Western politics of identity have evolved at a disorienting speed since 2016. After Donald Trump’s shockingly successful manipulation of anti-PC backlash, the online ‘culture wars’ have spiralled out of control and beyond all recognition. In this talk, Guy Stevenson takes us back to the 1960s, the cradle both of young hopes for a better world and the arguments that divide us, to explain their complexities. How have we arrived in a time where rancour around race, gender and sexuality permeates everything? How have we gone from Trump’s populist nationalist revolt against ‘wokeness’ to ugly battles between feminists and Trans activists? Sketching a selection of key 60s thinkers, writers and activists, Stevenson will consider the evolution of progressivism: from civil rights to black power to blm; from the messy unspeakable visions of the counterculture to the compassionate but proscriptive spirit of 2nd wave feminism; and from the unwitting spiritual elitism of the ‘Summer of Love’ to our interminably polarised social media landscape.