BEFORE & AFTER I MET DUSTIN HOFFMAN

The day I met Dustin Hoffman was in early 1968, just after the release of his breakout film "The Graduate." It was over lunch in New York City. At the time neither of us could realize his film was to become symbolic of the enormous seismic shift taking place in America.

Before -- it was the so-called golden ages of radio, movies and television (recently marred by the horrific but unlikely assassination of a president). After -- came the explosive ages of civil rights, war protests, presidential cover ups, and culture wars between still-feuding Right and Left. Consider some of the contrasting facts (or, more correctly, impressions):

BEFORE

* Throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s Americans were listening to post-Victorian soap operas on radio where even the comedians were tightly censored. Network radio was the first and one of the last times in which entire families nationwide gathered at one time for one collective experience. Programs like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, the Lux Radio Theatre, and FDR's fireside chats

* Movies too were still in their Hays Office era in which love, marriage, sex and violence were tightly restricted. Heroes like Clark Gable, Van Johnson and even Marlon Brando were held to careful script standards. Along with sparkly clean heroines like Ginger Rogers, Maureen O'Hara and Doris Day who were clearly women in the classic tradition of Victorian right-and-wrong. It was said, and arguably true, that Hollywood was produced by Jews, censored by Catholics, and watched by Protestants

* Television tended to feature what was considered to be the best-of-America. And so these were the years of holiday specials by Bing Crosby and Perry Como; variety shows with guiltless humor by Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Ed Sullivan (who showed the new rebel Elvis only from the waistline up); and morality-purified series like "Father Knows Best," "Leave it to Beaver," and "Bonanza" where good and good guys always prevailed

AFTER

It is cool today to look back and find the flaws in this tapestry of American entertainment. We are reminded of the hypocrisy of those years in which African Americans, women, and gays were denied their rights. In which American capitalism after WWII was riding high at the expense of the rest of the world's depressed economies. In which purity was really no more than a hustle to get audiences, while producers and casts rang up record-sized rates of adultery, divorce and mayhem.

To the credit of the AFTER generations, America today is a far less restricted and far more candid culture. One in which everyone is perfectly and proudly willing to say "Your Golden Age was really a fraud, and now we can each go our own individual way!" While that's remarkably true, it may harbor a remarkable truth. Namely this. The gravitational forces of the 30s, 40s,and 50s tended to draw our diverse society together onto common grounds... while today's centrifugal forces tend to pull our society further and further apart.

Yes, apart into self-respecting distinctions (by gender, nationality, race and culture). But alas, apart into assertively different Americas in which these different Americas stand proud and tall, yet totally out of touch with the other Americas. Some see this as the historic demise of our national greatness; others see it as the historic challenge to our national greatness.

The score here is not yet in. A lot is riding on it...