In what ways has U.S. culture changed since you were young? (community, prodigy)
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Then vs now:
Now::every kid has a "special" need. OCD. ADD. A prodigy or ritalin drugged.
Then: the kids were either held back to relearn or given a talking to on being "unattentive". Us kids learned real quick to pick up the pace.
Then: racism was more prevalent. Saw riots ...during the Civil rights movement.
Now: we have this huge divide on immigration and particularly the humans coming from the borders. Funny how we still aren't a civil nation.
Then: only officers or sadly hunters had guns.
Now: school shootings are the norm. Theater/university shootings...just another day....
Then: the family unit was inclusive...unified.
Now: toss parents in convalescent home to rot.,and put the kids in day care .or get a nanny.
Then: huge varience in pay between men/ladys'
Now: it's slightly better though a 5% to 10% higher is usually given to the men.
Then: dating: guys got grilled by the girls parents.
Now: most parents have zero clue .
Then: family had one car.
Now: three cars. Because by golly coming up with a share program is just too mind boggling.
I took two years of typing in high school. About 1/3 of the class were boys during the first year, but the second year, there were about 60 girls and two boys. Am I mistaken, but weren't the keys on manual typewriters more widely-spaced than those on keyboards today? I could touch-type very well on those old typewriters, but my hands are way too large to do it on a computer keyboard. I mostly use my two forefingers to type on them. I've searched for a keyboard with wider spacing on the keys, but they don't seem to exist. There are keyboards that are much larger and with extra sections of keys, but their basic keypads are no wider in their spacing.
Another thing is that ever since I shifted to Windows 10 from Vista several years ago, the spacing seems much more difficult to get right. I often have to go back and correct words where the symbols are jammed together and when I try to delete a letter, often, the letter that seems to be next to it is the one that gets changed. It just isn't possible that my finger coordination could be slipping, as years go by. Anyone else noticed this?
Many keyboards now are 2/3 size. I learned typing in high school, and was actually a secretary for several years before I went to college. I don't have the patience to learn to type on a 2/3-size keyboard. I always search for full-size ones.
As a corollary, do you think culture changed more from, say 1960 to 1980? Or 1980 to 2000? Or 2000-today?
I don't want to sidetrack my own thread, but I think the country changed more from 1960 - 1980.
In 1960, I think that most people were more of less conformist, and there was very little diversity about anything, and most people liked it that way. They were either somewhere in the middle class or above, or they aspired to be, and they believed in the idea that if you did all the "right" things you would succeed. They held on to the morals and ethics of the U.S. going back to colonial times. Yes, there were definitely some people of which the foregoing did not apply -- the very poor, many non-whites, and a few "beatniks" -- but I would guess that at least 70% of the people were as I described in the opening sentences of this paragraph. (Not that it was all wonderful -- it wasn't -- but most people thought they either had it good or would someday have it good.)
In 1980, most of this had changed. The Vietnam "war" had happened, which was VERY unpopular and made many people question the status quo, not just the young people; and of course, there were Kent State and the Chicago Democratic convention riots and the Watts riots, where people in authority actually were killing citizens, including young people, and people were fighting back (the SDS movement, for example). We had the rise of the many so-called minorities (blacks, gays, and others). There were the hippie movement and the Women's Lib movement, and the Pill (birth control) became widely available, which had many ramifications. There were three assassinations that rocked the nation (John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..) And also, by 1980, more and more people became aware that the "good life" was NOT a reality or much of a possibility for many people. In short, the U.S. culture of 1980 was vastly different from that of 1960.
After 1980, although there was a return to materialism (including the Yuppies), the major changes of 1960-80 simply increased. Although these changes only gradually increased at first, it seems to me that there was a huge acceleration after Obama was elected in 2008. And now with Trump in office, there now seems to be a major divide between liberals and conservatives, and the extremists on both sides have become even more extreme.
Of course, the above is not scholarly at all, but it is just how I see things.
Last edited by katharsis; 06-20-2019 at 04:29 PM..
I don't want to sidetrack my own thread, but I think the country changed more from 1960 - 1980.
In 1960, I think that most people were more of less conformist, and there was very little diversity about anything, and most people liked it that way. They were either somewhere in the middle class or above, or they aspired to be, and they believed in the idea that if you did all the "right" things you would succeed. They held on the morals and ethics of the U.S. going back to colonial times. Yes, there were definitely some people of which the foregoing did not apply -- the very poor, many non-whites, and a few "beatniks" -- but I would guess that at least 70% of the people were as I described in the opening sentences of this paragraph. (Not that it was all wonderful -- it wasn't -- but most people thought they either had it good or would someday have it good.
