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OP, some of the people who have idolized the 50's on this forum have been incels who were born long after that era, and who think that it was a time when every man of decent standing in society was issued a wife, guaranteed. They want to get back to an era, when all a guy had to do to attract a wife was make at least a modest living. None of these guys, though, has ever shown any awareness of the fact, that back then, they'd be expected to support the wife, and the eventually resulting kids.
Anyway, the point is, there's a contingent of men out there, who have a completely unrealistic view of the 50's, based on their own personal issues. They're active enough on the internet, that they can give the impression there's a significant trend toward nostalgia for the 50's. Some of this also may be politically driven by a family-values crowd, that's unhappy with the easier divorce laws of today, and other societal changes, like the rise of policies that are inclusive of once-marginalized populations.
I don't know anyone in real life, who idolizes the 50's. Do you know anyone who does? I wonder if this is mostly an internet phenomenon. Here on C-D, it has been far from "many" who hold a candle to the 50's. It's been a fairly rare, occasional single voice.
None of this has anything to do with the topic at hand. You might want to air your grievances with men out on the relationship subforum where perpetually single uber progressive girl bosses post.
All eras have contemporary issues and problems. What distinguishes the various eras is how well people in general stay balanced and focused, in spite of them. Perhaps the word "character" might be used for that.
In the 1950's, there was relatively no idleness and petty fussing as there is today. Too many these days make complaining and negativity a full-time job, and make sure everyone else hears their gripe fest too. And it's largely tolerated and promoted. People in the '50's though were focused and productive, and had no time for that.
Instead of focusing on the issues of the era / time period, look at the attitude / mindset / behaviors of the people, in response.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 05-02-2023 at 01:00 PM..
Many today invoke the 1950s as the ideal time and an example of how society should be. It is portrayed as a peaceful and prosperous time of traditional values, close knit families, and strong faith that binded the community together. It was apple pie and milkshakes. Then, it all came to an abrupt end at some point between the Kennedy assassination and the Beatles arriving in the USA. Did people in the 1950s, who lived through that time, see it that way?
It seems like a turbulent time looking at the actual history. It started with the Korean War and McCarthyism. McCarthyism was much nastier and a bigger deal than what a lot of people know. The threat of nuclear war back then was likely higher than ever because it was pre "mutually assured destruction" and a lot of generals had a quite disturbing view of nuclear weapons. People look at the 60s as the defining decade for civil rights, but you had Brown v Board of Education in the 1950s. Was the turbulence in the '50s confined to specific cities/regions and thus, without the Internet, most of the country was less aware so for them, it was the utopia it's constantly portrayed to be?
Another thing that would be interesting to know is if people in the 1950s had a nostalgic time they collectively looked back on as the "good ole days." Maybe the 1920s or the 1890s? American culture has been obsessed with the 1950s as the "good ole days" since at least the 80s if not before.
Where to start...
The 1930s saw widespread suffering and deprivation due to the Great Depression.
The 1940s saw widespread death and austerity due to World War II.
The 1950s saw a decade of peace and prosperity.
The red scare was mostly abstract. Something on the TV news. Moreover, patriotism was extremely high so almost everybody in the middle class was on the same page in opposing communism and being wary of it's influence and penetration. It was only Hollywood and the media screaming about McCarthy. Your everyday Joe opposed communism and supported McCarthy.
Coming off World War II, nobody saw Korea as a big deal, but the few soldiers sent to fight their, and their Moms. That was not even a big battle in World War II. Perspective is everything. Also recall, to that point America was undefeated in war. I would expect that the Korean War had general support from the US middle class who probably figured we would defeat North Korea in a year.
The threat of nuclear war was again, abstract. You didn't obsess over it on your commute on the subway. You were probably talking about who is pitching for the Yankees that night.
Prosperity
Recall that the entire industrial capacity of the world lay in ruins, except for America and the USSR, and the Soviets had no clue how to make products the world wanted. The USA became the worlds suppliers and our massive exports fueled a huge economic expansion that fueled prosperity nationwide. For the first time, homes were cheap, with the low cost stud-frame homes started for veterans after the war.
