The EU was conceived as a way to repeat the sorts of disasters which happened in the two World Wars.
And what I just sort of grokked is that the “Swinging London” very much has to be seen as an extension of the trauma of World War 2.
Specifically, I watched a documentary more or less on the Who, but focused on their managers, Kit Lambert, and Chris Stamp (Lambert and Stamp), and realized Pete Townshend was born right around VE day, in May of 1945. Roger Daltry was born March 1, 1944, not long before D-Day. Keith Moon was born the 23rd of August, 1946.
All of them, in other words, were born into an atmosphere of fear, pain, want and privation. This is not specifically mentioned in their autobiographies, but it was there. Eric Clapton, to take another example, was born of a Canadian soldier there for the war, who impregnated his mother when she was very young, and who was raised thinking his grandparents were his parents. Another war story.
Wars ripple down the generations. They do not ever end when they end. Today’s soldiers will be leaving traces for 2-3 generations, both good and bad. They bring home both nobility and inner chaos and pain, not infrequently in the same mind and body which they keep together however they can.