October 1965: 'Midlife crisis'

The term is coined by psychologist and social analyst Elliot Jaques in his paper "Death and the Mid-Life Crisis," published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.

As summarized in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1967):

At age thirty-five the individual has reached the summit of life and sees a declining path before him with death at its end. This results in a crisis, stronger in some than others, connected with having to accept the reality of one's death. It is a period of anguish and depression at the anticipated loss of one's life and revives the infantile experience of loss of the good object (mother). Working through the infantile experience again increases one's confidence in being able to love and mourn what has been lost and increases the possibility of enjoying full maturity and old age. If creativity is present, it may take on new depths and shades of feeling. Dante's descent through Purgatory is essentially an expression of the mid-life crisis and its resolution.

* Complete text as reprinted in "Is It Too Late? Key Papers on Psychoanalysis and Ageing" (2006): @

* Entry from Encyclopedia.com (includes links to various summations): @

* Entry from Psychology Today: @

* "Middle Age Couples Are In Comfortable Rut" (Alison Goddard, Women's Medical News Service, 1970): @
* "Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life" (Gail Sheehy, 1976): @; author's website: @
* "Men in Midlife Crisis" (Jim Conway, 1997): @
* "The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change" (Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg, Harvard Business Review, 2008): @

* "Midlife Crisis: A Myth or a Reality in Search of a New Name?" (Vivian Diller, Psychology Today, 2011): @
* "The Myth of the Midlife Crisis" (Anne Tergeson, Wall Street Journal, 2014): @
* "The Intellectual Odyssey of Elliot Jaques: From Alchemy To Science" (Douglas Kirsner, www.psychoanalysis-and-therapy-com): @

* Obituaries for Jaques, who died in 2003: @ (The New York Times) and @ (The Guardian)
* Midlife Club: @
* The World of Dante (University of Virginia): @
* Danteworlds (University of Texas at Austin): @

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Friday, November 27, 1964: Operation Moneybags

     British soldiers are given LSD as part of research into how the drug might affect their capabilities as well as military operations. From the Imperial War Museum's description of the filmed summary (link: @):

     Introductory title places trial in context of recent research to discover chemical agents able to incapacitate enemy forces but with negligible risk of fatal casualties. ... One Marine in state of distress is comforted by nurse, while others smile and laugh hysterically, one attempting to cut down a tree with his spade, and another climbing the tree. ... After exercise Marines rest in bed in Porton ward ... One very distressed Marine is held by duffel coated doctor and scientist, muttering "I am not going to die."  Cut back to end of the exercise, with Marines departing by truck, before concluding title states that despite promising results of experiment, further research is needed into methods of disseminating drug, the effects of larger doses and establishing economical production techniques. "Despite these and other problems, LSD is regarded in the light of present knowledge as one of the drugs which merits more detailed examination and testing."

* Short clip from film: @

* Excerpt from "Albion Dreaming: A Popular History of LSD in Britain" (Andy Roberts, 2012): @

* House of Commons communications (1995): @

* "Drugged and Duped" (Rob Evans, The Guardian newspaper, March 14, 2002): @

* "Weapons Against the Mind" (Dr. W.M. Hollyhock, New Scientist magazine, April 22, 1965): @ 

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November 1964: 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics'

     Richard Hofstadter delivered the first version of "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" as a Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford University in November 1963, the same month that President John F. Kennedy was murdered; an abridged version appeared in Harper's Magazine the following year. The lecture had grown out of Hofstadter's long-standing apprehensions about the rise of American right-wing extremism after World War II -- most conspicuously the McCarthyite hysteria of the early 1950s but also the profusion of new right-wing organizations such as the John Birch Society. ... 

     Hofstadter discovered a chronic, rancid syndrome in our political life that he called, loosely, "paranoid." The paranoid style, he contended, had long afflicted radical movements on the left as well as the right, and had even touched some good causes, including the antislavery movement. Usually, however, it appeared in bad ones. ...

     Hofstadter studied the Goldwater campaign closely and wrote an essay about its worrisome paranoid emanations. ... To read these selections today is to see a devoted liberal of moderate disposition aroused by his realization that, despite Goldwater's crushing defeat in 1964, some of the worst distempers of American democracy had become, as he wrote, "a formidable force in our politics" -- and, quite possibly, a permanent one.