You just had far more prosperity than previous decades, with few of the cultural and social problems we have today. Very little gun crime, especially once Prohibition ended. Very few suicides.
It would take 50 pages to list everything. It was a golden era for Americans. It is not just "nostalgia". Things were very good until the first oil shock in 1973. It has been all downhill since then. Not bad, just a continual slide downhill.
Not completely. The microchip revolution really raised our quality of life for a while there, so there is that. The microchip revolution was a speed bump along our long, slow decline in overall quality of life.
Just one example -- nobody complained about schools in the 1950s. Education was pretty uniform and targetted on the 3-Rs. Parents were happy with schools and with teachers, for the most part. Look at today. Half of today's parents have huge concerns/complaints with schools today. Our schools were the envy of the world in the 1950s, especially our Universities.
Education is just one small example of the greatness of the 50s vs today. It certainly wasn't perfect. We have some massive benefits today. Today's tech is amazing and made massive imporovements in our quality of life, but there are so many other areas where we have suffered huge declines in QAL from the 1950s.
It was not a complete bed of roses. Black people were subject to racism. Women had limited options and were subject to sexism. Safety was not exactly emphasized. No seat belts or air bags in the 1950s. I am not saying it was some utopia, but it was a golden age.
OP, some of the people who have idolized the 50's on this forum have been incels who were born long after that era, and who think that it was a time when every man of decent standing in society was issued a wife, guaranteed. They want to get back to an era, when all a guy had to do to attract a wife was make at least a modest living. None of these guys, though, has ever shown any awareness of the fact, that back then, they'd be expected to support the wife, and the eventually resulting kids.
Anyway, the point is, there's a contingent of men out there, who have a completely unrealistic view of the 50's, based on their own personal issues. They're active enough on the internet, that they can give the impression there's a significant trend toward nostalgia for the 50's. Some of this also may be politically driven by a family-values crowd, that's unhappy with the easier divorce laws of today, and other societal changes, like the rise of policies that are inclusive of once-marginalized populations.
I don't know anyone in real life, who idolizes the 50's. Do you know anyone who does? I wonder if this is mostly an internet phenomenon. Here on C-D, it has been far from "many" who hold a candle to the 50's. It's been a fairly rare, occasional single voice.
Good points.
Now discuss the rate of mental illness in America then vs. now.
Discuss the youth suicide rate then vs. now.
Speaking of divorce, discuss the rate of illegitimacy and fatherless homes and single parenting, especially among African-Americans.
Talk to anybody young who is dating today about how easy it is meet people and get to know people. Not just hook up, but find the love of your life. That used to happen down at the Sock Hop or Drive In back in the 1950s.
You think women overall have it so great today, balancing a full-time career with parenting, while nobody is at home to raise the children? Yes. Best. Time. Ever.
Human nature never changes. Life is never a Utopia. The 1950s were simpler and there was a LOT less stress, anxiety, depression, and mental illness caused by today's crazy society.
The perception of the ‘50s very much depended on your personal circumstances. For minorities, particularly in the South, it was certainly not the same life that some others lived.
In my case, my parents were happy to be together and prosperous in the ‘50s after going through the Depression and a 4 year separation during WW2. That had been 15-16 years combined of deprivation and strife for them.
My parents had managed to graduate from college during the end of the Depression so both worked to improve their standard of living. My mother did not feel suppressed as she enjoyed her career. My dad also worked around the house, washed dishes, made our lunches, etc. I really thought most families were like mine until later. They did have such a fear of the Depression times that they paid off the mortgage in about 10 years.
People were aware of the McCarthy issue and Sputnik created unease of Russia’s power and determination to dominate. Polio was indeed feared. Schools (where I was) had few discipline problems but some classes had 40 students. We learned cursive writing and also had spelling tests, unlike today. Anyone who swore or cursed in “polite society†was considered trashy and classless (and class did not mean money, but civil behavior).
