The Starving Artist plan to restore America to its former glory!

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@random6x7

We seem to go through a raunchy and violent to prudish and back again cycle, and I just don’t see anything different about what’s going on these days.

Self-censorship is not gone; certain words are still taboo in society. It’s just that those words have changed. Sure, you can now hear “shit” on TNT. But you’ll never hear “faggot” or “jigaboo” or “spic”. Much less the dreaded “N-word”, which is the only word I know of, besides the “F-bomb”, to have a nickname.

When I was a child in the 70’s, we learned that “damn” and “hell” were very bad words. But, we played a roughhousing game called “Smear the Queer.” In my lily-white junior high, we had one black kid, named Chip. Guess what we called him? Chocolate Chip. Also there was Joey “Jewy” Lerner, the sole Jew in my class. None of those linguistic habits would pass today.

Clearly, society’s sense of what is taboo has changed, just in my 40-odd years.

And for what it’s worth, SA, my main objection to your posts in this thread is that you are simplistically identifying one element - “liberal attitudes” - as the sole cause of all the things you deplore. Cultural change is more complicated than that, dude.

[elucidator]

I can tell you exactly why not: politicians don’t determine lifestyle…

Aw goddamn contrary! I remember perfectly well how the Presidency of Ronald Reagan inspired so many young men to dye their hair orange!

[Starving_Artist]

@Slow_Moving_Vehicle

And for what it’s worth, SA, my main objection to your posts in this thread is that you are simplistically identifying one element - “liberal attitudes” - as the sole cause of all the things you deplore. Cultural change is more complicated than that, dude.

Yeah, I understand that. It’s just that in my opinion liberal attitudes (or philosophy pehaps) have been and are the breeding ground for the negative social change I’ve been talking about, and also that liberal attitudes are the reason why people continue to turn a blind eye to them or defend them.

But thanks for your post. I appreciate your comment.

[Starving_Artist]

@elucidator

Aw goddamn contrary! I remember perfectly well how the Presidency of Ronald Reagan inspired so many young men to dye their hair orange!

Hell, I worked and worked and worked and could never get my hair to stand up higher on one side either.

[BigT]

I think you need to define liberal attitudes/philosophy.

[Boyo_Jim]

Any proposal that involves change since 1954.

[elucidator]

Whaddaya mean, politicians don’t affect lifestyles? Does the name Jackie Kennedy ring any bells? Half the women in America tried to copy her style! The sack dress, the leopard skin pill-box hat? But maybe thats a womanly thing, a politician wants to impress men, they show a picture of him taking a bite out of a hand-grenade.

Of course, all of this augurs ill for you. I mean, everybody knows that once you go Barrack, you never go back…

[Starving_Artist]

Pssst…Jackie wasn’t a politician.

[magellan01]

@Revenant_Threshold

magellan, when you say “move to” what are you talking about? Government mandated school uniforms?

Don’t know. I was merely trying to point to something of the fifties that would benefit us today. So, sure, have schools mandate it. It wouldn’t cost parents more than it costs them now. Probably way less. But I’m more interested at this point in what we may find worthy of adopting from the fifties. If we all like it, then we can find some way to do it. Hypothetically, of course.

[Starving_Artist]

@magellan01

I have a simple question to all those who have been doing this, can you think of no aspect of the fifties that would make our society a better one today.

I think this would be a great subject for a thread or a poll.

@magellan01

Here, I’ll start: wouldn’t it be better for kids, and society, if they were so enamored with fashion. This, I think, impacts all groups negatively, and those in the lower economic strata disproportionately. Now, we can’t undo the rise of the brand, but how about if we moved to khakis and a logo-free solid color shirt for boys and something similar for girls? I think that’s one thing that might make us more fifties-like, without necessitating a return to segregated lunch counters, the resurgence of the KKK, and the end of safe abortions.

I’ve wondered the same thing too. Let’s just assume that all the changes in the way people used to talk, dress and act were necessary in order to achieve racial and women’s rights after all. Well, those ships have largely sailed and they are no longer the problem that they were fifty years ago. So why not begin to reclaim some of the positive things from that era (and before) which made society function more smoothly and life more pleasant?

[elucidator]

Both of them? Or just cars with fins?

[Boyo_Jim]

@magellan01

I’ve seen threads like this before where SA’s desire to see some of the good things from the fifties exist today gets changed to he wants ALL of what the 50s were like.

