Sure, but it wasn't particularly admirable. It was a side effect of things that were admirable in the '40s.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Jhai: I don't have much time to post right now but I thought I'd jump to this point as it seems to be our biggest disagreement.
quote:Frankly, I think that sort of attitude is disgraceful. It's fine to admire a few parts of a radically flawed culture - it's another thing to suggest that a society that was full of prejudice and sexist and racist discrimination is one to be missed or admired as a whole.
Let me respond with something I already wrote.
quote:Perhaps your overall view of the 1950s makes it repulsive, but I find there is enough sufficiently right about it that I can still summon up feelings of fondness though I never lived then.
I should have written this a bit more clearly. I did not mean to say that when all is said and done that "fondness" receives the lion's share of my feelings towards the 1950s. All I am trying to say is that there was enough that was good in the 1950s that I am able to find things to be fond of. I personally would not want to live in the 1950s, there is far too much about now that I find far better.
You noted that I did not say that the 1950s were bad, again this was a failure to communicate. When I mentioned my grandmother it was an attempt to show that I easily recognize that living in the 1950s brought certain attitudes that are terrible and are not easily removed. Racism as much as politeness must be considered when we think about the 1950s.
Am I less repulsive now?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I never said that you were repulsive, I said that the attitude you were displaying was disgraceful. Please do not put words in my mouth. And thank you for clarifying your position.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, with that in mind then the bad things about the 50s came from much earlier. They sure didn't appear wholly-born from nowhere in 1950.
Once someone's decided that something is bad and saying anything good about it is a screaming offense, then it's not a conversation. They'll grasp at anything to shore up the black and white position.
Time periods really are more complex than that. Everything is more complex than that.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
kat, I don't know if you're referring to me, but I never said that "saying anything good about<the 1950s> was a screaming offense" - in fact, I specifically said that it's perfectly okay to find certain things good about the 1950s. My point was that it is not right to find the 1950s "good" overall or to make the claim that only people "without hearts" don't remember that time period fondly. It was an era where racism was rampant, people were killed for dating or marrying interracially, and women were denied many rights.
After I made these points, BB clarified his position & I thanked him.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Sorry to dredge this up but I found it important to point out that this ideal was real for a time. Everything about it may not have been present all in the same place but many of the virtues people admire about that time did in fact exist.
I guess you and I mean different things when we say "real". If you take a true story and cut all the bad parts out, it isn't a true story any more. The parts you've left in may have really happened, but the story itself is no longer an accurate portrayal of reality.
Families in the 1940s and 50s were in fact more likely to all gather round the same table for dinner every night like you see in Norman Rockwell paintings, but the paintings don't tell you that Mom was wearing an apron because she only had 2 dresses and all the laundry had to be washed by hand and pressed with an iron that was heated on a wood stove. The pictures don't tell you that it was legal for a man to beat his wife if dinner wasn't served on time. There are no Normal Rockwell paintings of children with polio in hospital isolation wards. There are no brown or black faces in those pictures, no empty plates, no soup kitchens or jails.
Yes, the virtues that many people extoll in the past or in present day small towns did exist (at least in some places sometimes), but they still do. When I moved last year, friends family and neighbors came out to help us on both ends of the move. When my home was robbed last Friday, everyone in the neighborhood rallied together offering support and friendship, Three years ago when my MIL was sick with cancer and unable to care for her yard, the neighbors got together and donated both time and money to replant her dead lawn and continued watering, mowing and caring for her yard for over a year. And she didn't live in a small town, she lived in a lower middle class suburb. The neighbors who chipped weren't members of her church or even the same church groups.
