There is a stubborn truth many of us resist admitting out loud. The 60s 70s way of thinking the patchwork of stubbornness curiosity and communal risk taking still slices through noise in ways modern mindsets cannot. This is not a call to romanticise an era that also had blind spots. It is a call to notice what our culture lost when speed and optimisation became the primary virtues.
Where modern thinking trips up
Contemporary culture applauds agility iteration and the elegant pivot. It prizes rapid learning loops and data friendly decisions. That rhythm works brilliantly for certain problems. It fails spectacularly for others. Jobs that need deep craft sustained attention or moral conviction are often starved by constant churn. When the metric becomes novelty rather than mastery the world gets lots of prototypes and few true refinements.
Shallow abundance versus durable depth
People in their thirties now grew up being taught that reinvention is a virtue. Reinvention is fine until everything becomes provisional. The 60s 70s approach tolerated sticking with something that did not pay off immediately. It valued stubborn practice and a patient accumulation of knowledge. That patience is a strategic advantage in a market that rewards the flashiest new thing rather than the best one.
What the 60s 70s mindset actually contained
It was not monolithic. It mixed long term commitments with a willingness to break conventions. It assumed your life could be an apprenticeship spread over decades. It trusted local institutions craft guilds and long conversations. There was a communal memory in which craft and context mattered. People developed reputations over time. Decisions were embedded in a web of social accountability that made promises stick.
The ingredient modern managers forget
Modern management loves optimisation frameworks and experiment cycles. What it forgets is that some gains are only visible on a timeline measured in years not quarters. A woodworker learns the stakes of a cut after a decade of mistakes. A neighbourhood school improves after patient, generational work. These are investments that compound slowly and quietly. Our attention economy is allergic to that tempo.
It is more important to be honest than to be gritty. It is more important to be nice than to be gritty. Angela Duckworth Professor of Psychology University of Pennsylvania.
I use that quote not to undermine grit but to place grit in a moral context. Angela Duckworth has spent years studying perseverance. Her point is that grit matters but must be joined to other virtues. The 60s 70s ecosystem often combined perseverance with a sense of social obligation and long term purpose.
Why old thinking outperforms in practice
There are three practical arenas where that older rhythm still beats modern impulses. The first is craft intensive work where mastery is accumulated through repetition and rivalry. The second is institutions that need generational memory like family businesses local politics or cultural organisations. The third is moral projects where credibility depends on sustained presence and not on aggressive branding.
Examples that make the argument tangible
Think of a public library that has kept a community running through decades of neglect. It did not win by iterating branding every year. It won by being there. Or consider a small manufacturer who survived cheaper imports by refining a single process for twenty years. Modern consultants would call this a niche but the older frame calls it stewardship.
Not every old idea is worth rescuing
I do not want to varnish the past. The 60s 70s era had exclusionary corners and blind certainties. There were hierarchies that excluded and rules that deferred to the wrong authorities. The point is selective salvage. We keep the parts that enabled durability and communal accountability and we discard the rest. That requires judgement not nostalgia.
How to combine the best of both eras
Start by deciding which problems demand deep time. For those projects build institutions incentives and rhythms that reward staying power. For everything else keep the fast loops. This is not a binary choice. It is a portfolio decision. Allocate attention and resources across timelines and then hold to the rules that each timeline requires.
Personal observation and a small confession
I find myself frustrated in rooms where novelty is treated as moral progress. It feels performative. Conversely when I sit with someone who speaks with the quiet authority of long exposure to a single domain I listen differently. That does not make them infallible. It does make their claims harder to dismiss. There is a kind of civic muscle built by staying in a place long enough to feel its rhythms. We have atrophied that muscle.
An experiment you can try
Pick one professional practice or personal hobby and commit to it for a year with rules that prevent you from pivoting as soon as something shiny appears. You will not become a master in twelve months. You will however discover whether patience uncovers learning that sprinting never would. You will also learn what your tolerance for boredom looks like which is useful information in itself.
Where institutions can reach
Institutions can scaffold patience. They can design career paths that reward slow accumulation of expertise. They can measure impact over longer horizons. That is the hard work. It requires courage because the political and financial incentives still favour rapid wins. But the payoff is resilience. Institutions that can sit with long problems eventually gain unfair advantage because their competitors chase ephemeral signals.
One last uneasy truth
The hosts of modern culture will call this conservative. Sometimes that is true. But many of the 60s 70s tendencies were radical in their own way. The radicalism was not in speed but in the refusal to reduce life to immediate returns. That refusal can be liberating. It lets people build things that last.
Summary table
| Theme | 60s 70s Rhythm | Modern Rhythm | Why older still matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning | Long apprenticeship and repeated practice | Rapid iteration and switching | Depth yields expertise that short cycles rarely replicate |
| Institutions | Generational memory and social accountability | Lean teams and short term metrics | Memory supports trust and credibility over time |
| Motivation | Purpose anchored in community or craft | Individual growth through novelty | Anchored purpose sustains effort through slow gains |
| Risk | Willingness to accept slow payoff | Preference for quick wins | Patience compounds advantage in complex problems |
FAQ
Does this mean we should reject technology and modern practices?
No. The argument is selective not wholesale. Technology amplifies human capacities. It also accelerates distraction and short termism. Use modern tools for tasks that benefit from speed and data. Protect slow work from those same pressures. That is a deliberate management choice not a Luddite manifesto.
How do you measure success when the timeline is long?
Design intermediate indicators that track progress without collapsing to instant gratification. These are not the viral metrics of the social feed. They are craft based measures retention of knowledge or quality thresholds observed over months and years. They need governance to stick which means clear roles and public accountability.
Is the older approach elitist or exclusionary?
It can be if poorly implemented. A culture that rewards longevity without addressing unequal access simply preserves advantage. The ethical 60s 70s lesson is that stewardship must include opening pathways for diverse participants. Patience and inclusion must be siblings not strangers.
How do individuals cultivate this mindset today?
Choose one area where depth matters and impose constraints on yourself. Limit the number of new projects you start. Create rules that protect your time. Seek mentors who have been in the field a long time. And accept that boredom is sometimes the price of progress. Embrace it strategically not masochistically.
Won’t employers resist slower horizons?
Yes some will. But employers that can balance short term deliverables with long term capability building tend to outperform in turbulent sectors. This requires leadership willing to trade quarterly applause for durable capacity. That trade is difficult but often more sustainable.
Can a society scale patience?
Scaling patience requires institutions that reward persistent contribution and policies that reduce the costs of long term investment. It is not fast. But societies that incentivise long leases stable career ladders and community rooted organisations create conditions where patience is rational not pathological.
There are no clean answers here only tradeoffs. The 60s 70s way of thinking is not a cure all. It is a tempering agent against a culture that forgets to wait. We need both tempos not to return to any mythical past but to salvage what helps us survive and perhaps even thrive.
