posted
You're right! Clinton's name wasn't even brought up once! I like that.
Interesting column this week. That's been two that didn't feel like hate filled invectives in a row. Very cool.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
You know what? I'm in kind of an unplesant mood, and this thread reflects it. Sorry for the uncharacteristic snarkiness folks. I'd delete the thread if I didn't cringe every time anybody else deletes a thread.
I think a good night's sleep will do me a world of good.
posted
I think I understand the purpose of his "reminders" about the 1950's, but it was also the last decade in which it was okay to have segregated schools, drinking fountains, and lunch counters. It was also the last decade in which illegal abortions were routine (and also unmeasured).
However, this is a minor point. The real meat of the essay is right on target, I think. And it points to things other than "terrorist threat" as the most important threats to our culture.
We have seen the enemy and he is us. Well, our complacency and inability to recognize and fight to retain our core values.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I think the fly in the stew, unless I misremember, is that most of the standards that social conservatives use to measure 'moral decline', for lack of a better word, have been holding either steady over the last twenty years or have declined somewhat.
Also, let's not forget that the generation that grew up during the 40s and 50s was responsible for the dramatic increases in divorce, etc.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
My question is this: Have we all seen the enemy in ourselves or is it just those of us who have the sense to see it?
I think there are those in this country that have learned that it's easier to be led by the nose than to see themselves and assert their beliefs. Many people don't want to hear that we have endangered ourselves in our complacency because to learn that means that they have to actually take responsibility!
Of course, I can tell you now, I don't know any sheep that live in Hatrack. Posts: 392 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
So, our civilization will fall, says OSC, as all do. Should we start building our Foundation now? If we believed that the destruction of our civilization was inevitable, what should we/could we do to preserve the memory of our culture and the knowledge we have gained?
If we created just a library, nothing else, what works should be in it? I would want to preserve political writings (I mean Locke and Hobbes for example, not campaign literature) so that our descendants could organize themselves better. I'd also want to keep the best textbooks in each field of science, and as complete a record of history as possible.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
All I see is OSC's longing for his own youth producing a nostalgia for a time, a milieu that never was.
I'd bet that if you could hand a youthful adult of the 50s a two-way ticket to our now -- with the proviso that s/he could not remember experiencing our time if s/he chose to go back home -- only a miniscule few would make the return trip.
posted
Aspectre, it seems curious that you think we're making such great progress while simultaneously believing that the presidency is in the hands of a wealthy oligarchy. Are the trust fund barons making things better for their own purposes or just so you can cite their influence here?
I apologize if I sound snarky...I feel snarky when I read your posts, generally speaking.
Even supposing that the "golden era" is illusion, it sounds worth creating, the way Card describes it.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I just think it's a shame that OSC believes that our civilization is no longer "worth emulating, worth joining, worth fighting for, and worth spreading through the world."
Me, I'm still PROUD to be an American; it's a shame that he isn't.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Notice that 1,682 abortion related deaths were reported in 1940, for instance -- which suggests a much larger number of actual deaths, given abortions were illegal. How many more, who knows, but there were certainly plenty of abortions going on. Planned Parenthood estimates the number at between 200,000 and 1,300,000 a year from the late 40s to the early 50s.
edit: didn't I cover this sort of thing in an earlier abortion thread, dangit?
When Rome fell (slowly died) it brought down Europe. But there was still China. With our more united and intertwined world...we are becoming one single civilization... if that falls what would be left?
Or...if America dies and the self-healing forces die too... can the rest of the world come in and help?
*ponders some more*
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Nice. That's why I don't engage in debate much. People who have it together like John would steamroller me, unorganized as my thought process is.
Thanks for the link. Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I answered this at GreNME, but I'll repeat my major point that the 50s may have been good for a white male American to live in but pretty much everyone else has benefitted from the last 44 years.
I do not think that our civilization is on the brink of collapse. I think that one day North America's face will be re-modeled but I do not think it will be a "collapse", it will be more of a "change". Funny word, "change".