I pretty confident that those virtues all exist in nearly every community today just as much as they did in the 1950s. But in the present, we can't just white wash away all the bad things and pretend its ideal. That is much easy to do with the past.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think that people underestimate Rockwell. While many of his pictures was "idyllic", he could and did create pictures that went beneath the surface.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You can call a time happy without it being perfect. In fact, that is the only way to call a time happy. There are many things that are better now, but not everything. If you can't call the 50s happy because some things were bad, then there is no such thing as a happy time, and there never will be.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Great links Mucus. Those aren't Norman Rockwell paintings that typically make the calenders and I was not familiar with them. It appears I have been familiar only with the myth of Norman Rockwell and not the reality.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: You can call a time happy without it being perfect. In fact, that is the only way to call a time happy. There are many things that are better now, but not everything. If you can't call the 50s happy because some things were bad, then there is no such thing as a happy time, and there never will be.
Who called any time happy? It hasn't happened in this thread, certainly.
Personally, I would say that the 1950s would not have been a happy time for me, or for the vast majority of my friends.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think the point that people are trying to make is not that there was nothing good about the 1950s; it is that life was good for only a certain group of people and we tend, in our nostalgia, to only see those people.
Much like being wistful about the antebellum South. There was much that was lovely and graceful about it but the price for that gracefullness was slavery. For lots of people, that society was pretty terrible.
For many, the price of the 1950s fell on repressed minorities and women.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The price of 2000s also falls on minorities of women disproportionately.
I have a problem with nostalgia in general, but it's something humans have been doing for millenia and will continue to do, no matter how many people bristle and growl at it.
The prosperity of the 50s made the reforms and movements of the 60s possible and conceivable. If it had been another decade filled with nothign but poverty and war and a shrinking economy, I doubt the movements of the 60s would have found enough traction to stick. A time doesn't have to be perfect to deserve praise, and a little wistful for a robust economy with low interest rates that wasn't built on vapor and card tricks is quite appropriate right now.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I think the point that people are trying to make is not that there was nothing good about the 1950s; it is that life was good for only a certain group of people and we tend, in our nostalgia, to only see those people. ... For many, the price of the 1950s fell on repressed minorities and women.
Other groups we may not think of when we think of the fifties are those who were institutionalized for medical and/or psychiatric reasons. Forced sterilization, abuse without recourse, the shame of having a family member hidden away with Down syndrome, lack of effective psychiatric treatments for some conditions (at least, lack of anything more sophisticated than being tied in a chair and force-fed and drugged into submission). So much of what makes life visibly more difficult is that it is much harder now to avoid seeing that which is problematic.
---
Added: I'd agree that the social infrastructure of the fifties made for a more pleasant experience for a certain group of people, and that those people count, too. I'd also hold that part of that pleasantness was predicated on a strict segregation from certain unpleasantnesses that others were unable to avoid.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
On the other hand, many of the people who in the 1950s would have been institutionalized are nowadays aborted before they are born. I'm not convinced that makes this decade better.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: On the other hand, many of the people who in the 1950s would have been institutionalized are nowadays aborted before they are born. I'm not convinced that makes this decade better.
I wasn't saying it did, katharina. I was saying that -- regardless of the picture one sees when one has a mental image of today -- the mental image of that yesterday sometimes comes with invisible holes.
I'm perfectly happy myself to have you wax as nostalgic as you like about any time period in history that you chose, and I won't argue publicly with you about such choices.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: The price of 2000s also falls on minorities of women disproportionately.
Quite true. The difference is that, now, we see it. Which tends to make things "uglier" for for those of us who mightn't have seen the more hidden bad parts of previous generations.
quote:
I have a problem with nostalgia in general, but it's something humans have been doing for millenia and will continue to do, no matter how many people bristle and growl at it.
The prosperity of the 50s made the reforms and movements of the 60s possible and conceivable. If it had been another decade filled with nothign but poverty and war and a shrinking economy, I doubt the movements of the 60s would have found enough traction to stick. A time doesn't have to be perfect to deserve praise, and a little wistful for a robust economy with low interest rates that wasn't built on vapor and card tricks is quite appropriate right now.
Also true, as long as we keep in balance how that happened. The robust economy in the 1950s has, I would imagine, something to do with WWII and Korea and the growing "military industrial complex" all of which had their downsides as well.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm perfectly happy myself to have you wax as nostalgic as you like about any time period in history that you chose, and I won't argue publicly with you about such choices.
