Customer Reviews

The neophiliacs: A study of the revolution in English life in the fifties and sixties

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Neophiliacs is a work of social history that attempts to describe and explain some of the phenomena and events of the 1960s in Great Britain, especially in London. The story begins in 1955, when the post-war situation gave way to a series of innovations, such as the introduction of television, over a period of two-and-a-half years, that the author says changed the material conditions in Britain and "unleashed" a "new spirit" of "moral freedom and rebellion." This much is part of the mythology of the 1960s as remembered today. But the author calls this change a "dream," and The Neophiliacs addresses the disillusionment of this dream, as it began to set in the latter 1960s. He draws some parallels with social upheaval in other places and times as well as upheaval in the lives of individuals. In the end, he finds in the 1960s an upsurge in social changes reaching back at least to the Romantic period:

"Our attitude about what has been happening to mankind has been ultimately based on a dimly sensed and open-ended assumption that some day it would all work out for the best, or that even if it did not, at least that day lay comfortably far off.
"If we accept however that the dream and the nightmare are inextricably intertwined, then the whole picture becomes more coherent. We can see the particular frustrations, disasters, and disillusionments of the past two-hundred years, not just as growing pains, but as directly related to and consequential on man's expanding aspirations."

Ultimately, the neophilism (the love of the new) of the 1960s is described like the fatal flaw in Greek tragedy, in which the hero is brought low by the very thing that has raised him up. The final chapter describes the neophiliacs as immature people who have lost their sense of place in society, nature, and the cosmos.

There are (at least) two serious problems with The Neophiliacs as a work of history. The first is that the author started writing the book in the midst of the 1960s. The second is that the author has approached his topic from the perspective of psychoanalysis.

As to the first problem, the book is packed with references to specific people and events that are not described or put in context clearly enough for someone reading at (what is now almost) a half-century later. Academic arguments are ultimately about explaining evidence and the cornerstone of argumentation is pacing the right way to clarify points for the reader. Certain things, even if relevant, need to be left out to help isolate and expand on the points most likely to create the necessary rhetorical architecture. The Neophiliacs clubbed me over the head with details--insider politics, fashion, journalism, economics--all crammed side by side, sometimes within the space of a page or even a paragraph. The book needs to be edited down and generalized.

As to the second problem, the author makes too many assertions and draws connections and conclusions between too many points. The problem with psychoanalysis is that it depends on theory and speculation without making reference to mechanisms of action. In pure psychology, this problem has started to be remedied with fMRI, drugs, genetics, etc. Freud and Jung have largely been discredited. But The Neophiliacs was written in the 1960s, and the author makes frequent reference to psychoanalysts, especially Jung. So the book is filled with references to a community psyche and to shared emotional states like generalized malaise or generalized enthusiasim. These are assertions that need grounding in statistics or evidence and explained with causal mechanisms of current economics or psychology.

I have the Pimlico edition of this book, mailed to me from the UK, which is a 1992 reprint of the 1969 Collins. The author's introduction to this edition points out correctly that surprisingly little research or dispassionate history has been written on the 1960s, even today. He describes a TV show in which he was invited to participate that meant to explain the 1960s but really ended being only a sentimental reminiscence of the things people want to remember--the freedom without the violence. The author is right that the 1960s need to be addressed in a more thorough and dispassionate way, but this book is not adequate. Ones perhaps with narrower focus would provide more insight the reader at this point.