     -- From the forward to "The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays" (2008 reissue)

* As printed in Harper's Magazine (November 1964): @

* As printed by Harvard University Press (1996): @

* "A Long View: Goldwater in History" (Hofstadter, The New York Review of Books, October 1964): @

* "Richard Hofstadter: A Reading List" (New York Times, 2006): @

* "Why Richard Hofstadter is Still Worth Reading but Not for the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind" (Jon Weiner, University of California, Irvine, 2006): @

* "Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography" (David S. Brown, 2006): @ 

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Friday, March 13, 1964: Kitty Genovese

On March 13, 1964, a 28-year-old woman named Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was raped and killed in two separate late-night attacks near her home in Kew Gardens, Queens. Police found that at least 38 people had seen the attacks or heard Genovese scream, but no one intervened and just one woman called the police.
     The story was barely reported until two weeks later, when Martin Gansberg covered it in vivid detail in The New York Times ... Gansberg detailed why some of the witnesses hadn't acted. One said that he "didn't want to get involved," while another said, "without emotion," according to Gansberg, "I was tired. I went back to bed."
     The article ignited outrage against the 38 residents. Pundits proclaimed that it was an example of society's moral decay ... Psychologists coined the term "Genovese syndrome" to explain why people are less likely to act in an emergency if others are present.
     The Kitty Genovese episode became infamous, but later examination found that Gansberg had exaggerated details and presented a misleading perspective of the witnesses' actions. All but one of the witnesses likely saw or heard only the first attack, after which Genovese walked away, giving the impression that she was all right. The second attack took place out of view of most people. Only one man saw the attack. He told another woman to call the police, but it was too late to save Genovese.
     -- From The Learning Network, New York Times (link: @)

     -- Photo from The Saturday Evening Post (link to story: @)

* New York Times story, March 27, 1964: @ (Note: The headline as printed was "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police / Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector")
* "The Detached Americans" (Carousel Films, 1964): @
* "Kitty, 40 Years Later" (Jim Rasenberger, New York Times, February 2004): @
* "Nightmare On Austin Street" (Rasenberger, American Heritage, 2006): @
* "The Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping" (Rachel Manning, Mark Levine and Alan Collins, American Psychologist, September 2007): @
* "Debunking the myth of Kitty Genovese" (Larry Getlen, New York Post, February 2014): @
* "A Call For Help: What the Kitty Genovese story really means" (Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, March 2014): @

* "Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America" (Kevin Cook, 2014): @
* "Fifty Years After Kitty Genovese: Inside The Case That Rocked Our Faith in Each Other" (Albert A. Seedman and Peter Hellman, 2014): @

* "Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences" (Catherine Pelonero, 2014): @ 

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Tuesday, February 4, 1964: Drinking and driving

"The Role of the Drinking Driver in Traffic Accidents," also known as the Grand Rapids Study, is published by Robert F. Borkenstein et al. for Indiana University's Department of Police Administration. A summary of its findings, from "Alcohol and Road Accidents" (Australia Legislative Council, 1970; link: @):

The probability of accident involvement increases rapidly at alcohol levels over .08 percent and becomes extremely high at levels over .15 percent. ... Drivers with an alcohol level of .06 percent have an estimated probability of causing an accident double that of a sober driver. Drivers with .10 percent B.A.L. are from six to seven times as likely to cause an accident as one with .00 percent alcohol level. When the .15 percent alcohol level is reached, the probability of causing an accident is estimated at more than 25 times the probability for that of a sober driver.

* Robert F. Borkenstein papers, Indiana University (follow link to see entire study): @

* "Professor Robert F. Borkenstein -- An Appreciation of His Life and Work" (from The Robert F. Borkenstein Course, Center for Studies of Law in Action, Indiana University): @

* "Grand Rapids Effects Revisited: Accidents, Alcohol and Risk" (Kruger et al., 1995, from Schaffer Library of Drug Policy): @

* "Driver Characteristics and Impairment at Various BACs" (from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration): @
* "Alcohol-Related Morbidity and Mortality" (from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2003): @ 

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December 1963: Smiley face

In 1963, State Mutual Life Assurance Company in Worcester, Mass., faced a problem. The firm had purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio the previous year to work with Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a State Mutual subsidiary. Low employee morale in the merged companies prompted State Mutual Vice President John Adam Jr. to suggest a "friendship campaign." He asked Joy Young, Assistant Director of Sales and Marketing, to develop something. Young turned to Worcester freelance artist Harvey Ball, requesting he create a little smile to be used on buttons, desk cards and posters. Ball drew a smile but, not satisfied with the result, added two eyes, making a smiley face. The whole drawing, he recalled later, took ten minutes.
     -- From Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation; link: @

