Posted on 11/02/2018 3:56:33 PM PDT by MNDude
I recently watched Back to the Future 1 + 2 with my 11 year old daughter. She loved seeing how our world was in 1984, 1954, and how we envisioned the world would be in 2014.
I was somewhat surprised at how distant and prehistoric 1955 culture scene to me now. So I am asking a question to those who are old enough to remember life in the 1950s.
Do you believe the world, culture, and Technology has changed more from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s or has it changed more from the mid-1980s to the mid 2010?
In America, the BAN THE BOMBERS predate the BEATS and were stinking COMMIES, who were the parents of the damned RED DIAPER BABY "leaders" of the late '60s!
Oh sure, they were more into the whole COMMIE crap and far less into the drug scene; however, it all really started with them and other such scum, who were behind the whole trash the traditional behavior and life of EVERYONE ELSE, here, to make America into a Stalinist or Trotskyite "nirvana".
The "BEATS" had very little to NO influence, when compared with the stinking HIPPY/YIPPIE garbage!
And the American/Greenwich Village "BOHEMIANS" of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, here, had even LESS influence! The BROADWAY scene and Prohibition culture had far MORE "influence" on the general public; truth be told.
And even in the late '60s...though things were changing, culturally, it was still pretty much a "fringe" thing! Many stupid kids outgrowing and/or stopped "PLAY ACTING" as "WEEKEND HIPPIES" and subversives made the FRINGE still pretty much THE FRINGE!
Yes, culture was changing; however, for a majority of the American populace, it took decades and technology to REALLY make the horrific "change" come to the forefront.
WHY?
Because it took that long for the STINKING COMMIES to massively DESTROY education, morality, our culture, and our view of religion and patriotism.
> “Can’t agree...Even in the 80s, it was rare to see gays coming out except in SF or on a TV comedy show.”
Well, I won’t dispute your estimate of when the promotion of homosexuality came to the fore. I think you’re right about that (except in the minority counterculture, of course, e.g., the beatniks William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg). The undermining of respect for the achievements of Western civilization, though — and specifically of the United States — took place a couple of decades before. Also the rise of irresponsible heterosexual behavior was much earlier too (not that I’m against sex myself, just irresponsible sex).
I don't disagree about their respective influences, and cited early fringe groups only as presenting problems in establishing a date for the beginning of the Western Cultural Revolution. I don't date that beginning from the later time when nearly half the American people went along with it.
Also, most persons were never hippies. A good many ended up looking almost exactly like them, though, and sharing many of their characteristics, and the hippies came along way before the 1980s.
I think we must date the start of the cultural revolution to a period well before the 80s, probably the late 60s, early 70s. Didn't pop culture, at least, change then? And when the counterculture students of that time became politicians, teachers, and school administrators, education changed too.
I didn’t allow my kids to have TVs or computers in their room and no video games...I told them they would rot their brains.
The change was slow at first and then it accelerated, so it’s hard to say. Change builds on the previous change and goes faster. The most drastic and dangerous changes have been in the last couple of years, and we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The junk man still came around with a horse-drawn cart. We used to save up the aluminum from chewing gum wrappers and sell it to him for a few cents.
I remember VJ Day because my mother grabbed us out of bed in our pajamas and put us in the back seat of the car to go visiting relatives to celebrate.
My aunt had the white margarine that you mixed with yellow dye so it looked like butter. All my aunts gave us their shoe coupons because our feet were still growing.
My father’s best friend came home thin as a rail and never ate more than one small meal a day for the rest of his life (Japanese internment camp).
One day my father said come with me. We went into one of the little “clubs” that Italian men had in storefronts in Newark’s Little Italy, and there was like a machine with a black-and-white movie on it. It was Super Circus. It was a television set.
As I stated, the FRINGE, whether here or in Europe/the UK, has always been part of every nation's history. Just how much or how little influence it has had, is not "subjective"; rather, it should be based on WHEN it became the "NORM" and not just THE FRINGE!
There were a LOT of really STUPID kids who were "weekend hippies", but who outgrew it; though some never did.