I have a simple question to all those who have been doing this, can you think of no aspect of the fifties that would make our society a better one today. Here, I’ll start: wouldn’t it be better for kids, and society, if they were so enamored with fashion. This, I think, impacts all groups negatively, and those in the lower economic strata disproportionately. Now, we can’t undo the rise of the brand, but how about if we moved to khakis and a logo-free solid color shirt for boys and something similar for girls? I think that’s one thing that might make us more fifties-like, without necessitating a return to segregated lunch counters, the resurgence of the KKK, and the end of safe abortions.

Anyone else?

This is not an element of the 50s you think is good; this is an element of the 60s (or 70s or whenever designer labels got big) you think is bad.

Pick something good that has gone away, not something bad that has cropped up since.

[elucidator]

Was pretty cool, I guess. So long as you weren’t black. Or gay. Or a woman. Or latino. Or poor. Or weird. For everybody else, pretty great!

[Starving_Artist]

@Boyo Jim

This is not an element of the 50s you think is good; this is an element of the 60s (or 70s or whenever designer labels got big) you think is bad.

Pick something good that has gone away, not something bad that has cropped up since.

I’m thinking that 1963 would be a fairly good cut-off point in terms of what I would regard as being American style and societal mores at their zenith (apart from race and women’s issues and gay rights, that is). But I also think it goes back quite a way too, perhaps as far as the turn of the century. I don’t believe that societal conventions and mores changed all that much between 1900 and 1963.

@elucidator

Was pretty cool, I guess. So long as you weren’t black. Or gay. Or a woman. Or latino. Or poor. Or weird. For everybody else, pretty great!

No fair, luce. As Magellan01 suggested, we’re supposed to be looking for positive elements from that time that would make our society a better one today. Presumably poor people and weird people and everyone else will be lifted by the rising tide. For example, let’s say that people began for whatever reason to start to behaving toward each other in ways that are more polite and courteous and respectful and that as a result road rage incidents were to fall to pre-1963 levels - which is to say practically unheard of. That would benefit everyone wouldn’t it?

[Revenant_Threshold]

@magellan01

Don’t know. I was merely trying to point to something of the fifties that would benefit us today. So, sure, have schools mandate it. It wouldn’t cost parents more than it costs them now. Probably way less. But I’m more interested at this point in what we may find worthy of adopting from the fifties. If we all like it, then we can find some way to do it. Hypothetically, of course.

I think the hypothetical part is the problem; for me, controlling cultural change isn’t something you can do (at least, without causing much greater problems). It’s affected by so many things, a lot of them outside of control anyway, that it’s essentially a fool’s errand. When it comes to culture, for the most part you can’t do much to pick and choose how people will react.

[E-Sabbath]

@elucidator

Whaddaya mean, politicians don’t affect lifestyles? Does the name Jackie Kennedy ring any bells? Half the women in America tried to copy her style! The sack dress, the leopard skin pill-box hat? But maybe thats a womanly thing, a politician wants to impress men, they show a picture of him taking a bite out of a hand-grenade.

Actually, the story goes, JFK killed hats for men by appearing bare-headed.

[eleanorigby]

@Slow_Moving_Vehicle

Self-censorship is not gone; certain words are still taboo in society. It’s just that those words have changed. Sure, you can now hear “shit” on TNT. But you’ll never hear “faggot” or “jigaboo” or “spic”. Much less the dreaded “N-word”, which is the only word I know of, besides the “F-bomb”, to have a nickname.

You never heard those words (faggot, jigaboo etc) on TV back then OR in polite company. (truly polite company, that is-by which I mean well bred people). I hear the word faggot and the “N word” often. Not daily, not by me and mine, but I hear it.

When I was a child in the 70’s, we learned that “damn” and “hell” were very bad words. But, we played a roughhousing game called “Smear the Queer.” In my lily-white junior high, we had one black kid, named Chip. Guess what we called him? Chocolate Chip. Also there was Joey “Jewy” Lerner, the sole Jew in my class. None of those linguistic habits would pass today.

The two are not equivalent. I also had one lone black boy in my entire elementary school. We called him Brian, because that was his name. I went to school with tons of Jewish kids and never called them names. Kids have always and will always play “games” wherein they attempt to define what is acceptable and what is not. How that game manifests itself is more a reflection of the perceived group leaders than anything else (and I will agree that those group leaders may well be “channeling” what they learn from the adults in their lives). Are the barriers breaking down–yes, slowly and thank god for that. But kids can be as mean today as they ever were.

And for what it’s worth, SA, my main objection to your posts in this thread is that you are simplistically identifying one element - “liberal attitudes” - as the sole cause of all the things you deplore. Cultural change is more complicated than that, dude.

Absolutely. And what boggles my mind is how “Conservative is all good” in his eyes. It’s a great example of black and white thinking, set in stone. In its way, it’s amazing.