     -- photo from Smithsonian.com
* Summary from Worcester Historical Museum: @
* Summary from Toonopedia: @
* "Who invented the smiley face?" (from The Straight Dope): @
* "Who Really Invented the Smiley Face?" (from Smithsonian.com): @
* English-language website from Japan: @
* Harvey Ball obituary (2001): @ 

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August 1963: 'The American Way of Death'

Jessica Mitford's book about the funeral industry in the United States is published by Simon and Schuster. From the book jacket:

     Jessica Mitford's explosive and astonishing book makes public the fantastic inner workings of our Funeral Industry.
     The grotesqueries we glimpsed in Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One" pale before the actuality as Miss Mitford discloses the bizarre facts behind the average American funeral, coast to coast. She brings into the open every aspect of the burial business ... 
      * its psychological strategies: the carefully choreographed walk through the "Casket Selection Room," and other devices by which the bereaved in maneuvered into buying an expensive funeral
     * its language (Cremains, Beautiful Memory Picture, Garden Crypt, Memorial Counselor, Grief Therapist, etc.) with which it propagandizes the public
     * its incredible economies (we spent an average of $1,450 for the funeral of every adult who died in the United States in 1961)
     * its elaborate embalming fashions -- practiced routinely, without consulting the survivors
     * its attempts to keep "the nosy clergy" from standing between the mourner and the undertaker's sales talk
     * its artifacts, including special cosmetics, footwear (the #280 reflects character and station in life"), even lingerie and "hostess gowns" for the dead, the decorator caskets, the vaults, the Earth Dispensers for the Committal Service ("no grasping of a handful of dirt, no soiled fingers!")
     * its Niche and Urn lobby, and the efforts to outlaw the scattering of ashes

* "The American Way of Death Revisited" (Mitford, 1998): @
* "The Undertaker's Racket" (excerpt from book, The Atlantic, June 1963): @

* Review (Saturday Review, August 31, 1963): @

* Review (Etude, University of Oregon, 2004): @ 

* "Outrage over the Death Business" (Life magazine, September 20, 1963, Page 98): @
* "Final Rights: Reclaming the American Way of Death" (Joshua Slocum and Lisa Carlson, 2011): @

* Mitford memorial site: @ 

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July 1963: U.S. interrogation manual

"KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation" was produced by the CIA (KUBARK being the agency's code name for itself). The manual was declassified in 1997. From the introduction:

     This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator. At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes of poor interrogators.  Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation, and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources. ... As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than others; and some of the superiority may be innate. But sound interrogation nevertheless rests upon a knowledge of the subject matter on certain broad principles, chiefly psychological, which are not hard to understand. The success of good interrogators depends in large measure upon their use, conscious or not, of these principles and of processes and techniques deriving from them.

* Manual, pages 1 through 60: @
* Pages 61 through 112: @
* Pages 113 through 128: @
* "Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past" (from National Security Archive, 2004): @

* "Iraq Tactics Have Long History With U.S. Interrogators" (Washington Post, 2004): @
* "The Birth of Soft Torture" (www.slate.com, 2005): @
* "Educing Information. Interrogation: Science and Art -- Foundations for the Future" (National Defense Intelligence College, 2006): @
* "Torture and Democracy" (Darius Rejali, 2007): @
* "Torture and State Violence in the United States: A Short Documentary History" (Robert M. Pallitto, 2011): @
* "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War" (Albert D. Biderman, 1957): @ 

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May 1963: Weight Watchers

Two years after it began with get-togethers among friends in the New York apartment of Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers International is incorporated and formal meetings begin. (Nidetch, left, at one point weighed 214 pounds.)

* Timeline (through 2003; from Weight Watchers website): @

* About Jean Nidetch (from biography.yourdictionary.com): @
* "The First Biggest Loser" (from The Daily, 2011): @

* "Weight Watchers at 50: A lot has changed but mission has not" (Tampa Bay Times, 2013): @ 

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Saturday, April 6, 1963: Learning disabilities

     From the Learning Disabilities Association of America (link below):

     On April 6, 1963, a group of parents convened a conference in Chicago entitled "Exploration into the Problems of the Perceptually Handicapped Child." Professionals from various disciplines and with diverse and extensive clinical experience in dealing with the needs of these children participated. Professionals and parents shared a common concern: the recognition of the dire need for services for their children, services that did not exist.