The BEATS had almost NO influence on anyone!
Oh, they were "exotic", somewhat "interesting"; but no, they really weren't the forerunners of the STINKING RED DIAPER BABY putch that followed!
One interesting side note...the "FOLK SONG" stuff of the '30s ( RICHARD DYER BENNET excluded! ) included some really nasty COMMIE people ( WOODY GUTHRIE...father of ARLO ),as did the resurgence of THE WEAVERS, in the late '50s through the '60s. The latter course led to the real culture shift.
The BAN THE BOMB lefties had kids who became the COMMIE "leaders" of the late '60s, which then led to the leftward surge that hit decades later.
Movies began to change with the slow death of the long standing "STUDIO SYSTEM" in the late '60s; however, it took quite a long while for it to change completely.
Minus THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS, T.V. ( not talking about the news! )was NOT "radicalized" for quite a while!
Music? Well, that depends....
Yes, there was some radicalization in the late '60s, but it didn't last all that long. But it DID change and not for the better, when it came roaring back with the HIP-HOP and RAP filth.
Broadway?
Excluding HAIR...that took even MORE time to devolve! It was still pretty good well into the '80s, but began to go to utter garbage in the 21rst century.
Historically, major "changes" of all kinds, tend to happen during and especially AFTER major wars. Which makes the current times ( the rise of stinking COMMIES, yet again, whether they call themselves that, or something else ), something quite unusual and strange.
50’s to mid 80’s
Antibiotics - less sickness and reaths, longer lives.
Jet air travel - shrank the world.
The atomic bomb & the Cold War - Armageddon hanging over everyone.
TV - huge social changes from the Boob Tube.
The transistor - from pocket AM/FM radios to ICs and the PC.
The Pill (birth control) - no consequence sex, girls get looser.
Rock & Roll - harsh and edgy replaces smooth and fun.
Civil rights movement - blacks get hoodwinked by Democrats.
The 60’s - communist-led youth revolts take America left.
Vietnam Nam War - America’s military spine weakens.
Personal Computers - the Information (& mis-information) Age begins.
Fast food - family meals decline and obesity increases.
Video games - our boys bisappear into a violent video screen.
Corn invasion - corn & its byproducts saturate the American diet.
First I discovered the pop stations. Then I realized Newark had its own black station. (Actually, it had two of them, and an Italian station that played opera and a Polish station that played polkas).
The black music was contemporary, but every once in a while one of the jockeys would play an older blues number. Those were the ones I loved. Eventually, there were white jockeys who played both black and white music--rock and the like. Each tried to be like the other to get both markets, so the music wasn't pure anymore.
Every day at 12 noon the black station had a gospel hour and the theme song was this. I loved when they were ahead of schedule and played it all the way to the end.
Sulfa drugs and a bit later penicillin were in civilian usage in the '40s.
Lots of people flew in the '30s and 40s and early '50s.
T.V. was available, in the USA, though not common, in the late '30s and really began to take off in the late '40s.
This is an interesting thread.
Parts of this thread focus on technological changes we’ve seen over the decades.
And other parts talk about the social changes both good and bad that we’ve seen.
There’s a lot to think about , regarding how Society has changed, and how technology has affected societal change.
> “This is an interesting thread.”
I think so too. But then I’m an old guy with nothing much else to do. :-)
Morality:
mid-1950s to the mid-1980s
Technology:
mid-1980s to the mid 2010
Yes (though, of course, it’s just a matter of degree).
Could you please elaborate on that? I found only:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Oaken_Bucket
Regards,
Mess with Gene's what?
I don't even know anyone named "Gene."
Regards,
I hear yuh, but...
Then shouldn't we be overawed by the changes which took place between 2008 and 2018? As compared to the changes which took place between 1998 and 2008?
Regards,
And where, Oh where, was Willis H. Carrier?
(Actually, you'd have needed Edison first.)
The BIG SPARK occurred in the ‘60s and ‘70s...ever since then it just keeps deteriorating....I think more changed in the earlier period and it just becomes more evident in the later period.
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