EDIT: I do not think that a change in the way North America works is necessarily a bad thing.
posted
I think John is actually arguing beside the point. Card wasn't saying that the fifties were awesome and perfect. He was saying that they weren't nearly as horrific as people like John make them out to be, and that they were a time of great forward progress for our culture.
When Card says, "A lot more people started getting into college," John counters with, "Yeah, but most WOMEN weren't getting into college, so it wasn't that great after all, was it?"
So, what, progress doesn't count as progress until we've progressed on every single possible front? When a culture where men are the primary breadwinners succeeds in putting more men in college and into professional careers, that is a huge step up. Giving women more opportunities in that same culture is ANOTHER step up, but the first one isn't invalidated just because the second one hadn't happened yet.
Card says, "Fifties television showed families successfully solving problems and helping one another," and John rebuts him with, "But the women were all homemakers, so it was insidious filth!"
No, the women were all homemakers, so it was an accurate reflection of the times. The women were all homemakers because in the post-depression and post-war economy, they no longer HAD to work to feed their starving families. Progress. Not precisely the progress that John has arbitrarily defined as the only progress that counts, but progress nonetheless.
Anyway, from my perspective, John comes off as being far more politically biased, and rides a much sillier hobbyhorse than Card does in this particular exchange. Card has been guilty of the same thing in the past, and clearly has biases of his own, but John does a completely abysmal job of countering him here, and succeeds masterfully at calling the kettle black.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Card may not be saying that life in the 50's was perfect, but he does seem to be saying that it was better than life today. That is what John is arguing against. And I agree with him. As a woman, you couldn't pay me enough to get in a time machine and go back to 1950.
It's weird, I agree with Card that we are all doomed, but I disagree on why.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: ...the women were all homemakers, so it was an accurate reflection of the times. The women were all homemakers because in the post-depression and post-war economy, they no longer HAD to work to feed their starving families.
In point of fact, many women who had jobs during WW II were fired if they were under government contract or encouraged to quit if they were working, in order to 'make room' for returning GIs.
If a woman still wanted to work outside the home, there were only a very limited number of professions she could expect to find employment in in the post war economy.
Even so, there *were* lots of women working outside the home either as sole breadwinner, or to supplement a family's income. Were they in the minority at that time? Maybe. But that doesn't mean that they didn't exist. So, I disagree with your assessment that television was an accurate reflection of reality.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
"When Rome fell (slowly died) it brought down Europe.
In between, there was Great Britain. When Rome left them in the lurch, they became mighty, and colonized the land we are living on. Then, we became mighty.
Now, it has come around again, though I think we are still "the biggest." I both love and hate that about history.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
So the shows were not accurately depicting reality because they did not show the exceptions to the rule? Because they only showed the mainstream, or majority?
Doesn't the media still do that?
Today, if the media is going to present a family, they are going to prefer a disfunctional one. I think that is mostly because conflict in interesting. A happy family is--boring. Does that mean there are not happy families out there? I grew up in one. I have one now. TV is making the same mistake now as it did back then, just reversed.
I would rather see the "good" examples in the spotlight than "bad" examples. But perhaps there are more messed up families today and people can relate to the "bad" examples better. If we think this is true, then perhaps the traditional family has been harmed over the last few decades.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Assuming the statistics are accurate, approximately one fourth of moms worked in the 1950s. That's a huge number, and one would hardly consider it abnormal except in the strange "anything but the majority" definition some people seem to subscribe to (I love how under that definition whichever sex is in the slight minority becomes abnormal).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: So the shows were not accurately depicting reality because they did not show the exceptions to the rule? Because they only showed the mainstream, or majority?
Doesn't the media still do that?
Today, if the media is going to present a family, they are going to prefer a disfunctional one. I think that is mostly because conflict in interesting. A happy family is--boring. Does that mean there are not happy families out there? I grew up in one. I have one now. TV is making the same mistake now as it did back then, just reversed.
