There were no shows that about black, Latino, or single parent families. No black or women news newscasters. The message sent by the media was that a women's place was in the home, happily married with kids. And it you didn't fit that mold, then there was something wrong with you. Sex education, infertility, mental illness, homosexuality, spousal abuse, substance abuse child abuse, and most of the serious problems people faced were just not part of this idealized American. No wonder so many people would like to be transported by this fantasy world.
Yeah, and things are sooo much better now. If you think today is an improvement over the 1950s, I think you are nutz.
The real America of the 50's, not the TV version was one that few people today would want to return. In the 50's, thousands of kids each each year died of polio and tens of thousands were crippled. A cancer diagnosis was a death sentence for most people. Highway death rates were three times what they are today because of the lack of safety equipment in cars. Homosexuals were beaten and murdered by the police and considered mentally ill by doctors. Domestic violence and child abuse was a dirty little secret in families. Women lived in loveless marriage because because they had no other option. In most states men had the right to have sex with their wives with or without their consent and discipline them as needed. In many states birth control in any form was illegal. Most professional jobs were closed to women and they made half what a man made. Jim Crow laws prevented blacks from voting in the many places in the South. Segregation laws in a third of the states made second class citizens out of blacks. A number of institutions and businesses limited or totally excluded Jews. At 18, you were old enough to die for your country but not old enough to vote. Full sized cars got about 10 miles to gallon and would be considered deathtraps by today's standards. Of course everyone went to church in the fantasy America but in the real America, attendance at protestant churches was only 23% and attendance in catholic churches fell throughout the decade.
Ozzie's and Harriet's idealized America was in reality a wasteland of ticky-tack houses, bored men commuting to work, unhappy housewives popping tranquilizers, and greedy, demanding children. Citizens had become consumers, purchasing goods in an endless attempt to keep up with their neighbors.
You switched from how social norms were portrayed on TV, to material and technology advances.
I don't see the two as being directly connected.
Could we have cured polio, without ending up with a Jerry Springer society? I think so.
And I would say more women live in loveless marriages today than ever in the past. Almost 30% of couples report having sex once a year, if at all. Top causes.... Adultery, Porn, unrealistic expectations. Basically all the things modern media has given us.
Domestic violence is far worse today, than it ever was in the 1950s. If you go back farther, someone who beat their wife was publicly humiliated. The District of Columbia actually put up a whipping post for wife beaters in 1909.
The technological advancement of cars, would have happened no matter what the social norms were. Moreover, your claims about 10 miles per gallon is just garbage, showing total ignorance.
1950 Olds Gives M.p.g. Surprise - Chicago Tribune
Olds 88, from 1950, 24 MPG according to the owners, and according to staff at GM.
You people just make up crap you know nothing about. I worked at a Cadillac dealership, which had the original marketing material for Caddies back in the 1960s. Even then they were posting 20 miles per gallon in the old caddies.
Listen sparky.... you want to debate stuff fine. But if your going to say something about the past, you had better make darn sure you are telling the truth. You spew crap like "1950 all cars got 10 mile per gallon" when anyone who knows anything about history knows that's not even close to true, you just ruin your own credibility.
Now everything you say, that I don't have direct knowledge of, I'm going to wonder if you are just spewing more made up crap. After all, you just now proved yourself a total BS lying sack of crap.
You're correct about the gas mileage. I misread something that said gas mileage was 10 mpg better in the 50's than today.
I listed other than social items because to compare the quality of life in two time periods you have to compare life experiences that covers a broad range items. You can't say life was great in the 50's because moral values were higher and ignore social inequities. You have to look at the whole ball of wax.
I lived through the fifties and there is much I love about the period but there is no way I would want to go back. I loved the simplicity of life then but I hated the narrow minded approach to life that prevailed in those years.
Well I was looking at it specifically through the reference of the social aspects the TV shows portrayed, which you are the one who cited.
Based on your citation, I responded.
Technological advancement is indisputably better. Standard of living is of course much higher today, than in the past. I never suggested otherwise.
The social aspect of our society, and cultural aspect, have been absolutely ruined in our modern time. The social and cultural aspects depicted on TV sets, was how life really was. People had respect for each other. Crime was low. Families stayed together. Adultery was far rarer, and civility far more common.
Now we have TV shows that reflect the worst in society, and society has become much worse. The kind of first hand accounts I've witnessed in my short life time, is revolting. Jerry Spring has become the norm, instead of the exception.
Yes, advances in medical care, have made life better. Distribution of utilities, and transportation, and our Capitalist wealth in general has improved for all areas of society.
But our 'social' progress, is more of a regress. Things happen today, that would never have happened 100 years ago. Our prisons are full of the results of Social Progress. AIDs alone is nothing more than exactly what our social progress has resulted in. People wasting their lives away on pot, leaving bastard children in a path of devastated ex-girlfriends, and ex-spouses, living out their lives on welfare, and spending more energy on how to game the system, than how to make a living.
Quite frankly, one might wonder if having a more happy, friendly, and civil society, might be worth a trade of the technological advances that allow people to spam insults and harassment until a 14-year-old girl commits suicide. Where people in San Fransisco yell from their cars to a woman to stop waiting and jump from a bridge, because she's holding up traffic, and radio coverage taunted the woman on air, with splashing sound effects. Where a boy kills himself live on his web cam, with people logging into the feed to egg him on, typing "DO IT! DO IT!".........
This is your progressive ideology played out. Life has no meaning. We have no purpose. And we have no reason to not treat others in as hideous a way as we want, so long as it gives us pleasure.
I could tell you the stories of people I have known personally, but it would make you sick. The above, is tame honestly.