Many of us who grew up in the ‘50s had careers by the ‘70s and were buying first homes in their mid-20s. That has changed. Nothing was perfect but I do think there was less stress in some ways if you had the means and PTSD or other mental issues were not involved.
None of this has anything to do with the topic at hand. You might want to air your grievances with men out on the relationship subforum where perpetually single uber progressive girl bosses post.
I was discussing how widespread and legitimate a phenomenon nostalgia for the 50's really is. We haven't seen it much at all on C-D, and when we have, it's been mostly in a couple of very narrow contexts. It doesn't come up at all in conversations with people out in the world for me or anyone I know, so I'm wondering what the basis of the OP's premise is. One can get a skewed view of reality if one relies only, or mainly, on internet forums, blogs and chatrooms.
The 1950s turned out to be the calm between two storms: WW2 & Korea on one side and Vietnam on the other. At least that is how the decade looks to people who did not live through it. It was not as calm as it looks today. Americans of that era were often passive spectators at a very strange parade.
There was a deep desire to return to some normal life after the war and rationing -- but soldiers coming home found that a bit difficult. There was a housing shortage and families were cramped together. There was a sense of catching up with lost time -- having families in houses with a picture window and a picket fence as the American dream. The Adults had lived through the depression and the wars and wanted their kids to "have it better."
When developers finally got cracking on building homes (subdivisions) they were out in the suburbs on cheap land that used to be prime farmland. The (white) families scrimped and saved and bought new homes so they were not living in one room of grandma's house like we were. My parents new home cost $11,000 with 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a driveway, a picture window and a 30-year mortgage. We had a huge yard by today's standards, and a collie dog. There were kids everywhere and we did things in huge groups. That housing movement is termed "White Flight" but the racial aspect had less to do with it than people think. Blacks were pretty well confined in certain neighborhoods.
"Unpleasantness" was swept under the rug. There were no LBGTQ+ people -- they did not exist. Minorities, especially Blacks, were confined to certain parts of town and to certain occupations. They were treated badly in some places and worse in others. In 1957 the integration of the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was accomplished only by the nine black students being escorted and protected by armed members of the 101st Airborne Division sent in by President Eisenhower under the 1807 Insurrection Act. That was a harbinger of coming Civil Rights conflicts in the following years.
Eisenhower provided a very stable image of a man in full control. We all liked him as a nice fatherly figure. My parents were Democrats and I decided that I would parrot the slogan "I Like Ike" to their horror. I was actually a solid Adlai Stevenson man at the age of four and again at eight. Stevenson was labeled "The Egghead" by anti-intellectual campaign voices in the GOP, including Richard Nixon. I remember election night in 1956 because of the room sized Univac computer that was tabulating votes on our little TV set.
The polio epidemic was a serious threat. Most families had an experience or a scare with polio. My uncle was put in a wheelchair for life. I want to school with kids who had shortened legs or arms. There were whole wards of kids in iron lung machines. We all lined up for our vaccine shots at school. There was no real debate about it -- you did it without question.
The Russians launched Sputnik in 1957 as the first artificial satellite and we were all shocked -- we had fallen behind. So, we tried to launch our own and it blew up on the launchpad. Then the Russians launched Muttnik in 1957 -- with a dog named Laika as a passenger. Laika died in space, but all looked at dogs differently for a while. Then The Russians launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit 1961 and we launched Allan Shepherd into sub-orbit a month later. We felt we were catching up.
The religious right got to their feet for the first time as the 1960 election approached. The Baptists and other evangelicals were sworn enemies of JFK and were campaigning against him before he even declared his candidacy because he was Roman Catholic -- horror of horrors! If he won the presidency, the Pope would be in charge! There was a vocal anti-Catholic contingent in everyone's neighborhood. My mom's Baptist missionary cousins were furloughed and brought home from Brazil to campaign against Kennedy and stayed with us for two weeks while they preached against JFK in local churches. We had always thought that they were in Brazil to convert the tribes in the Amazon. They were actually in Sao Paulo trying to make Baptists out of Catholics -- a rescue mission in their eyes. I was old enough to recognize the hypocrisy and lack of integrity in their messages. I more strongly favored JFK after that.