I think that's nicer. I don't think you were directing this to me, as I said in the same post that I don't like nostalgia, but I think it is nicer and more congenial and respectful of people to, when someone does wax nostalgic, as people do, to let them and not jump all over them. The circumstances of the 50s are not coming back - for better and for worse - so nostalgia about it doesn't hurt.
I suppose that some people might wax nostalgic as code for a wish to renew oppression, but that is such a harsh and uncharitable judgment that it would be better to confirm the unlikely incident before jumping on them. Considering nostalgia in general has a long and storied history, it is much more like that the speaker has normal intentions and not a secret wish to destroy.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I do not think that nostalgia is a good thing - certainly not something to be encouraged. I do think it can have negative consequences, just like all idealization. In my mind, it is similar in moral status to, say, envy - not something that shows depravity on the part of a person, but not something to be proud of by any means.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think it is nicer and more congenial and respectful of people to, when someone does wax nostalgic, as people do, to let them and not jump all over them. The circumstances of the 50s are not coming back - for better and for worse - so nostalgia about it doesn't hurt.
It does when your nostalgia effects your opinions on legislation in the here and now, which it usually does it seems.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I love both Normon Rockwell and Garrison Keillor, I just think there work is reflective of a certain mythology we Americans have about ourselves and its worth recognizing it isn't true.
Sorry to dredge this up but I found it important to point out that this ideal was real for a time. Everything about it may not have been present all in the same place but many of the virtues people admire about that time did in fact exist. ...
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: ... Other groups we may not think of when we think of the fifties are those who were institutionalized for medical and/or psychiatric reasons.
Hmmm, a quote from Norman Rockwell that may be applicable to both these exchanges.
quote: Maybe as I grew up and found the world wasn’t the perfectly pleasant place I had thought it to be, I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn’t an ideal world, it should be and painted only the ideal aspects of it—pictures in which there were no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers [Rockwell is alluding to his own mother here], in which, on the contrary, there were only Foxy Grandpas who played football with the kids, and boys fished from logs and got up circuses in the back yard. If there was sadness in this created world of mine, it was a pleasant sadness. If there were problems, they were humorous problems. The people in my pictures aren’t mentally ill [as Rockwell’s wife Mary was] or deformed. The situations they get into are commonplace, everyday situations, not the agonizing crises and tangles of life.
In other words, the ideal that Norman Rockwell painted *wasn't* real, not even to him at the time. Whatever mythology Americans may have constructed around him may not have been his intent (in that he wasn't attempting to describe reality).
Edit to add: There's this interesting bit too
quote: There is no overt sex in Norman Rockwell’s paintings, no violence, no real or insoluble unhappiness, no poverty or serious illness or crime, and, until late in his career, no black people except for the occasional porter. (Rockwell, it should be said, had long wanted to depict African Americans but was forbidden to do so by his editors at the Saturday Evening Post, who feared that the mere sight of them might upset most of their readers, and who were, moreover, probably right.)
posted
Mucus: Thanks for all those links. One of my concerns was to accomplish what you have so completely done. Norman Rockwell definitely had some liberal leanings that I think many people are unaware of. Also you made the statement that there are no Asian faces, here is one. She is on the right towards the bottom, (I believe you linked to a page that contains this very picture.)
It was interesting to hear Rockwell's take on his own work.
Jhai: You are right you did not actually call me repulsive, I typically find that those who are disgraceful are also repulsive. But I suppose that is me taking liberties with definitions that I ought not to. I do sometimes get the impression that you don't much like me.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think the reason that people take unqualified nostalgia personally is that it tends to be dismissive of the people who didn't have it so good. It seems like it it either minimalizing their suffering or making them invisible again. Of course that is not always the intent, but it is the effect and it is very personal.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Jhai: You are right you did not actually call me repulsive, I typically find that those who are disgraceful are also repulsive. But I suppose that is me taking liberties with definitions that I ought not to. I do sometimes get the impression that you don't much like me.
