Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

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Winston
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Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by Winston »

I just talked to Mitchell, Steve Hoca's last guest, on the phone. He said that the 1950's, according to his mom, were not the happy wholesome times that people today envision.

He said that yes, family values were very strong back then, and jobs were stable in that when you got a job it was for life, and hard work was rewarded. However, the society and culture was very repressive, narrow and conformist. If you had nonconformist views or were seen as weird, you could be thrown into a mental institution. People were also very religious and patriotic and racist. They didn't question government or religion or think for themselves. Also, although people put up a facade of happiness on the outside, what happened behind closed doors was another matter.

That may be true, but I still think that the 1950's was a kinder wholesome era, because people who grew up during that decade are much more kind, wholesome, gentle and have strong traditional values. This includes my parents too, who still have the personalities of families from the 50's, kind of like the parents depicted in the 50's TV show "Leave it to Beaver".

However, what I don't get is why, if America was more wild and happy in the 1920's and 1930's, how did it all of a sudden become repressive, narrow, rigid and conformist in the 1950's?
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by germanguy »

Winston wrote: However, what I don't get is why, if America was more wild and happy in the 1920's and 1930's, how did it all of a sudden become repressive, narrow, rigid and conformist in the 1950's?
Your view of history is all wrong. The 1920s and 1930s are tame compared to current America.

I know what kind of reports you base your view on but they dont show you the whole picture of American society back in the 20s and 30s.
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Post by Winston »

Tame in what sense? Can you elaborate and give examples?
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by Jester »

Winston wrote:I just talked to Mitchell, Steve Hoca's last guest, on the phone. He said that the 1950's, according to his mom, were not the happy wholesome times that people today envision.
Look at the movies.

1940's movies were uplifting and had a moral point.

By the late 40's to early 50's, everything was bleak. Women were dames or broads. Men were tough guys, not dads or heroes. Everyone was tainted.

Movies started to appear that focused on sick, psychological problems. Insanity was portrayed as a fearsome threat that could afflict someone without cause. Experts smoking pipes sat around pontificating about the human mind.

We now know that, during this same time frame, the Anglo-American "elites" were experimenting at Tavistock and in MK-Ultra with drugs and various techniques to accomplish brainwashing. Art reflects reality.

Another area: sex. In the 40's, men chased women, till the girl got her man. By the 50's we started to see sick stuff like "Streetcar Named Desire".

James Dean, and even the pathetic Montgomery Clift, replaced the coarse, red-blooded stars of the past.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The seeds for societal breakdown were sowed from around 1947 on.
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Post by germanguy »

Winston wrote:Tame in what sense? Can you elaborate and give examples?
Much more conservative then nowadays...Much more repressive, etc.
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Post by Winston »

germanguy wrote:
Winston wrote:Tame in what sense? Can you elaborate and give examples?
Much more conservative then nowadays...Much more repressive, etc.
In what way? Then why was it called "The Roaring 20's"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties
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Post by germanguy »

First sentence:

"The Roaring Twenties is a term sometimes used to refer to the 1920s, characterizing the decade's distinctive cultural edge in New York City, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, London, and many other major cities during a period of sustained economic prosperity. "

What about all the other people? The Roaring Twenties are real but they have been a phenomenon not because of how crazy they were when looking at it from todays POV but because they were an extreme contrast to what was going on before and after. Today you have the roaring 20s everywhere in the western world and with almost everyone involved. Check out parties at a local College. So yes the 20s and 30s have been tame and conservative compared to now.
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Post by Repatriate »

You could say the 20-30's was depraved and decadent too. It was the end of the imperial era and the start of world turmoil and moral hypocrisy in U.S. society. You had outrageous moral laws concerning liquor and people generally liked to bury their heads and pretend vice didn't exist. This all led to prohibition and all sorts of gangster activities and weird laws. Plus people were far crazier with religion and society much more depraved underneath the surface because people didn't have proper outlets. Don't forget about all the racism and insanity going on including lynchings and other nasty shit.
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by gsjackson »

Jester wrote:
Winston wrote:I just talked to Mitchell, Steve Hoca's last guest, on the phone. He said that the 1950's, according to his mom, were not the happy wholesome times that people today envision.
Look at the movies.

1940's movies were uplifting and had a moral point.

By the late 40's to early 50's, everything was bleak. Women were dames or broads. Men were tough guys, not dads or heroes. Everyone was tainted.

Movies started to appear that focused on sick, psychological problems. Insanity was portrayed as a fearsome threat that could afflict someone without cause. Experts smoking pipes sat around pontificating about the human mind.

We now know that, during this same time frame, the Anglo-American "elites" were experimenting at Tavistock and in MK-Ultra with drugs and various techniques to accomplish brainwashing. Art reflects reality.

Another area: sex. In the 40's, men chased women, till the girl got her man. By the 50's we started to see sick stuff like "Streetcar Named Desire".

James Dean, and even the pathetic Montgomery Clift, replaced the coarse, red-blooded stars of the past.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The seeds for societal breakdown were sowed from around 1947 on.
Jester has nailed it. There were some major social pathologies overtaking the US immediately in the wake of WWII. You start with the fact that millions of GI's, who had seen the skull beneath the skin of life during war (as, for example, in the Phillippines, where the Japs were brutally tortured by the Phillipinos when captured), came home to this utterly phony triumphalism, and they knew it was phony. They came home to a nation that had just destroyed the populations of two large cities with nuclear weapons. Scarred for life by war, they dove into a cocktail glass and forgot everything the culture had learned about civilized living, signing off on the mindless, sprawling commercialism that characterized post-war American life.