In 1980, most of this had changed. The Vietnam "war" had happened, which was VERY unpopular and made many people question the status quo, not just the young people; and of course, there were Kent State and the Chicago Democratic convention riots and the Watts riots, where people in authority actually were killing citizens, including young people, and people were fighting back (the SDS movement, for example). We had the rise of the many so-called minorities (blacks, gays, and others). There was the hippie movement and the Women's Lib movement, and the Pill (birth control) became widely available, which had many ramifications. There were three assassinations that rocked the nation (John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..) And also, by 1980, more and more people became aware that the "good life" was NOT a reality or much of a possibility for many people. In short, the U.S. culture of 1980 was vastly different than that of 1960.
After 1980, although there was a return to materialism (including the Yuppies), the major changes of 1960-80 simply increased. Although these changes only gradually increased at first, it seems to me that there was a huge acceleration after Obama was elected in 2008. And now with Trump in office, there now seems to be a major divide between liberals and conservatives, and the extremists on both sides have become even more extreme.
Of course, the above is not scholarly at all, but it is just how I see things.
Me too. I think it was a paradigm cultural shift when we went from being a mostly conformist society to the nonconformity of the 60s.
I can also see the argument that the internet, as well as everyone owning a personal computer was another paradigm shift. And, to some degree, the political divisiveness and general sense of insecurity of the 2000s is creating another big cultural shift. But if I had to make a choice I'd say the 1960s cultural shift had the biggest impact.
Some things in the past were better than now and some were worse.
Women really didn't have a choice whether or not to have children. They were just part of life and while most women welcomed having their kids, some did not. But there definitely wasn't such a focus on kids in general. They were just there and had about as much importance as keeping the house clean.
Kids were far better behaved then as well. You didn't go to restaurants and see small children screaming and running around. By the same token, people were much more tolerant of babies crying in public places.
There was a clear expectation of how you would live your life. School, college, job, marriage, house, and kids. No deviation.
Kids were way more independent. I had to walk alone to kindergarten and back 3 whole blocks by myself when I was 4. I remember staying home alone for two weeks while my parents and brothers went on vacation (I had a summer babysitting job). I was 13.
People weren't overly PC then. If they were prejudiced, we all knew who they didn't like. But nobody talked about it.
My dad would have been arrested now for beating us kids the way he did then. When the school counselor found out, we all just went to counseling, which focused on telling me to just get along with my father. But it seems all my friends had parents who were semi-violent to them. It seemed like a natural thing for say, someone like my friend Diane to get thrown halfway down the basement steps by her mom because she "woke the *&^% baby!"
We went all over for Halloween. We left our houses as soon as it got dark and didn't come back except to dump our bags or until everyone turned off the porch lights. If we got tired, we sat down on someone's lawn and ate some candy. No one had to check it.
Stalking protection wasn't around then and it was harder to get a divorce.
There were no bike helmets and no seat belts (which I hate even today). There was no mandatory car insurance. We could ride in the open back of a truck, with the wind blowing through our hair. No mandatory motorcycle helmets.
We had blue laws. My dad was so happy the day they did away with those and he didn't have to come home early during the week to take my mom to shop.
My mom didn't drive and used an old 1920s wringer washing machine until the mid 60s. You didn't buy new things until you could afford them then. She was a SAHM and kept the house so clean you could eat off the floors. She did spring and fall housecleaning and mattresses got turned over and vacuumed and the walls were all washed down. Now we have no-flip mattresses. My mom was able to do all this, cook, do laundry and dishes, and still had time to watch all her soaps all afternoon and have morning coffee klatches with the neighborhood women two or three times a week. Where did she find the time? She wasn't entertaining us kids 24/7. We were outside having fun on our own.
Girls wore dresses to school. It was a huge moment when we could wear pants, but they had to be "dress slacks". Girls had to all take home ec. We pretended to misread the recipes when we made fun stuff like brownies and made a huge pan. We had to knit and sew. I never really learned to sew and all I could knit was an 8 ft scarf.
Everyone was a Christian (except me, it seems) and boy, when rock and roll came along, it was the end of the world. Women wore scandalous skirts that showed their knees. In church, even!
