[QUOTE=Miller]
No, cultural conflict is a constant throughout all human cultures, in all time periods. And the fifties in this nation were no exception. This was a decade that saw the KKK at the height of its power, the HUAC hearings, the Beat movement, the Korean war, plus the seeds of most of the debates that are currently in full flower, as well as a few that we’ve only recently settled: women’s rights, gay rights, abortion rights. All of these issues were in play in the fifties, although they were largely overshadowed by civil rights, which had been the single biggest cultural divide in this nation for over a century. No cultural conflict in the fifties? To the contrary, today’s political climate is down-right prosaic by comparison.
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I think you’re spot on, although I might quibble about the KKK thing-- they were at the peak of their power in the 20s and them maybe into 30s. By the 1950s they were already in decline.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
But – from what I know of the period’s history – none of those things produced strident conflict that became a subject of political campaigns, or public demonstrations or riots, or organized pressure groups, or any of the other features of “culture war” that we’ve lived with, off and on, since the mid-'60s.
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Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1955, with the Montgomery Bus Boycott following afterward.
The sit-in movement started at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960.
There were organized pressure groups, called White Citizens’ Councils, that were opposed to the civil rights movement. They started in the 1950s and peaked in the early 1960s.
I would say those meet your criteria for a culture war.
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]
Conservatives talk a lot about moral values, personal responsibility, and believe things are going to hell because of a lack of belief in absolutes and authority. Liberals could counter this by engaging conservatives in a “put your money where your mouth is” cultural debate. What are moral values we can agree on? Exactly why is there a need for absolutes? What is the proper role for personal responsibility and authority in a large corporatist state?
These and many other questions could be asked from a liberal POV that still assumes government must help people, not just control society. However, liberals (except the odd blogger perhaps) are still mostly unable or unwilling to engage and challenge the basic premises of the conservative culture war, instead of just focusing on sound-bite, hot-button issues.
Is this unclear, naïve, or frivolous? I don’t think so.
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Or just unsexy as hell? Help me out here.
There wasn’t anything “Nego” about Elvis’ music, he sang like what he was, an ignorant urban hillbilly. Of course, this was in the time when a lot of country music centered around white boys going to prison. What scared Ozzie and Harriet was they suspected, rightly, that he was singing about fucking. Like it was a good thing.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
There wasn’t anything “Nego” about Elvis’ music, he sang like what he was, an ignorant urban hillbilly.
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Elvis acknowledged that he was inspired by black music, many people who have written about him said he was influenced by black music, and one of the reasons some conservatives were so afraid of him was that his black music would corrupt white youths.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
And then we go back to the Granddaddy of the culture wars. Slavery, abolition, the Civil War, reconstruction.
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And the great-granddaddy, the American/French revolutions, among others; what might be called the anti-monarchy and anti-state religion movements.
Rock 'n Roll came out of a combination of rhythm & blues and country/hillbilly music. The former was most definitely “Negro music”. The early rockers were mostly Black musicians (think Louis Jordan and Alan Freed), and Elvis was the great White Hope of the music industry.
[QUOTE=mstay]
[Limbaugh mode]Well, those secular liberals keep aborting their children and using birth control. The problem should take care of itself eventually![/Limbaugh mode]
Alternatively, we could wait for all the old people to die off. Would that help things much?
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Hmmm…that’s pretty much an assumption that all of us “old farts” are conservative in our views. Some of the older folks actually become more liberal as they (I) age, contrary to the popular conception of older people becoming more conservative.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Presley was not unaware of black music. In fact, he was a fan. “The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doing now, man, for more years than I know,” Elvis told reporters in 1956. “I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.
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Goddammit, I was just trying to find exactly this quote, but came up empty. Curse you and your Google!
However, I did find these two quotes, one from each end of his career, which amused me:
His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.
-Frank Sinatra
There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis’ talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man.
-Frank Sinatra
But 'luci was right about the sex angle, too. Of course, we can’t forget the drugs either. After all, everyone “knew” that Negroes were sex-crazed drug addicts.
Carl Perkins was white? Huh. I always thought that picture was a tight fro. Wasn’t.
I know Elvis worked out of Sun, same as B.B. King, and did a lot of black music. So I point at the one I’m sure was a cover… and I pick the wrong one. Don’t Be Cruel, though, is one. So is Return to Sender. Hound Dog was written by a white team, but performed by a black woman. Got a copy of it somewhere.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
But 'luci was right about the sex angle, too. Of course, we can’t forget the drugs either. After all, everyone “knew” that Negroes were sex-crazed drug addicts.
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Absolutely, and the wiki link goes into that, too, I just elided it to focus on the race angle. But like you say, you can’t really seperate the two: the sex angle was almost certainly exacerbated by the fact that his music was so strongly and unashamedly influenced by black R&B artists. However, I wasn’t aware of Elvis being associated with drug use, at least early in his career. (Later in his career obviously being a very different story) Were there specific accusations/rumors about Elvis using drugs when he was younger?
I was unaware until earlier this month that the 1940’s especially was a time of terrible persecution within the United States of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some of it had to do with their beliefs that they shouldn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance or buy War Bonds. But the brutality was beyond anything that I had heard about.