I would rather see the "good" examples in the spotlight than "bad" examples. But perhaps there are more messed up families today and people can relate to the "bad" examples better. If we think this is true, then perhaps the traditional family has been harmed over the last few decades.
Well, that begs the question of whether it matters if the 'traditional family' is harmed, doesn't it? Maybe we'd all be better off raised in a creche by robots?
In any case, I'm not sure that TV shows more non-traditional families than not. I think there are still more 'nuclear' families on TV than single parent, blended family, gay family, grandparents raising children, etc.
That said, my point is actually your point. Media does NOT NOT NOT reflect reality, o.k.? Never has it done so. Never will it. People have this warped perception of certain periods of time because of what is on TV. In the 40s and 50s, you had a twisted version of reality. Well, it's the same today. What is shown on TV is NOT what is always normative. It's what gets ratings. Yes, there is some overlap. But, TV is first and foremost a way to get people to sit still long enough in front of the screen to watch commercials. (I know, this isn't news, but it bears repeating.) And in order to do that, TV has to fulfill fantasy.
What was shown in the 40s and 50s was (to me)heavilly censored. Producers and directors couldn't give people what they wanted because of censors. They couldn't accurately depict life because of censors. So, what you saw back then was, yes, somewhat what some people in the nation wanted if you happened to have a certain outlook on life, but other people were bored with tv and didn't watch because they didn't find what was on entertaining or because it didn't reflect their life, because of the censors.
I don't know that I believe that families are in worse trouble than they were in the past. I think there are different problems and challenges facing the family than in the past, but I don't see any evidence that things are going to get worse before they get better. I certainly think that pointing the finger of blame at media rather than, say, consumer culture might not be warranted.
People still want the happy ending. They still want to have a fairy tale. What that still means is getting married and having kids and staying married. This hasn't changed. I doubt it ever will. Just because people have the freedom to fall down and hurt themselves and their children doesn't mean that they don't ALL have that ideal in their heart and that it doesn't reign supreme in society. It just means that we are more free.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
The fact that the 1950's presented families where the women did not work outside the home (were there shows that featured working women?) seems to say that being a stay-at-home mom was the ideal even if it wasn't always the reality, just as TV has always followed the lives of the well-to-do. Certainly we have always seen being rich as the ideal, but it also seems pretty clear that we no longer see being a stay-at-home mom as the ideal. Certainly 1950s TV showed women in the workforce, but they tended to be phone operators and secretaries, and they were never the main characters.
Was it the ideal then, or was it foisted upon people by the media? I think it was more the actual ideal of the general populous. That has changed. The fantasy now is still to be well off, but now the working woman is more glorified. It is to the point today that us women who have chosen to stay home with our children don't feel valued, just as working women in the 50s didn't feel valued. Stay-at-home moms may be portrayed, but they are rarely, if ever, the main character. The vision has reversed.
And I am pretty sure that the statistics show that there are still a decent number of women who (upon becoming mothers) choose to stay-at-home.
Whether or not families today are better off may be debatable, but with the sharp rise in divorce, I say they are *not* better off.
Am I making a connection between divorce and whether women work? Not so much. The whole stay-at-home mom thing was just one aspect of the 50s "fantasy". I am more thinking of the family-centered values that were more common in the 50s. Being a stay-at-home mom was viewed as one way to support the family. Whether or not it is, is debatable. Of course, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was the better choice.
The fact is, less people today are interested in creating families. Less interest in marriage, more couples not interested in children. If you are worried about the rising population, that may not be a bad thing for you. But if you think that the family is an essential solidifying unit of society, it is problematic.
I think a lot of the lack in interest stems from the bad experiences this generation has had in their own families. More people today view the their family as an "unhealthy experience" and not one they want to repeat, to the extent that they are less willing to form the traditional unit. So while it is still the ideal in the minds of many, I think the percentage is going down.
Why? Back to my original point. The traditional family is not glorified today like it was in the 50s.
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