We traded a hot war for a cold war and the A-bomb was on most people's minds in some way. We were hiding under our desks in school. The school district issued various directives to families as to what the protocol would be in case of an attack. It changed almost every year. We had civil defense supplies in the school basement. I remember being excited for Castro and the Cuban revolution in 1959 but that turned sour a short time later.
The situation in Southeast Asia was getting out of hand. The French tried to return and replace the Japanese occupiers and the locals wanted none of it -- but were not totally enamored with communism either. There were a lot of factions. The battle at Dien Bien Phu (1954) was in the far north of Vietnam and the Viet Minh eventually defeated the French, who then withdrew their military from Indochina. The US was fully engaged with support for the French in military supplies and the CIA directed some air support against the Viet Minh during the battle. The CIA was increasingly engaged in covert operations throughout Indochina and was sending out (often manufactured) reports of communist atrocities. Colonialism was on the ropes everywhere -- the British were tied down in Malaysia fighting the communists there during the 1950s and were finally successful where the French had failed. The US was getting increasingly involved -- Eisenhower had already sent 900 US military advisors to South Vietnam by the end of his term and the CIA was fully engaged. The Diem regime was astoundingly corrupt and abusive but there was no other option for US support in Vietnam. We had supported the Viet Minh fighting against the Japanese but now they were our enemies. (That sounds a bit familiar.)
The 1950s found the US sitting in the driver's seat in international affairs but we were a little unsure how to proceed in some cases. Looking back, it seems sort of clumsy in the post-war years and into the 1950s and '60s. The WW2 enemies were replaced by the communists. Senator McCarthy was sure they were sleeping under our beds, and we had to expose them at all costs. That did not go well. Our covert CIA activities were ham-fisted and provocative. They were flying U2 reconnaissance missions over Soviet territory from bases in Pakistan and Iran. We had been using British pilots but then switched to Americans. The efforts got bolder and the route for the ill-fated U2 flight piloted by Francis Powers was intended to fly from Pakistan and land in Norway. It was shot down about halfway in the flight in the Ural Mountain region. The incident took place on May 1st, 1960, a major Soviet national holiday. Not the best timing for an international incident.
Considering how vocal Americans became in the following decades, through Vietnam and Watergate and later scandals and episodes, we seemed more like spectators without a voice in public affairs back then. The "Silent Generation" came of age in the 1950s and 1960s (born from 1928 to 1945) and that might be an accurate perception.
Now discuss the rate of mental illness in America then vs. now.
Discuss the youth suicide rate then vs. now.
Speaking of divorce, discuss the rate of illegitimacy and fatherless homes and single parenting, especially among African-Americans.
Talk to anybody young who is dating today about how easy it is meet people and get to know people. Not just hook up, but find the love of your life. That used to happen down at the Sock Hop or Drive In back in the 1950s.
You think women overall have it so great today, balancing a full-time career with parenting, while nobody is at home to raise the children? Yes. Best. Time. Ever.
Human nature never changes. Life is never a Utopia. The 1950s were simpler and there was a LOT less stress, anxiety, depression, and mental illness caused by today's crazy society.
There was definitely mental illness back then! But it was hidden for the most part, kept hush-hush, swept under the carpet in families, which meant some children were raised by at least one parent who had undiagnosed mental illness. People experienced childhood trauma and simply lived with the consequences, no even understanding, that unresolved trauma was at the root of their "moods" and was the cause of dysfunction in the family. The ability of the mental health care profession back then to treat trauma was non-existent. Unresolved trauma leads to personality disorders, depression, and in some cases, more serious mental illness. Lobotomies were the standard of practice for some patients with serious mental illness, as well as for women diagnosed with "hysteria".