You had the gargantuan national security state beginning in the late '40s, conjuring up the nearest handy demon -- communism -- to rationalize empire building. Now, the emperor dispatches predator drones to assassinate victims of his choosing around the globe, and hijacks the airplanes of heads of state who might be harboring a whistle blower who dared to point out the emperor has no clothes.

So yes, the '50s were the beginning of a great national sickness that Americans mis-identified and tried to contain in all the wrong ways, but it was also characterized by a strong middle class that is now gone.
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Post by Teal Lantern »

Winston wrote:
germanguy wrote:
Winston wrote:Tame in what sense? Can you elaborate and give examples?
Much more conservative then nowadays...Much more repressive, etc.
In what way? Then why was it called "The Roaring 20's"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties
Because "Roaring 20's" sounds fancier than "Central Bank Fueled Credit Bubble". :twisted:


The Federal Reserve expanded credit, by setting below market interest rates and low reserve requirements that favored big banks, and the money supply actually increased by about 60% during the time following the recession. By the latter part of the decade "buying on margin" entered the American vocabulary as more and more Americans over-extended themselves to speculate on the soaring stock market and expanding credit.

не поглеждай назад. 8)

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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by Winston »

Jester wrote:
July 6th, 2013, 1:28 am
Winston wrote:I just talked to Mitchell, Steve Hoca's last guest, on the phone. He said that the 1950's, according to his mom, were not the happy wholesome times that people today envision.
Look at the movies.

1940's movies were uplifting and had a moral point.

By the late 40's to early 50's, everything was bleak. Women were dames or broads. Men were tough guys, not dads or heroes. Everyone was tainted.

Movies started to appear that focused on sick, psychological problems. Insanity was portrayed as a fearsome threat that could afflict someone without cause. Experts smoking pipes sat around pontificating about the human mind.

We now know that, during this same time frame, the Anglo-American "elites" were experimenting at Tavistock and in MK-Ultra with drugs and various techniques to accomplish brainwashing. Art reflects reality.

Another area: sex. In the 40's, men chased women, till the girl got her man. By the 50's we started to see sick stuff like "Streetcar Named Desire".

James Dean, and even the pathetic Montgomery Clift, replaced the coarse, red-blooded stars of the past.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The seeds for societal breakdown were sowed from around 1947 on.
Yeah I heard from Joseph Atwill on YouTube that the 1950's was when teenage rebellion was invented. Before that, it wasn't natural or common for teenagers to rebel against adults or authority. People automatically assume that teenage rebellion is normal and natural, but in reality it was engineered in the 1950's by James Dean and "Rebel Without A Cause". Before then, teens and adults got along great. Teenagers usually either helped on farms or worked as apprentices in craft guilds to learn new skills from adult craftsmen. They had a symbiotic win-win situation. They didn't need to rebel. All they wanted was good work and education so they could become real men and become independent responsible adults.

Also in the 1950's products were designed to last long term. Clothes would last for years or decades. And TV's would last forever. Companies competed to make the highest quality long lasting products. But then that evil dickhead Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, told Madison Avenue that making products to last long term was not profitable. Instead, he told them to make products with shorter life cycles so that people will buy more frequently from them and thus increase corporate profits. That's when products were made to wear out faster. So stupid.

Btw what happened to the milk man and doctors making house calls in the 1950's? How come there's no milk man today? And doctors don't make house calls unless you're super rich? lol
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by Winston »

Check out these great videos from the 1950's that I posted. Wow. Things were sure different.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=37356
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by Winston »

To be honest, after watching some of these videos of America in the 1950s, I get the impression that yeah the 1950's were better in terms of the economy, family values, cost of living, stable jobs, and moral values. However, there is no freethought or nonconformity at all. Or even true individualism. Everyone back then looked like a pure conformist, like mainland China is today. No rebels or hippies existed. So you could not be a freethinker. My friend Mitchell told me that his mom told him that back in the 1950's if you were a nonconformist or freethinker, they would put you in a mental institution, because that is not allowed. So it was a culture of total conformity, even though many things were nice. But I guess that in a good environment with good people, less people will be inclined to be rebels or nonconformists, because people will feel happier and more harmonious with others. So it's possible that had I grown up back then, I may not have been incited to become a misfit or nonconformist. Who knows.
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Re: Were the 1950's as wholesome and prosperous as we think?

Post by gsjackson »

Winston wrote:
June 18th, 2018, 11:14 am
To be honest, after watching some of these videos of America in the 1950s, I get the impression that yeah the 1950's were better in terms of the economy, family values, cost of living, stable jobs, and moral values. However, there is no freethought or nonconformity at all. Or even true individualism. Everyone back then looked like a pure conformist, like mainland China is today. No rebels or hippies existed. So you could not be a freethinker. My friend Mitchell told me that his mom told him that back in the 1950's if you were a nonconformist or freethinker, they would put you in a mental institution, because that is not allowed. So it was a culture of total conformity, even though many things were nice. But I guess that in a good environment with good people, less people will be inclined to be rebels or nonconformists, because people will feel happier and more harmonious with others. So it's possible that had I grown up back then, I may not have been incited to become a misfit or nonconformist. Who knows.
"No rebels or hippies existed." Jeez, Winston, read just one book on the subject, like David Halberstam's. They were called beatniks, Hell's Angels, they were called James Dean, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg. Famous movie line: "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" Brando: "What do you got?" That was the heyday of supposed rebellion, though there was tremendous uniformity of personal appearance. You had a coherent mainstream culture to rebel against, unlike today's nihilism.

It was a better time to be alive. You might have found a niche in academia, where truth-seeking occasionally could be found back in the days before political correctness and institutionalized cultural Marxism.
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