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For those of you insisting that the past was a Golden Age and the present a path to destruction and chaos, you are overlooking the cause/effect relationships involved.
It isn't that the past was better....it was that you were better in the past. You were young, healthy, full of possibilities rather than responsibilities and having the sort of fun that one only experiences when one is youthful and less aware of the realities which went into sustaining life.
Trying to make these determinations on the basis of listing all the good things then and bad things now, is a pointless exercise which is easily countered by doing the opposite..making a list of all the bad things then and good things now. Further, close examination would reveal that many of those things which made the past so glorious, were actually illusions, or things which were made possible by the misery of others who today have achieved greater measures of respect and liberation.
Do you imagine that gays, blacks and women wish to return to the earlier, glory days? Does the Latino or Chinese
mayor of some large city yearn for the days when such a thing was an impossibilty?
Finally, in the old days none of us would be here exchanging these ideas instantly, would we? There were no virtual communities.
TrapperL: mu8-4572. I grew up in Wayne PA born in 1959. My mom would send me up to kamack's store with a note to buy her cigarettes. That seems so sordid now. We could go to rexalls, farmer's market, toytown and the anthony wayne theatre. Take the train to the next town if you wanted to explore.
Street drugs were not nearly so wide spread, and not even in the bad areas, but one drug was epidemic. Alchol. Remember tv shows like Bewitched, where it was the beverage of choice, and the popularity of 'drunk' comedy? And when amphedimines first appeared, nobody really knew what they were. One of my mom's friends worked at a pharmacy, and she'd bring them when the women friends got together. They didn't think of them as much more than a vitamin. But you had energy and lost weight. If they'd knowingly understood the long term effects, I wonder what they'd said.
The drug use in the fifties and early sixties was there, you just got used to seeing it. Stay at home moms sedated themselves when dad wasn't home. Every meal from lunch on was likely to include alchol. It was so accepted that it was funny when people got drunk and a whole catagory of comedy.
Most don't think that's funny now and drugs have diverged, but its not comedy either. But drugs were with us and still are and always will be. Their nature and names are all that change.
None of the above is what I would think. My thoughts would be more along the line of how did such a technological country become so morally bankrupt? What's with folks making a living on welfare? How did our political system change and not for the better? What happened to NASA and space exploration? Since when are we looking at having to fight a war over something as stupid as religion- now there's a reason to go kill somebody. When did we decide that being a Christian was something dirty? Since when does a group a people have special rights just because they want to have sex with the same gender? There are a lot of pluses and minuses. The pluses are technological and mechanical. The minuses are what we have allowed ourselves to become. But another plus, my grand parents and parents both thought the world was going to hell in hand basket before they died. I'm assuming that it's just part of life's cycle that our youth days were better.
In regards to "beatnics and drugs, I never saw a beatnik. That was a Kalifornia thing at best. We didn't have hippies here until my college days and that's the late 60's. Drugs have been around forever it seems but they were not anything here in the 50's, yet another Kalifornia thing. People here still had enough common sense to know to stay away from them unless they just wanted to their life in the toilet. And while I can appreciate the name of a book, why would I want to read about something I already know about as I lived thru it? I'm sure the 50's were different for most everybody depending on where you lived. My wife from Lansing Michigan doesn't know squat about the car culture but I was in the middle of it racing hot rods in Texas. We know little of the surfing era but I'm sure you know a lot. Folks in China would be oblivious to any of it. Read a book about what, some guys experiences? I have enough of my own but thanks anyway.
You never read "On the Road"...that explains a lot. Based on what you said, you haven't even heard of it. Talk about living a sheltered life. It was one of the most important books of the 1950s and was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
This kind of nonsense just tells me how out of touch some people are.
California in the 1950s was mostly conservative, more conservative than Michigan at least.
California is also the lifeblood of the American economy, I'm tired of people who've lived a sheltered life thinking they know about the country when they have no clue how important California is to it.
And to say that drugs were just a California thing is beyond idiotic. First of all, it was definitely everywhere...in Chicago, New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas City, etc. Second of all, California is the state which gave birth to both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan's careers. Third of all, just because you lived a sheltered and ignorant life doesn't mean your life was representative of the time. This is the worst part about having a discussion with someone about a time period long ago...they only see it through the rose-colored lenses of nostalgia.
Finally, the only reason why there's a backlash against Christianity is because starting in the 1950s is when Christians began trying to force their religion into politics and public life. The "Under God" part of the pledge...yeah, that was added in the 1950s. Then again, the religious wackadoos have been trying to force their crazy superstitions on everyone for ages, like in the Scopes trial.
But I guess the 50s were perfect because women could be harrassed without consequence, black people knew their place was at the white man's feet, men could drink themselves to oblivion and then drive home and gays stayed in the closet where they belonged, right?
One shocking thing I can tell you about, is when I was in high school in the early sixties, I remember a poll on "What is the worst thing in high school". The number one item was talking in class followed by chewing gum. Fast forward to today and the local high school I entered to receive a flu shot yesterday had three police cars parked by the front doors with ???HIGH SCHOOL POLICE written on the car doors and officers at all the main corridors. Back in day, we boys were terrified of our Dean of Boys. I say bring back school prayer on Jan. 1, 2013.
One shocking thing I can tell you about, is when I was in high school in the early sixties, I remember a poll on "What is the worst thing in high school". The number one item was talking in class followed by chewing gum. Fast forward to today and the local high school I entered to receive a flu shot yesterday had three police cars parked by the front doors with ???HIGH SCHOOL POLICE written on the car doors and officers at all the main corridors. Back in day, we boys were terrified of our Dean of Boys. I say bring back school prayer on Jan. 1, 2013.
My son went to a top rated high school in a very good area. He told me about at least two lockdowns of the school for gang activity which resulted in arrests. This was a few years ago. On top of the political agendas coloring the education kids get, even good schools aren't immune from the real world. The school also had a big problem with bullying.
One shocking thing I can tell you about, is when I was in high school in the early sixties, I remember a poll on "What is the worst thing in high school". The number one item was talking in class followed by chewing gum. Fast forward to today and the local high school I entered to receive a flu shot yesterday had three police cars parked by the front doors with ???HIGH SCHOOL POLICE written on the car doors and officers at all the main corridors. Back in day, we boys were terrified of our Dean of Boys. I say bring back school prayer on Jan. 1, 2013.
Schools and prayer do not belong together. If the school wants a moment of silence which is up to each, maybe, but what about the kids who don't follow the religion of school choice, would you force them to participate or be ostracised? Would the VP call them in and ask why they wouldn't stand for the prayer? Highly dangerous stuff.
One shocking thing I can tell you about, is when I was in high school in the early sixties, I remember a poll on "What is the worst thing in high school". The number one item was talking in class followed by chewing gum. Fast forward to today and the local high school I entered to receive a flu shot yesterday had three police cars parked by the front doors with ???HIGH SCHOOL POLICE written on the car doors and officers at all the main corridors. Back in day, we boys were terrified of our Dean of Boys. I say bring back school prayer on Jan. 1, 2013.
If prayer could fix societal problems, we would not have any, would we?
Or are you prepared to offer us an essay which establishes an undeniable cause and effect relationship between prayer and euphoric social conditions?
If prayer could fix societal problems, we would not have any, would we?
Or are you prepared to offer us an essay which establishes an undeniable cause and effect relationship between prayer and euphoric social conditions?
I'll try it this way.
Matthew 6:5-9
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name
Last edited by jdrtx; 11-06-2012 at 07:36 AM..
Reason: correction
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