Many people never did find the love of their life; that's a cliche. It was common for women to settle for "good providers", because they needed them in order to survive and raise a family. Good providers often weren't found at the sock hop or drive-in. For some, they were found at some point in college or afterwards, after the guys had acquired employment potential via a degree. Life was not a Hollywood movie, despite Hollywood's attempt to get everyone to believe it was. That's where some of this false nostalgia comes from: TV and film, vs. reality.
And some of those "good providers" were trapped in jobs they hated, but needed to spend their lives at, because they were supporting a gaggle of dependents. Talk about stress! If there was less stress in the 50's, why was it so common for doctors to prescribe valium or other tranquilizers for women? Some people were stuck in bad marriages, because of restrictive divorce laws. Some men were stuck in bad jobs, or industrial jobs that robbed them of their health.
Anyway, so much for the stroll down nostalgia lane. I think nostalgia for that era is a fringe phenomenon that gets amplified by the internet.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 05-02-2023 at 03:30 PM..
I think the people best answer it would be the ones that lived through it. My parents were children during the 1950s and they enjoyed it. Of course, it is common for children at that era to enjoy it, just like children today say they enjoy living in the 2020s. With Adults living at that era I sure you can get a diverse response. Yet what has not changed is people want to get the latest gadgets and see the latest blockbuster films.
Yet the world has changed in social values, today more and more people than ever before are single, even if they enter a relationship, it often never ends up in marriage, even if they have kids. Yet in the 1950s once children reached adulthood it was normal, they got married and had kids.
Sure in the 1950s it was common for people to be stuck in unhappy abusive and unfaithful marriages, yet today it is common today for single people who are sick of being single and even given up looking for a partner.
LGBT in the 1950s were in the closet and often living a double life if they were married and had children then.
There were concerns in the fifties. There was much talk about 'pinkos, 'fellow travelers' or 'communist influenced organizations'. I can remember HUAC getting a lot of ink.
The civil rights movement was hot and heavy with demonstrations and backlash erupting in several areas of the country. Little Rock's Central High School and Faubus were major news. What people don't credit enough is that the civil rights fight was on in places outside the south. Woolworth's had to explain why it had restaurants which discriminated in some areas, which led to calls for nationwide boycotts.
Job discrimination was rampant. Restaurant chains like White Tower had a practice of hiring no minorities. In addition to advertisements for a 'gal Friday', many ads for household help would state that 'European descent' was preferred. Construction unions required apprentices to be related to a union member by blood or marriage. Many industrial unions like the steelworkers had essentially segregated progression. Public accommodations gave little heed to access to everyone -- the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC was notorious for turning away black guests. Insurance and advertising industries pretty much excluded Jews.
With the rocket exploding last week, I recalled the early American space program. People then were concerned by how often rockets exploded on the ground, even those named 'Honest John'. Since Kruschev had predicted war every ten years or so, folks generally feared a nuclear conflict. Those air raid shelter signs went up on a lot of the public building which had basements. In the case of an attack, one was supposed to cower in those.
The polio epidemic had actual dangers with many children who became afflicted with the disease. There were kids who grew up with withered arms and such in the fifties. It made me regret that soccer was not more popular because I had three friends with limited arm movement who could have played soccer. Treatment for polio included the iron lung, a full body contraption which aided the breathing process.
We ushered in new states and Texas, which had long boasted of its large size, was discovered to be half the size of Alaska. In the fifties, juvenile delinquency was a growing concern, a la 'the Asphalt Jungle'. Misguided youth made zip guns out of broken car antennas and .22 bullets. I'm not sure if the guns worked or not. "Made in Japan" was a term for cheap goods.
The end of the fifties brought major union strikes (like UAW) which were the harbingers of some strife to come. Now I can see the brewing problems as to America's education system and the discontent which led to Vatican I and II in the sixties.
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