# What has the US lost since the 50s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060 "2005-02-26T22:56:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/21 "2005-03-01T01:52:29Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > I disagree. If you’d asked someone in 1955 what he/she thought they’d “lost” since the 1900s, they would have told you that kids are less polite these days, folks don’t have the same sense of community, ettiquette has tumbled into shambles, and things have basically gone to hell in a handbasket. > > Nostalgia is fun, but there never was a time when politicians were honest, everyone was a boy or girl scout, and family values reigned supreme. That’s a heck of a strawwoman you’ve constructed. The poster wasn’t speaking in absolutes. YMMV, but it’s hard not to see a relative decline in civility. Exceptions can be found, but the overall trend is a downward slope. If you don’t agree, wanna take it to the pit? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/22 "2005-03-01T02:29:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The national teen birth rate was at its highest in 1957, at 96 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19. [CDC: Teen Birth Rates Down in All States](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/98news/teenrel.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/23 "2005-03-01T03:50:38Z")
Teenage birth rates? WOOHOO! My grandma scored three! She was married, of course… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/24 "2005-03-01T06:07:57Z")
the sense that every adult male is obligated to perform militarily; By **Lissa** :"_I don’t think that a lot of people had that sense. Hell, I know a great many men who were adult at that time who did not serve, and aren’t bothered a bit by it._ There was mandatory military service for all able-bodied males through the 50’s. Some satisfied this by ROTC in college, and some with reserve service. The normal guy getting out of high school and not going to college would be drafted if he didn’t volunteer first. This applied to _everybody_. I think this mandatory service requirement is what’s being referred to above. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/25 "2005-03-01T19:24:29Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > I disagree. If you’d asked someone in 1955 what he/she thought they’d “lost” since the 1900s, they would have told you that kids are less polite these days, folks don’t have the same sense of community, ettiquette has tumbled into shambles, and things have basically gone to hell in a handbasket… I thought that this was worth commenting on. While I realize that every generation has issues with the way the “kids these days” behave, I think that there is at very least a pretty large grain of truth here. This is all anecdotal, but from my point of view when I look at folks my grandparents age, I find that they are more courteous than folks my parents age. I also find that folks my parents age are more courteous than folks my age, and that folks my age are more courteous than younger folks. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/26 "2005-03-01T21:06:53Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > YMMV, but it’s hard not to see a relative decline in civility. Exceptions can be found, but the overall trend is a downward slope. I agree completely that this is true, but I dispute that this is a “loss” or a bad thing. Civility is overrated. (Robert Heinlein wrote, in several different stories and essays, that politeness is the _sine qua non_ of civilization. He was wrong. Just as he was wrong when he wrote in _Beyond This Horizon_ that “An armed society is a polite society.” Really, how polite is South Central L.A.?) And, at the same time, we have lost a certain amount of social tolerance. I agree with the message of the all-pervasive anti-smoking ads we see everywhere every day, but nevertheless their puritanical, moralistic tone utterly disgusts me. Same with the smug, self-rigthteous “Power of One Voice” ads. I have no cite for this – but, when _Seinfeld_ (a show I almost never watched) was on the air, there was supposedly an episode where the characters competed to see how long they could go without masturbating; and an NBC exec recently stated that such an episode could never be aired today. **That’s** a real loss, and something worth fighting over. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/27 "2005-03-01T21:29:01Z")
Lots of Jazz greats Cuba Carnival sideshows Downtown shopping districts Full-size G.I. Joe action figures The concept of a major politician’s privacy Bardot and Loren in their prime Fan dancers ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/28 "2005-03-01T21:35:10Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Cuba :dubious: Cuba was never ours to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/29 "2005-03-01T22:02:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: Cuba was never ours to lose. Not in the 1950s, but the US did occupy Cuba after the Spanish-American War, in 1898-1902. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/30 "2005-03-02T01:51:11Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > That’s a heck of a strawwoman you’ve constructed. The poster wasn’t speaking in absolutes. YMMV, but it’s hard not to see a relative decline in civility. Exceptions can be found, but the overall trend is a downward slope. Social ettiquette, like language and clothing styles, changes over time. What is perfectly acceptbable today would have been shocking years ago. Does that mean society has “declined”? I don’t think so. It just means that society has changed. Perhaps individuals disagree with certain changes, but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently bad. The opposite is true in some cases as well: we would be horrified if a companion used a racial slur to refer to someone, or seeing a male co-worker slap a female secretary on the ass. We’re angered to see a man talk to, or about, his wife as if she were a child. We don’t persecute our neighbors when we suspect they’re Commies. We tend to remember what’s shocking. Twenty well-behaved children may cross our paths during the day, but we remember the one screaming brat and tell our friends and family about it in tones of horrified outrage. We count up these incidents and tell ourselves that the numbers prove that things are getting worse, but we tend to not remember those polite interractions. How many rude people have you seen this week? How many polite, well-behaved people? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/31 "2005-03-02T02:14:36Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Not in the 1950s, but the US did occupy Cuba after the Spanish-American War, in 1898-1902. Aye, and we did not “lose” it, we withdrew our troops willingly – the war having been fought, ostensibly, to liberate the Cubans from Spanish colonialism. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/32 "2005-03-02T10:34:04Z")
