quote:Wow, it's so easy for a white male to decide that!
Oh, I am SO glad you brought this up. I mean, obviously, you're off base in terms of context of this thread, but within the speculative fiction writing community, there has been a...furor over the type of thing you're accusing me of.
Look up 'cultural appropriation' sometime.
I'm curious as to why you think I (white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class) *can't*, or don't sympathize/empathize with racial/gender/whatever difficulties.
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Point of order: I don't think she actually said you can't or don't sympathize/empathize, just that it's much easier for white males to find the 50s nostalgic than people who belong to groups that had fewer civil rights during that time period. Which is pretty much a true statement - not all white males, obviously, but comparatively more than, say, black women.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I'm curious as to why you think I (white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class) *can't*, or don't sympathize/empathize with racial/gender/whatever difficulties.
Possibly it has something to do with the nostalgia that many of them have for the 1950s.
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Indeed, it seems totally unsurprising that people would sympathize/emphasize more with people that look or act like themselves. The only question is to what degree it applies with white Christian males and what special circumstances in America have encouraged (or inhibited) this.
(And yes, there has been more than a few articles about the subject on various blogs on racial relations and the like)
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Possibly it has something to do with the nostalgia that many of them have for the 1950s.
Eh. Maybe, maybe not.
code:
white male Christian Mucus 1 Jhai 1 ? TomD 1 1 The Rabbit ? 1 katharina 1 1 kmbboots 1 1 Tatiana 1 1 BlackBlade 1 1 1 Scott R 1 1 1
This is for the last two pages for posters that have given a relatively clear opinion. I left out heterosexual and middle-class because I simply don't have enough information on that front. Plus, there are bound to be mistakes (I seriously can't be the only non-white person here?).
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My point is not that white male Christians can't sympathize - clearly many of them do. MY point is that nostalgia for a time when others were oppressed demonstrates a lack of sympathy for those others.
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How about "may" demonstrate? Saying that it always demonstrates a lack of sympathy is assuming things about their thoughts and motives you can't possibly know for sure. Since there are many reasons a person might have nostalgia for that time and a lack of sympathy for the oppressed is only one of them, surely it would be better not to assume the very worst of people off the bat.
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Oh, come now. Catholicism is silly, but its catechism does not include "I long for the days of the Papal Inquisition".
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kmbboots: Why does nostalgia for a period of time necessitate that the whole thing be brought wholesale back? Many people have suggested that some of the positive things mentioned regarding the 1950s were only available because certain negative elements also existed. For example friendly gated communities could only exist because other races and creeds were oppressed and kept out. Mothers were in every home tending their children because women as a gender were shackled to the kitchen and not permitted to leave.
I can agree that in some ways this may be partly or wholly true. I disagree thought that every positive thing germane to the 1950s was predicated on a disgraceful principle. I posited politeness, I'd also suggest general respect for one's elders, and love for one's country. Yes every single one of those principles can be taken to excess and has been.
Does my enjoyment of the present require that I also be unsympathetic towards Darfur refugees and every woman that was likely raped today?
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Who on earth brought rapists and Darfur into the conversation! It was bad enough to introduce the Inquisition.
A sincere acknowledgement of the downside while you are indulging your nostalgia would probably suffice.
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Suffice for what? No one is allowed to express happiness without qualifying it? If someone says "I think today is a good day." they are remiss unless they apologize to the people who are not having good days?
The same principle that Jhai freaked out about concerning the nostalgia for the 50s is exactly what makes it okay to bring Darfur into the conversation.
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Actual, I think I'm more of a pinkish tan with brown spots.
That's probably quite true these days. I always imagine this picture whenever I think about you these days Rabbit. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Suffice to demonstrate that one is not unsympathetic.
If someone is having a good day because of conditions that are only possible at the expense of others then, yes, I think that acknowledgment of that cost is appropriate.
ETA: For example: "Antebellum society was so graceful and lovely. I wish there was some way to recreate that without slavery."
posted
Can you be nostaligic for a time period you didn't live through?
Honestly, most the people arguing this didn't live through the 1950s. Its possible that back in the 50s families were closer, spouses more loving, parents more caring, neighbors more friendly, skies were bluer, the air and water were cleaner and that people as a whole were more trustworthy, thrifty, loyal, clean and reverent. I don't know, I didn't live then. If those virtues really did exist in the 1950s, then yeah I'd say that part of the 50s was great.
But I'm skeptical that the 1950s were really like that. Those are the same things people have been saying about "the good old days" for at least 2000 years.
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Correlation is not causation, Kate. Do you think every single thing good thing that happened in the fifties was based directly on bad things happening for other people? All of it? Every bit? The entire fifties was a zero sum game?
