I don’t think people were more trustworthy in 1972. That was the era of Richard J Dailey, Serpico and Watergate, just to name some very high profile corruption. You’re also talking the height of the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers and a few other nuts. Really everything you’re saying is terrible now was just as much if not more so then.
And we’ve never really had a cohesive culture. America is a big country with lots of different setups and climates. City people- country people, Eastern people - Western people, snowbelt people - sunbelt people. All are vastly different groups with different values. And have been for a long time. In the era of 3 TV networks we learned how to pretend America was a mono-culture but that was always a lie. Anybody that think America is (or ever was) a mono-culture needs to explain what BBQ is, what you call a bubbly caffeinated beverage, and what you call a cold cut sandwich on a french foll.
God got more lip service back then. You could count on the submarine, hoagie, or grinder eaters, and the pop, soda, or coke drinkers, to all pretty much agree what God was about even if their allegiance to Him was observed more in the breach.
Kind of. 1962 would have been a better benchmark. In 1972 people were deathly afraid of rioters, hippies, druggies, hitchhikers, and killers who picked up hitchhikers.
The people who took a survey in 1972 probably would have grown up in a less stressful era, though, and might have kept some of their trustworthy nature over the years.
And yeah, baby boomers with their sophomoric ideas were coming of age... but the vast majority of the country in ‘72 was still ‘trustworthy and trusted’ - not like today.
In 1964 the biggest high school problem was ‘spitballs’... Do you know what it is today? That tells the story.
We're just a big enterprise zone. A big frigging mall and no one really knows what's in it.............