press and media.

The likes of reactionary figure heads like Mary Whitehouse, may have been laughing stocks to us punk rock teenagers,
but she did wield real power over what we could or couldn't try to do in personal relationships and artistic expression....

Yes we can laugh now at christian parent groups picketing Sex Pistols Concerts,
but we had our own local petty version in our small town who did her best to close down our events and venues
and quell any positive 'insurrectional' freedom of expression..

we were just teenagers with electric guitars.. not anarchist bomb plotters fer f@cks sake !!!???..

Yes I was lucky my parents refused to have me christened and send me to church every Sunday.

But the religious right status quo still got to me at school with relentless subtle and not so subtle brainwashing.
So I still had my unfair share of worries and confusion about afterlife and eternal damnation to contend with until into my early 20s..

The Degree I chose to study concentrated on Ideology - theories and concepts of influence and control..
So up until my mid 30s I was something of an 'expert' on the topics churning up in this thread...

But i gradually caved in to the pressures of life and self numbed my intellect as a coping mechanism...

That's why [as I said a day or 2 ago] I find this thread a very useful and healthy refresher course....


btw.. sorry for this long freeform ramble, but I'm bored waiting in for an amazon logistics delivery..