Are you seriously comparing all of America in the fifties to the ante-bellum South?
If you are, then you don't understand history. If you are not, then you owe BB an apology for being so careless with him.
Rabbit: While that may be what YOU mean if you had said it, that is not the only possible meaning of the phrase. Attacking people for what you would have meant instead finding out what they actually meant is a problem. Can you see why?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Can you be nostaligic for a time period you didn't live through?
Honestly, most the people arguing this didn't live through the 1950s. ...
Thats why I feel pseudo-detached from the discussion, not only did I not live through it but very very few people like me did due to a combination of completely and explicitly excluding Chinese immigration up to the 40s and extremely tight quotes through to the 60s.
In fact, even my parents choose to immigrate to Canada rather than the US in the 60s due to persistent and systematic discrimination up to today (as did many others, which is neatly reflected by the fact that the Chinese population in Canada is four times that of the US by %).
Which is probably one other factor in the mix, while things are light-years better than in the 50s, those that still have to deal with the lingering effects of that era are naturally much more resistant to any hints of back-sliding.
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The Rabbit: Your list is too extensive, I don't think anyone is arguing that the 1950s were all those things, or even that one of those things was totally true.
Over the last 2000 years I'd say many of those things increased and decreased quite significantly.
edit: Incidentally I don't feel I am owed an apology by anyone. Jhai and I have probably had the most heated disagreement in the thread thus far and I think we worked it out alright.
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kat, would you do me a favour and reread my posts in this thread? Pretend that someone else wrote them.
Do I really say what you seem to think I have been saying?
ETA: Start with this one:
quote: 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.
posted
I have a problem with your stance, not with you. I honestly disagree that in order to say something is good and not be offensive, you must qualify any positive statement with disclaimers. Demanding that he include disclaimers or else be thought a joyous oppressor seems very rude and uncharitable to me.
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I don't think there was anything good about the '50s that was uniquely good about the '50s, or even was a product of that time period itself.
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quote:The Rabbit: Your list is too extensive, I don't think anyone is arguing that the 1950s were all those things, or even that one of those things was totally true.
Perhaps then you could give me some specific things which you think were better in the 1950s than they are now and explain the reasons that have for thinking that's the way things were (since you and I didn't live through that time period).
quote: 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
Tatiana is also wrong in claiming total causation. That may be true in some parts of the country, but it wasn't true everywhere.
Among the many problems with it, there are gigantic swaths of the country that didn't even have a minority underclass, much less one large enough to be responsible for the nice life for everyone else.
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Tom: It's not as if the 1950s spontaneously appeared, of course it is a product of preceding years. Are you saying that anything good in the 1950s was done better in the past, making the entire decade a social devolution?
The Rabbit: Even the things that I think might have been better in the 1950s are not universally true. For instance I mentioned respect for one's elders was probably better in the 1950s than it is now based on literature, movies, documentaries, and on personal experience with today's vernacular. But while your average American person might say sir and ma'am more often there were still plenty of white people referring to their African American elders as "boy" and "lady" or worse.
Or take communities, I do believe there needs to be a homogeneous limit reached before a community can thrive through unity. What factors do and do not work is not something I could say with much accuracy. I do not however believe that only through repression and exclusion can a society break down into communities.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I don't think there was anything good about the '50s that was uniquely good about the '50s, or even was a product of that time period itself.
:agrees with Tom:
:well, almost:
There were a lot of developments in music that were unique to the '50s. Rock'n'Roll was up-and-coming, and country music began to move out of the hills. Those things were definitely products of the 50s, I think.
I'm trying to determine if I feel the same way about small towns.
...I don't.
There are things that are uniquely good about living in a small town, though I'm sure not everyone would have the same experiences.
From my point of view, though, a lot of the benefits come less from living in a small town than from living nearer to rural areas.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Tatiana is also wrong in claiming total causation. That may be true in some parts of the country, but it wasn't true everywhere.
Among the many problems with it, there are gigantic swaths of the country that didn't even have a minority underclass, much less one large enough to be responsible for the nice life for everyone else.
This whole conversation has been about American society in the 1950s, as a whole. As a whole, American society in the 1950s was disgustingly racist and sexist. You can't talk about American society in the 1950s as a whole without discussing this issue, given that we're talking about conditions that the majority of the population dealt with.
Remember, this whole conversation started off from BB's comment that
quote:I think Vladimir Putin said it quite aptly, "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain."
Substitute Soviet Union for 1950s America and I think it still holds true.
I think Putin's statement is incredibly wrong and misguided as is BB's new version of it, and I think it's notions like this that people are arguing against.