Here you go, taking liberties again. I didn't say that you are disgrace, just that the attitude that you were presenting (inadvertently, apparently) was. To me, there's a big difference between the two. It's just like someone can do or say a racist thing without actually being a racist.
While I've not kept close track of our conversations together, I can say that I don't not like you. I don't really have an opinion on you. I know we've clashed in the past, so I'd imagine it's accurate to say that I dislike some of your attitudes or beliefs. How much those attitudes or beliefs are the "core you" isn't something anyone but you can know, but I try not to presume that any belief is, unless told otherwise by the person in question.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Jhai: You are right you did not actually call me repulsive, I typically find that those who are disgraceful are also repulsive. But I suppose that is me taking liberties with definitions that I ought not to. I do sometimes get the impression that you don't much like me.
Here you go, taking liberties again. I didn't say that you are disgrace, just that the attitude that you were presenting (inadvertently, apparently) was. To me, there's a big difference between the two. It's just like someone can do or say a racist thing without actually being a racist.
While I've not kept close track of our conversations together, I can say that I don't not like you. I don't really have an opinion on you. I know we've clashed in the past, so I'd imagine it's accurate to say that I dislike some of your attitudes or beliefs. How much those attitudes or beliefs are the "core you" isn't something anyone but you can know, but I try not to presume that any belief is, unless told otherwise by the person in question.
I see, well here's hoping that no wars will be declared in the future. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Also you made the statement that there are no Asian faces, here is one. She is on the right towards the bottom, (I believe you linked to a page that contains this very picture.)
I did link to and notice that, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I should have been more explicit, I was looking for pictures depicting Chinese Americans in small town America (or American cities for that matter).
Given that last quote, I'm not too optimistic.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm perfectly happy myself to have you wax as nostalgic as you like about any time period in history that you chose, and I won't argue publicly with you about such choices.
I find this a perfectly kind and polite attitude in most public situations but in a discussion like this one where the stated objective is to explore the reasons that people wax nostalgic about small town life I think different rules apply. You can't really discuss the question if you can't discuss whether peoples nostaligic views are in fact accurate.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mucus, Thanks for the quote from Rockwell. I think they touch on the heart of the question I originally posed.
I think many people cling to an idealized view of small towns or by gone eras because they want so much to believe in a world without tangled problems or agonizing crises. They choose to believe that world exists somewhere or existed sometime because it makes the complex troubles of reality easier to bear.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think many people cling to an idealized view of small towns or by gone eras because they want so much to believe in a world without tangled problems or agonizing crises. They choose to believe that world exists somewhere or existed sometime because it makes the complex troubles of reality easier to bear.
I think that trying to guess at strangers' internal motivations is pointless.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think many people cling to an idealized view of small towns or by gone eras because they want so much to believe in a world without tangled problems or agonizing crises. They choose to believe that world exists somewhere or existed sometime because it makes the complex troubles of reality easier to bear.
I think that trying to guess at strangers' internal motivations is pointless.
I think you're motivations for saying this are suspect Scott.
edit: Also, we don't need to necessarily guess. In a forum this vast there may be people who can honestly state why they wax nostalgic about certain things. Those reasons are certainly stronger than mere guesswork.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Small towns haven't disappeared; I think that we can't wax nostalgic for them, if some still exist.
Perhaps nostalgia isn't the right word, but there does seem to be a great deal in common with the sentimental yearning for the past and sentimental idealization of small town life.
Both the OED and Websters' equate nostalgia with "homesickness" or "yearning for familiar conditions" in their first definition.
I think the nostaligic idealization of the 1950s often reflects not necessarily a yearning for the familiar but a yearning for "simpler times" which is not all that different from the "yearning for a simpler life" that is often associated with small towns.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think many people cling to an idealized view of small towns or by gone eras because they want so much to believe in a world without tangled problems or agonizing crises. They choose to believe that world exists somewhere or existed sometime because it makes the complex troubles of reality easier to bear.
I think that trying to guess at strangers' internal motivations is pointless.
Then why are you even participating in this thread when its stated goal was to try to understand why people idealized small town life if you think trying to understand what motivates human behavior is pointless.