     The 1963 conference articulated the cornerstones on which the field of Learning Disabilities is based. The underlying assumptions put forth provided the frameworks for legislation, theories, diagnostic procedures, educational practices, research and training models. A consensus was reached on a name for the category ... the term "Learning Disabilities," embedded within the title of Dr. Samuel Kirk's conference paper, was selected.

Note: Kirk first used the term "learning disabilities" in his 1962 book "Educating Exceptional Children" (link to 2012 edition below).

* "Educating Exceptional Children" (Kirk et al): @

* Learning Disabilities Association of America: @

* "Definition of learning disabilities" (from National Association of Special Education Teachers): @

* "Learning disabilities: Historical Perspectives" (from National Research Center on Learning Disabilities): @

* "Learning disabilities movement turns 50" (Washington Post, April 2013): @

* Obituary of Samuel Kirk (New York Times, July 1996): @ 

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Saturday, March 2, 1963: 'Learn from Comrade Lei Feng'

The slogan appears in the China Youth Daily newspaper as Communist Party chairman Mao Tse-Tung calls on his country to follow Lei Feng's example of selfless service to China -- and especially the Party. This would be the start of a major propaganda campaign holding up Lei Feng as a role model.

* Earlier post on the death of Lei Feng (August 15, 1962): @

* "Lei Feng Day -- Learn from Lei Feng" (from Show China): @

* "Lei Feng: Changing Role Models in China" (from China Daily): @

* Entry from "Modern China: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Nationalism" (Wang-Ke wen, 1998): @

* Excerpt from "The Origins of the Cultural Revolution" (Roderick MacFarquhar, 1997): @ 

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Tuesday, February 19, 1963: 'The Feminine Mystique'

Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" is published by W.W. Norton and Co. From the Jewish Women's Archive:

   The book highlighted Friedan's view of a coercive and post-World War II ideology of female domesticity that stifled middle-class women's opportunities to be anything but homemakers.

   A survey she conducted of her Smith College classmates indicated that many felt depressed even though they supposedly enjoyed ideal lives with husbands, homes, and children. Enlargin her inquiry, Friedan found what she called "the problem that has no name" was common among women far beyond the educated East Coast elite. ... She showed how women's magazine's, advertising, Freudian psychologists, and educators reflected and perpetuated a domestic ideal that left many women deeply unhappy. In suppressing women's personal growth, Friedan argued, society lost a vast reservoir of human potential.

   Friedan's book is credited with sparking second-save feminism (see note) by directing women's attention to the broad social basis of their problems, stirring many to political and social activism.

Note: "Second-wave feminism" is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the period in the late 1960s and early 1970s "when feminists pushed beyond the early quest for political rights to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home."

Photo from Corbis Images, dated October 1963; caption reads, "Betty Friedan attends to Abraham Lincoln bust in her home."

* 50th-anniversary edition: @

* New York Times review (April 1963): @

* Advertisement in The New York Times Book Review (June 1963): @
* "The Skeptical Early Reviews of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' " (The Atlantic, 2013): @

* " 'The Feminine Mystique' at 50" (New York Times, January 2013): @

* C-SPAN programs: @

* Entry from "Encyclopedia of Leadership" (Berkshire Publishing Group, 2004): @

* "Betty Friedan and the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique' " (Daniel Horowitz, 1998): @

* "A Strange Stirring: 'The Feminine Mystique' and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s" (Stephanie Coontz, 2011): @
* Episode of BBC's "Witness" series (2013): @
* "The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory" (edited by Linda Nicholson, 1997): @ 

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Saturday-Sunday, September 22-23, 1962: Esalen Institute

From the organization's website:

The Esalen Institute was founded in 1962 as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential" -- the world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination. Esalen soon became known for its blend of East/West philosophies, its experiential/didactic workshops, the steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers, and its breathtaking grounds and natural hot springs. Once home to a Native American tribe known as the Essalen, Esalen is situated on 27 acres of spectacular Big Sur (California) coastline with the Santa Lucia Mountains rising sharply behind.

(The first seminar, "Expanding Vision," was held September 22-23.)

* www.esalen.org: @

* Esalen Center for Theory & Research: @

* "An Evolutionary Vision" (essay from www.esalen.org): @

* "Esalen Institute turns 50 this year" (San Francisco Chronicle, 2012): @

* "Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion" (Jeffrey J. Kripal, 2007): @

* "On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture" (edited by Kripal and Glenn W. Shuck, 2005): @

* "A Cultural History of the Humanistic Psychology Movement in America" (Jessica Lynn Grogan, 2008): @ 

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Wednesday, August 15, 1962: Lei Feng

The Chinese soldier, 22, dies after being struck by a falling telephone pole, which had been hit by a military truck.