People were all the same. We all lived the same, we all read the same books, went to the same schools and churches, shopped at the same stores, bought the same stuff. We never learned to be polite about different people because there were none. Once a Mexican family moved into the neighborhood. They ate dinner at OMG! 7pm! Us normal people all ate dinner at 5.
TV was black and white. The bad guys were the people who did bad things or looked different or spoke a different language. It would have been inconceivable that someone we knew in our immediate neighborhood could do something terrible.
People were more practical. There was a definite kid stage, a teenage stage, an adult stage. When you moved from one stage to the next, you also left behind anything that was seen as juvenile no matter how much fun it was. I still remember my mom asking me when I was going to outgrow my fascination for pocket pets. When I was 35.
People today are extending their childhoods, something that was unthinkable then. Many older people today get upset when younger people don't want to follow the prescribed life path they took. They think today's young adults are indulging themselves or that they don't want to grow up. They think a hard life breeds character. Maybe they're right. And maybe a hard life breeds the wrong kind of character.
I think today's younger people are more fluid, more flexible, more tolerant, and more open to new ideas and experiences. It could be that all younger people were this way once and maybe this is the first generation that is actually free to act on how they feel, where as in the past young adults were too busy and too focused on making a living to think about how they felt. It's hard to be tolerant and creative when you're trying to put a roof over your head and food on the table or fight for basic rights, like voting.
If that's the case, we're headed into a future that is unprecedented. And it may be the reason why conservatives are so hellbent on dragging their heels into the ground. The change in our culture has been immense in the last couple of decades, but I don't think that change is anything compared to what's coming. People always seem to get more conservative as they get older and conservative people hate change. And I think the change that's coming will be enough to make any conservative turn pale and run the other way.
Then vs now:
Now::every kid has a "special" need. OCD. ADD. A prodigy or ritalin drugged.
Then: the kids were either held back to relearn or given a talking to on being "unattentive". Us kids learned real quick to pick up the pace.
Then: racism was more prevalent. Saw riots ...during the Civil rights movement.
Now: we have this huge divide on immigration and particularly the humans coming from the borders. Funny how we still aren't a civil nation.
Then: only officers or sadly hunters had guns.
Now: school shootings are the norm. Theater/university shootings...just another day....
Then: the family unit was inclusive...unified.
Now: toss parents in convalescent home to rot.,and put the kids in day care .or get a nanny.
Then: huge varience in pay between men/ladys'
Now: it's slightly better though a 5% to 10% higher is usually given to the men.
Then: dating: guys got grilled by the girls parents.
Now: most parents have zero clue .
Then: family had one car.
Now: three cars. Because by golly coming up with a share program is just too mind boggling.
Police officers were well respected and applauded. They were thought of us protectors and were the good guys. (I still think of them that way as they should be!)
Young people now have engagement and pregnancy photo sessions. These cost hundreds of dollars.
Destination weddings where you are expected to attend and pay to travel to a wedding in some location you may not want to even be at.
I can tell you as a teacher that high school kids don't just hang out anymore. They text on their phones all day or play video games or sleep their summers away. We spent our summers working part-time, going to the beach, lake, movies, bowling, to the park, pool, hanging out at a fast food place, playing foosball or doing something!
A young child could play in the neighborhood all day in just check in at lunch and dinner and didn't have to worry about being abducted.
Sex was casual as a teen and anything you got penicillin could cure. We didn't have to worry about AIDS.
You dressed up to go to church. Girls wore dresses and boys wore slacks and a button down shirt.
You didn't wear panty hose or make up until you were a teenager.
Halloween was just about trick or treating and definitely not the holiday event it is now. We wore homemade costumes, everyone was a hobo, clown or cowboy. We used pillow cases for halloween bags. The only decorations we had were the hand drawn pumpkins on the front door that we made in school.
We got out of school for Christmas break. Now it is called winter break. We had Christmas parties at school, now they are winter parties. We could have a Christmas tree in the classroom back then.
The paperboy was 11 or 12 years old and responsible and smart enough to deliver papers to your house and collect the money.
As a kid you played baseball or football if you were in elementary school. You were not running around every day after school for various sports and lessons.
You ate dinner at the dinner table as a family.
Dads were usually the only ones who worked and most moms stayed home. My generation started to become the latch key kids.
Things started going downhill with the anti-establishment generation Woodstock and drugs.
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