WATERGATE AND 1970S AMERICAN CULTURE

Discussion Questions

1. According to Jonathan Schell, why did the Watergate episode occur?

2. Based on your reading of Schell and your viewing of All the President's Men, how did the Watergate cover-up affect American perceptions of the government?

3. How does Tim O'Brien's "Night March" reflect the distrust of constituted authority that characterized many Americans' responses to Vietnam?

4. What do we learn about the experience of the Vietnam soldier from reading Tim O'Brien's story?

5. How does John Updike dramatize the tension between family obligation and personal fulfillment in "Separating"?

6. Leslie Marmon Silko critiques the US government in her works "Lullaby" and "A long time ago." What is the nature of her critique?

7. Scholars have suggested that in the wake of Watergate and other cataclysmic events of the late sixties and early seventies, many Americans withdrew from political engagement and focused on personal pursuits instead. How might this withdrawal from collective endeavor and political commitment be reflected in popular songs like "Staying Alive," "Disco Inferno" and "Hotel California"?