And BTW, I think there is a world of difference between trying to understand what kinds of things motivate a very common human behavior and making judgements about what motivates a particular individual in a specific circumstance.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm perfectly happy myself to have you wax as nostalgic as you like about any time period in history that you chose, and I won't argue publicly with you about such choices.
I find this a perfectly kind and polite attitude in most public situations but in a discussion like this one where the stated objective is to explore the reasons that people wax nostalgic about small town life I think different rules apply. You can't really discuss the question if you can't discuss whether peoples nostaligic views are in fact accurate.
Oh, I'm fine with the discussion in general and think that talking about it this way is a good idea.
---
Added:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: And BTW, I think there is a world of difference between trying to understand what kinds of things motivate a very common human behavior and making judgements about what motivates a particular individual in a specific circumstance.
quote:Then why are you even participating in this thread when its stated goal was to try to understand why people idealized small town life if you think trying to understand what motivates human behavior is pointless.
I'm participating right now because you made a judgment about people's motivations that I don't think anyone is intelligent (or widely informed) enough to make.
You haven't, as far as I've seen, tried to understand why people believe the way they do; you've instead shown that their beliefs are not wholly correct.
There's a difference, Rabbit, in trying to understand a belief and trying to convince the believer that their belief is incorrect.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Scott, I'm really not sure what I've done to cause you to respond with such hostility.
Mucus posted a quote from Normal Rockwell in which he describes what he believes to be his motivations for painting an idealized world. I speculated that others might have similar reasons for maintaining an idealized mental picture of small town life or life in the past. I don't see why that is objectionable.
I never claimed or implied that all people who think that living in a small town is nice or who are nostalgic for the 1950s have that motivation. I never claimed that every one who liked small town life had an idealized romantic notion of it. In fact I started off by saying that I preferred living in small communities myself, even though I know they rarely live up to the romantic stereotype.
And quite frankly, I think most people are intelligent enough and sufficiently well informed to conclude the the motivations Norman Rockwell describes as his own, are likely common motivations. If you have specific reasons to believe that Norman Rockwell's motivations are highly unusual and shouldn't be taken as representative of any common human motivation, please elaborate. Otherwise I think you are just trying to pick a fight that I have no interest in having.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I take you either don't listen to a Prairie Home Companion or don't consider it popular entertainment.
I always took Keillor as a city guy. When he talks about small towns, he damns them with faint praise. The Wobegon townies seem a bit rubish and cowardly. From the episodes I've heard, people with ambitions move out, and only when and if the city breaks them do they come back, broken.
I can tell you why I'm likely to idealize small towns: a person's worth would seem more manifest and appreciated. In my idealized version, the smaller the town, the smaller the machinery. There is a kind of freedom that goes with not having to wade through administration. It's kind of the same reason to do business with independent stores as opposed to chains. Now, I'm a city guy, but I'm not so much pro-city as anti-suburb.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Jhai, you're overreacting.
Wow, it's so easy for a white male to decide that! The 50s were indeed repulsive in this extremely important aspect of their character. In most of the U.S. it would have been a capital crime (punishable by instant vigilante justice) for Jhai to hold hands with her husband then, and illegal for her to marry him. That sort of puts the whole time in an entirely different, and much less benign light for her than for some other people who are remembering it.
Much of what made upper-middle-class white life idyllic then was that the darkies did all the hardest dirtiest jobs which my mother still refers to as '(n-word) work'. Let me repeat again for those who don't see it. A society in which there are plenty of servants and oppressed people who are forced to stay in "their place" can be very nice for those who are on top. Those of us who don't identify with the ones who were on top can see the same time and place as ghastly and oppressive, and feel no fondness for it whatsoever. It's quite a legitimate point of view, and one everyone should take care to understand.
posted
She was not over-reacting to something in the fifties. She was over-reacting to the person she was talking to.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I didn't say that you are disgrace, just that the attitude that you were presenting (inadvertently, apparently) was. To me, there's a big difference between the two. It's just like someone can do or say a racist thing without actually being a racist.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
