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Seeing 1950's America is heartbreaking for me. I grew up in the 90s, and I never saw a trusted society. https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950

Seeing 1950's America is heartbreaking for me. I grew up in the 90s, and I never saw a trusted society. https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-america-in-color.32426/ https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-ame... Where's the broken glass? The needles, the poop? The stumbling drunks harassing the young women? The masses of tents where children used to play? What the fuck has happened to us?

pbronez 6y ago
yeah... the 50s only look good if you ignore the massive racial, gender and environmental problems. US economy was great with the post-war boom, but there's a reason why there are so many TV shows about the rotten foundations of 50s glam.
- itsyaboi 6y ago
  As opposed to the massive racial, gender and environmental problems we are currently facing, with a additional pyramidion of used needles and feces?
  - finiteseries 6y ago
    In 1954, the Arkansas National Guard occupied a high school in Little Rock to prevent black children from entering it. The President, and elements of the 101st Airborne Division had to be involved.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Those massive problems are significantly less massive than they were then.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Bro, America was legally segregated then. Give me a break.
- Melchizedek 6y ago
  No, there are TV shows about that because those who control the media want to make us think the 50's, which by all accounts were comparatively really good, really weren't good at all due to some hidden darkness below the surface. Because otherwise we might start to think double-plus bad thoughts about why so many things have turned to shit. And I mean good for all races - in terms of real-world material and communal circumstances - as opposed to abstract "rights" (other peoples obligations) that mostly benefit a small upper middle class.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
watt 6y ago
"In the six decades from 1950 to 2010, the U.S. population had increased from 157.8 million to 312.2 million" And it was 132.1 million in 1940.
- ndiscussion 6y ago
  Yeah, that was a hypothetical question, but thanks... there's no going back it seems :D I'm sure they still have this environment in some countries where no one wants to visit.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Seeing 1950's America is heartbreaking for me. > https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-ame… https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-ame... Except for the clothes (which aren't very different), that could be a picture of downtown Placerville today (well, not today because of the weather, but…) Or a million other places in today's USA. > Where’s the broken glass? The needles, the poop? The same place as the non-white people, who are disproportionately also the people cleaning up the places where the white people live without it. > The stumbling drunks harassing the young women? Most everywhere, including indoors. That was normal, accepted, unremarkable behavior.
bregma 6y ago
Less censorship in the media. All that stuff was there in the 1950s as much as it is now, but you didn't see it anywhere in the media because it was not allowed by fiat of central authorities (from the Hayes office to the boardrooms of various publisher and broadcast networks). Heroin was not introduced in the 21st century and needles are not new but there are far fewer cigarette butts everywhere today. Cities stank of stale cigarettes and urine and car exhaust and if you were anywhere near water, dead fish. A few photos that do not show the winos or the dog crap on every sidewalk do not prove there wasn't any. It just proves the existence of a few photos. Nobody, for example, picked up someone else's poop off the streets and brought it home in a little bag like they do today, and there were just as many dog owners in Manhattan in the 1950s as there are now. The signs required you to 'curb your dog' which meant leave it in the gutter, but it usually ended up on the sidewalk with all the gum, spit, old newspapers, and pigeon droppings. People went to jail for being homosexual or using birth control. Credit cards and consumer loans were illegal in the US until the 1960s so everything was cash-only and muggings were a real and present threat. Racism was overt, explicit, widespread, and rampant. I think what you see of the 1950s is selection bias. Times are good now. Better than the 1950s because we stopped hiding stuff and lying to ourselves and have tried to make things better instead.
- ozim 6y ago
  I would add that photography was quite expensive back then so I bet no one was wasting his film on making photos of awful places. It would be like judging current reality by Instagram photos, so must be that everyone is fit and travels to beautiful destinations ... well homeless people don't put their photos on Instagram.
- zanother001 6y ago
  > Less censorship in the media. This is a surprising hot take in these times. I wholeheartedly disagree. I understand what you're saying and yes I believe obviously we have more pictures/proof of existence (connected world) and yes there are a lot of areas where we have made progress but is "trust" in general better ? I don't want to make this political but it is the elephant in the room right now. There is a whole side of a political party + media completely dismissing and grouping the whole other side in simplistic and alienating ways. I'm not for either political side and I'm not a trump supporter. (Sadly I have to add this disclaimer, it's incredibly saddening) I think someone else in this thread mentioned China as a high-trustful society. I think that goes to show that we're not talking about overall "better" and overall "accepting" but specifically "trust". Maybe we find out that trust is in conflict with the other values we hold ? but to say that general trust is high now seems really naive. I know it's an outlier but you don't need media selectiveness to show you San Fransico's homelessness problem , in fact I see more of that from word of mouth/first hand experience. I personally have seen signs of deteriorating trust in my "neighborhood". I don't want to put up strawmen but maybe it depends on how much your view is based on media vs what you see ? in which case where you live would probably have a huge impact in what your views on this are ? I hate using that because I don't want to say that some people are too privileged to see this, imo obvious, change. As someone who was raised in a rough neighborhood (poor/high crime rate) and then moved out to a better place, I was shocked how my world view changed and I really thought the whole world had moved to a better place until I went back and realized there are still people in that "old world". It was incredibly shocking that I believed some of these things and now I'm vigilant and accepting that my world view (large part to where I live) tints the world. I obviously don't know the solution and maybe "trust" is a value we have to lose to have some of our more progressive values or maybe it's just harder to incorporate those other values with trust. I think it's fair to say that in the 50's communities were more trusting (for some, racism/monoculture related I'm sure). Not better but more trusting (huge emphasis on for some).