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Interesting bit I heard on the radio on the way to work this morning. The driver was listening to an obviously Christian station; the following was broadcast:
quote:The slippery slope of moral relativism is apparent in today's schools. In the 40's the major discipline issues were talking in class, tardiness, and not doing your homework. Today the major discipline issues are rape, drug abuse, and violence.
I had to wonder at how the commentator was classifying "major." Was it reflective of quantity of complaint? Or did he really think there was no rape, drug use, or violence in the schools back in the 40s?
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Jhai, I think you fundamentally misunderstood the motives behind BB's comment and instead assigned to them the most uncharitable interpretation possible, and then proceeded from there as if your assumptions were true.
You owe him an apology.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Incidentally I don't feel I am owed an apology by anyone. Jhai and I have probably had the most heated disagreement in the thread thus far and I think we worked it out alright.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Incidentally I don't feel I am owed an apology by anyone. Jhai and I have probably had the most heated disagreement in the thread thus far and I think we worked it out alright.
Incidentally you owe me an apology Rabbit for not acknowledging that excellent picture I linked.
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I'm starting to wonder whether Jhai missed the second part of the quote:
quote:I think Vladimir Putin said it quite aptly, "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain."
It's shorthand, to be sure, but it is acknowledging that it was a worse time in an overall sense - hence wanting to go back then is stupid.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: It's nice how kind BB has been in a thread where he didn't need to be.
Well laying aside that I do not technically "need" to be in any thread in hatrack what exactly do you mean?
I guess in terms of qualifications I am probably one of the last who should be posting here as my personal background is one of cosmopolitan cities and multinational communities.
edit: Too late to delete the post, I misread your post as saying it was nice for me, "to be in a thread" rather than "how kind" I was being. You can disregard the rest of my post I suppose.
KOM: Incidentally what music do you enjoy?
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quote:There were a lot of developments in music that were unique to the '50s. Rock'n'Roll was up-and-coming, and country music began to move out of the hills. Those things were definitely products of the 50s, I think.
You say that like it's a good thing.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Incidentally I don't feel I am owed an apology by anyone. Jhai and I have probably had the most heated disagreement in the thread thus far and I think we worked it out alright.
Incidentally you owe me an apology Rabbit for not acknowledging that excellent picture I linked.
Let me offer my most humble apology. It was indeed a most excellent picture and a spectacular likeness of me on my electric scooter (even if I am not quite as singularly white and my scooter is orange not red_.
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'Enjoy'? I don't understand the question. I don't enjoy music, I enjoy sneering at other people's taste in it.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I'm starting to wonder whether Jhai missed the second part of the quote:
quote:I think Vladimir Putin said it quite aptly, "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain."
It's shorthand, to be sure, but it is acknowledging that it was a worse time in an overall sense - hence wanting to go back then is stupid.
I saw the second part. I disagree strongly with the first part - in fact, given the misery of many groups of both Soviet Russia & 1950s America, I'd say that whoever does miss those times has no heart.
Note: I'm not bringing this up to chastise BB. Like him, I think we've settled the issue agreeably enough. But I still think that that quote is wrong.
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quote:There are things that are uniquely good about living in a small town, though I'm sure not everyone would have the same experiences.
From my point of view, though, a lot of the benefits come less from living in a small town than from living nearer to rural areas.
The thing I like best about the smaller communities I've lived in being close to wilderness where one can find real solitude.
I also like the ease of living within easy walking or cycling distance of everything in town and at the same time being able to easily walk or bike in to farmland, woods or mountains.
I like having a high probability of running into people I know whenever I go to the store, a movie or a restaurant.
I like the feeling of my voice having a measurable impact on the community.
But the smallest towns I've lived in have been in the 10^4 range not the 10^2 range. They've all been college towns in the Western US. My experience is certainly not transferrable to all smaller communities and many people from really small towns would consider the places I've lived big cities.
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quote:given the misery of many groups of both Soviet Russia & 1950s America, I'd say that whoever does miss those times has no heart.
I think this is a judgment that borders on unmerciful, as well as unconsidered.
The intense misery that some groups were subjected to doesn't overwrite the strides made in culture, science, and human rights. Generally, one man's misery should not be allowed to negate another's joy.
It is not honest to take a broad brush and paint an era with a uniform black mark; we want for nuance. It is as tragic to condemn the era as it is to exalt it.
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Yes, yes, acknowledge the good with the bad, fine. But 'to miss' implies that you would, if you had the power, go back to conditions as they were then. If that's really true, then I think 'no heart' is a fine diagnosis.
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But I'm not saying that there weren't strides made in anything, nor am I saying that misery negates joy. Nor do I "take a broad brush and paint <the> era with a uniform black mark".
These are all things that cannot be reasonably concluded from me saying "whoever misses the 1950s has no heart". You're reading far more into my words than is there.
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