[elucidator]

@Starving_Artist

…No fair, luce. As Magellan01 suggested, we’re supposed to be looking for positive elements from that time that would make our society a better one today. Presumably poor people and weird people and everyone else will be lifted by the rising tide. For example, let’s say that people began for whatever reason to start to behaving toward each other in ways that are more polite and courteous and respectful and that as a result road rage incidents were to fall to pre-1963 levels - which is to say practically unheard of. That would benefit everyone wouldn’t it?

I can certainly see why you would find such a restriction agreeable! Yes, lets confine our discussion to the ways in which you are right, and set aside minor quibbles and carpings about how you are wrong.

Good luck with that.

Is it your contention that conservatives are the inheritors and protectors of a tradition of polite civility that they embody and practice in the face of liberal corruption? You are certainly welcome to believe that, if you are determined to, but I suggest that the behavior of present-day conservatives do not support any such fanciful notion.

[Mr.Excellent]

Starving Artist, I’m a liberal Democrat. I support health-care reform, opposed the war in Iraq, have always voted for Democratic candidates, and so on. I’m a staunch ACLU supporter, and I think it’s a tragic waste of people’s lives to throw them in jail.

I’m also a lawyer, with a degree from a top-tier school that I worked very, very hard to earn. I have a job, which I work hard at - and I like to believe I’m pretty good at it, too. When you dismiss liberalism as the philosophy of entitled teenagers who disdain hard work and wish only to be protected from the big bad world of adult responsibility, you’re insulting me tremendously. A person with the courtesy and civility you claim to espouse would knock it the hell off.

One other thing, regarding racism: There is a very simple reason that we tend to focus on that problem when we look at the USA of the 1950s and earlier. The statement is certainly true that, for many people, life was totally fine back then. However, it is equally true that there were many people who lived perfectly normal, happy lives in Germany from 1933-1939. There were many people who lived perfectly normal, happy lives during most of the Soviet Union’s history - and if you doubt me, consider that there’s a reason the Communist Party still has voters in Russia.

You can find people in any time, in any place, under any regime, who are living normal, happy lives. That’s because (a) no government can squash all of the people, all of the time (there’s even an elite in North Korea) and (b) people are flexible creatures, and we find happiness in places that might seem too small to hold much of it. But that doesn’t mean that the place or time or regime isn’t an evil one - you need to look deeper, to look at the have-nots, to figure that out.

For most of its history, most people in the United States were either slaves, disenfranchised, or subject to arbitrary racial discrimination (often violent discrimination). For most people in the United States today - all women, all non-white men, all poor men, all Catholics and all Jews, all gay people and bi people and transgendered people, everyone who speaks English as a second language - for all of these people, a trip to the 1950s (or earlier) would be nightmarish indeed.

And that is why, Starving Artist, we find your views so distasteful here. Because they show such an utter lack of concern (real concern, not the patronizing kind) for the welfare of all of these people, and more besides.

[magellan01]

@Revenant_Threshold

I think the hypothetical part is the problem; for me, controlling cultural change isn’t something you can do (at least, without causing much greater problems). It’s affected by so many things, a lot of them outside of control anyway, that it’s essentially a fool’s errand.

I don’t think that’s true. Take my school dress for example. It’s actually being done in many school right now, particularly in some Charter Schools. Everyone seems to like it. Most of these schools are in inner cities, where a gangsta influence is pretty strong. But it’s a little harder to to walk around calling women bitches and hos and telling guys you’re gonna bust a cap in their ass when you’re wearing a white shirt tucked into a pair of khakis. In this instance, what would be the “much greater problems”? It’s being done right now and I have yet to hear one problem attributed to the dress code.

@Revenant_Threshold

When it comes to culture, for the most part you can’t do much to pick and choose how people will react.

Maybe. I agree that it may be difficult to find the “button” to push to make a particular change happen, but some good things could probably be instituted, or encouraged. The book Nudge talks about encouraging more positive behaviors by slightly altering policy.

I’d just add that thrust of my initial post was to show that someone’s desire to see some of the good things from the fifties incorporated into today’s society does NOT necessitate that we return to the fifties in toto. If there are things that we view as positive and we could re-instill them in society without bringing back the racism, sexism, etc., isn’t it worth discussing. It cracks me up that people jump on him insisting that he wants, the fifties in full. They might as well argue that his desire to bring back some of the good elements means he wants to return to a time without cell phones, fuel injection, voice mail, air bags, Gore-tex, Post-It Notes, GPS, iPods, ATMs, laptops, or the artificial heart.