Actually there’s one thing people around here think we lost and it has definitely affected my community: economic security. Up until around 1980 in my city, a man with a high school education could get a job in a steel mill or a manufacturing plant and make enough money to support a family. While I was in high school, the steel mills started shutting down thanks to the stupidity and cupidity of both organized labor and management, in my opinion. Some towns for whom the mill was the main employer in town pretty much died and still haven’t recovered. A shopping center now stands on the site where men fought and died for better wages ([cite](http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/carnegie/strike.html) and [cite](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande04.html)). When I first moved back to my city, I worked for a little manufacturing plant in my hometown which didn’t pay nearly as well as the steel mills of old, but they at least had distant benefits, including educational ones. Some years later, they shut down and I saw the presses shut down and loaded up to be shipped to a new facility in Malaysia. A few years after that, they got in a Walmart. I’d left my hometown by that point, no doubt people pointed out that Walmart would bring in jobs, but I doubt the jobs at Walmart were comparable in terms of wages or benefits to the jobs that left with that manufacturing plant. I’m not sure what happens to someone who only has a high school education now, but I’m sure it’s a lot tougher to make a living and support oneself, let alone a family. There’s not a lot I like about the 1950’s – that town I grew up in had one foot in them even in the 1970’s, but I do wish we lived in more economically secure times. CJ ---
**Author:** ![Othersider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@Othersider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Othersider)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/33 "2005-03-02T10:37:55Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > The Vietnam war. No, no, we did _not_ lose Vietnam. It was a tie!! ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/34 "2005-03-02T11:07:44Z")
> [@Othersider](#): > > No, no, we did _not_ lose Vietnam. It was a tie!! Maybe, but when Kasparov and Jones draw, Jones wins. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/35 "2005-03-02T12:40:17Z")
> [@](#): > > We have a larger proportion of our population incarcerated than any other country. I believe Russia has the greatest percentage. And I think the 60’s was instrumental to the demise of responsibility. People were thinking too much of themselves and not society as a whole. The concept of freedom requires responsibility fell apart. I beleive we lost some great advancements and took a step back as the most selfish generation went on to running this country. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/36 "2005-03-02T14:00:38Z")
> [@bras0978](#): > > I have to agree with you here - I would say the US has lost the respect of other nations. It seems that in the past, the world looked to the US for guidance almost… now it’s more “off they go again, what are they saying now?” :rolleyes: I’m immensely skeptical that the rest of the world ever looked to the United States for moral guidance. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/37 "2005-03-02T14:04:32Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > the sense that every adult male is obligated to perform militarily; > > By **Lissa** :"_I don’t think that a lot of people had that sense. Hell, I know a great many men who were adult at that time who did not serve, and aren’t bothered a bit by it._ > > There was mandatory military service for all able-bodied males through the 50’s. Some satisfied this by ROTC in college, and some with reserve service. The normal guy getting out of high school and not going to college would be drafted if he didn’t volunteer first. This applied to _everybody_. > I think this mandatory service requirement is what’s being referred to above. Um, no. The draft simply was not as universal as this, and it was not at all certain that a young man who didn’t go to college would get drafted. Those decisions were made by local draft boards (though admittedly the decisions could be awfully capricious). Granted, a lower class male was more likely to get caught in the draft, but it was far from certain that he would be. ---
**Author:** ![Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Fromage\_A\_Trois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fromage_A_Trois)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/38 "2005-03-02T14:13:18Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > I’m immensely skeptical that the rest of the world ever looked to the United States for moral guidance. Well, I did say “it seems”… I’m not old enough to comment personally 🙂 . Perhaps we just looked to the US for money? I think what **ITR champion** had to say about it being a choice between Russia or the US is more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/39 "2005-03-02T14:28:48Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I believe Russia has the greatest percentage [of its population incarcerated]. Not since 2003. [BBC NEWS | In Depth | US prison population peaks](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/2925973.stm) ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060/40 "2005-03-02T14:48:53Z")
There was a kind of confidence and sophistication that existed in the 1950s and died sometime in the 1970s (I think it was at its height right up until Kennedy’s assassination). We were making great leaps in science and technology, including the science of the mind. Yes, Freud and Jung had taught us great things, and we understood how the mind works and how people think. What motivates them. We could test for anything and get good, valid results. Read _The Organization Man_ (1956) for details. It certainly seems now that much of Freudianism was bullshit, but I think that another factor has led to its virutual expurgation from the scientific mindset: increased atheism and materialism among the scientific elite. Sure, back in the 50s many or most of them were not religious, but the mindset has gotten harder and more dogmatic since then. Anything that even smells of a belief in the soul, such as a vision of the subconscious or unconscious mind, is hard to tolerate. Again, it may have been mostly BS, but the way that writers of the 50s and 60s took our great strides in psychology as an aboslute given, and the sophistication with which they described the inner life of the mind and how that affects all our actions as well as society as a whole, really is amazing. It gives the era a feeling of depth. We don’t have that confidence today. We are become, to put it frankly, a sad and wimpy society. We don’t feel the momentum they felt then. We’re afraid of losing what we have. Looking at media from the 1950s–books, magazines, records (but not so much movies, which sucked until about 1960)–there really is a whole different vibe to it. Real adulthood. A kind of sophistication that we lack. They drank martinis and watched TV unselfconsciously–it was just _the way things were_. Today we have the snark. The snarky attitude is our sophistication. See [www.slate.com](http://www.slate.com) for references (god I hate the 'tude of that site). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-us-lost-since-the-50s/292060.md?page=3)