From China Central Television (CCTV): "Lei Feng was characterized as a selfless and modest person who was devoted to the Communist Party. In the posthumous ' Learn from Comrade Lei Feng' campaign, initiated by Mao in 1963, Lei became the symbol of nationwide propaganda; the youth of the country were encouraged to follow his example."

This 1965 poster translates as "Uncle Lei Fing tells revolutionary stories." The red scarves indicate that the children are Young Pioneers, members of the Communist youth organization. (Image from chineseposters.net; link below.)

* More from CCTV: @

* Entry from "Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People's Republic of China" (Henry Yuhuai He, 2001): @

* Fushun Lei Feng Memorial Hall: @

* "When Lei Feng meets non-believers" (Global Times, March 2012): @

* "Chinese Heroism Effort Is Met With Cynicism" (New York Times, March 2012): @

* Collection of posters from chineseposters.net: @
* "The Good Soldier Lei Feng" (from iconicphotos.wordpress.com): @

* Links from www.morningsun.org: @

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Monday, May 14, 1962: 'A Clockwork Orange'

Anthony Burgess' novel is published in England. Narrated by the main character, Alex, the futuristic tale of violence and debauchery by young toughs is told with an invented language (based largely on Russian words).

The book would later be published in the United States without its final chapter, in which Alex decides to leave behind his life of evil. (The U.S. publisher, W.W. Norton, thought little of the more hopeful ending.)

* Text (PDF includes 21st chapter and 1986 introduction by Burgess): @

* Audio of Burgess reading from book: @ and @ and @ and @

* Summary from www.sparknotes.com: @

* Entry from www.todayinliterature.com: @

* New York Times book review (March 19, 1963): @

* Excerpts from "You've Had Your Time," Burgess' 1990 autobiography: @

* "Conversations with Anthony Burgess" (2008 collection of interviews from 1971 to 1989): @

* International Anthony Burgess Foundation: @

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April 1962: 'The Image: Or What Happened to the American Dream'

The book by professor and historian Daniel J. Boorstin is published. (It was also published under the title "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.")

From the book "Nixon's Shadow: The History of An Image" (David Greenberg, 2004):

Boorstin observed that the rise of mass media, including the attendant apparatuses of advertising and public relations, had helped create an alternate sham reality, where celebrities replaced heroes, credibility superseded truth, invention eclipsed discovery, and personality was vaunted over character. Coining a term that would increase in use over the years, Boorstin identified a new phenomenon he called the "pseudo-event": a staged happening that becomes not for intrinsic reasons but because those who cover the news deem it so. ... These changes undermined democratic politics, Boorstin argued. Television and media manipulation had become so pervasive that "more important than what we think of the presidential candidate is what we think of his 'public image.' "

In the book, Boorstin also originated this often-repeated line: "The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness."

* Entry from "Encyclopedia of Political Communication" (2008): @

* New York Times book review (April 9, 1962): @

* Boorstin obituary (New York Times, 2004): @

* Boorstin obituary (The Guardian, 2004): @

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Undated: Harvard Psilocybin Project

Headed by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert of Harvard's Department of Psychology, the project ends its work amid concerns by other faculty members and investigations by authorities into the use (or suspected misuse) of psilocybin. As part of Leary's and Alpert's research, psychedelics had been administered to students and prisoners.

* Entry from Harvard's psychology department: @

* "The Strange Case of the Harvard Drug Scandal" (Look magazine, November 5, 1963): @

* Letter from Leary and Alpert to Harvard Crimson (December 13, 1962): @

* "Timothy Leary and Havard, Reunited At Last" (from Timothy Leary Archives): @
* "Dr. Leary's Concord Prison Experiment: A 34-Year Follow-Up Study" (from Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 1998): @ and @

* "The Good Friday Marsh Chapel Experiment" (1994, St. Petersburg Times): @

* The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America" (2011 book by Don Lattin): @

* Talk by Lattin (from www.c-spanvideo.org): @

* "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond" (1992 book by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain): @

* "Storming Heaven: LSD & The American Dream" (1998 book by Jay Stevens): @

* Earlier post on Leary (August 9, 1960): @

* Earlier post on Leary (August 18, 1961): @

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