pbronez 6y ago

yeah... the 50s only look good if you ignore the massive racial, gender and environmental problems. US economy was great with the post-war boom, but there's a reason why there are so many TV shows about the rotten foundations of 50s glam.

itsyaboi 6y ago
As opposed to the massive racial, gender and environmental problems we are currently facing, with a additional pyramidion of used needles and feces?
- finiteseries 6y ago
  In 1954, the Arkansas National Guard occupied a high school in Little Rock to prevent black children from entering it. The President, and elements of the 101st Airborne Division had to be involved.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Those massive problems are significantly less massive than they were then.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Bro, America was legally segregated then. Give me a break.
Melchizedek 6y ago
No, there are TV shows about that because those who control the media want to make us think the 50's, which by all accounts were comparatively really good, really weren't good at all due to some hidden darkness below the surface. Because otherwise we might start to think double-plus bad thoughts about why so many things have turned to shit. And I mean good for all races - in terms of real-world material and communal circumstances - as opposed to abstract "rights" (other peoples obligations) that mostly benefit a small upper middle class.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

watt 6y ago

"In the six decades from 1950 to 2010, the U.S. population had increased from 157.8 million to 312.2 million" And it was 132.1 million in 1940.

ndiscussion 6y ago
Yeah, that was a hypothetical question, but thanks... there's no going back it seems :D I'm sure they still have this environment in some countries where no one wants to visit.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Seeing 1950's America is heartbreaking for me. > https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-ame… https://www.radiogunk.com/forums/index.php?threads/1950s-ame... Except for the clothes (which aren't very different), that could be a picture of downtown Placerville today (well, not today because of the weather, but…) Or a million other places in today's USA. > Where’s the broken glass? The needles, the poop? The same place as the non-white people, who are disproportionately also the people cleaning up the places where the white people live without it. > The stumbling drunks harassing the young women? Most everywhere, including indoors. That was normal, accepted, unremarkable behavior.

bregma 6y ago

Less censorship in the media. All that stuff was there in the 1950s as much as it is now, but you didn't see it anywhere in the media because it was not allowed by fiat of central authorities (from the Hayes office to the boardrooms of various publisher and broadcast networks). Heroin was not introduced in the 21st century and needles are not new but there are far fewer cigarette butts everywhere today. Cities stank of stale cigarettes and urine and car exhaust and if you were anywhere near water, dead fish. A few photos that do not show the winos or the dog crap on every sidewalk do not prove there wasn't any. It just proves the existence of a few photos. Nobody, for example, picked up someone else's poop off the streets and brought it home in a little bag like they do today, and there were just as many dog owners in Manhattan in the 1950s as there are now. The signs required you to 'curb your dog' which meant leave it in the gutter, but it usually ended up on the sidewalk with all the gum, spit, old newspapers, and pigeon droppings. People went to jail for being homosexual or using birth control. Credit cards and consumer loans were illegal in the US until the 1960s so everything was cash-only and muggings were a real and present threat. Racism was overt, explicit, widespread, and rampant. I think what you see of the 1950s is selection bias. Times are good now. Better than the 1950s because we stopped hiding stuff and lying to ourselves and have tried to make things better instead.

ozim 6y ago
I would add that photography was quite expensive back then so I bet no one was wasting his film on making photos of awful places. It would be like judging current reality by Instagram photos, so must be that everyone is fit and travels to beautiful destinations ... well homeless people don't put their photos on Instagram.
zanother001 6y ago
> Less censorship in the media. This is a surprising hot take in these times. I wholeheartedly disagree. I understand what you're saying and yes I believe obviously we have more pictures/proof of existence (connected world) and yes there are a lot of areas where we have made progress but is "trust" in general better ? I don't want to make this political but it is the elephant in the room right now. There is a whole side of a political party + media completely dismissing and grouping the whole other side in simplistic and alienating ways. I'm not for either political side and I'm not a trump supporter. (Sadly I have to add this disclaimer, it's incredibly saddening) I think someone else in this thread mentioned China as a high-trustful society. I think that goes to show that we're not talking about overall "better" and overall "accepting" but specifically "trust". Maybe we find out that trust is in conflict with the other values we hold ? but to say that general trust is high now seems really naive. I know it's an outlier but you don't need media selectiveness to show you San Fransico's homelessness problem , in fact I see more of that from word of mouth/first hand experience. I personally have seen signs of deteriorating trust in my "neighborhood". I don't want to put up strawmen but maybe it depends on how much your view is based on media vs what you see ? in which case where you live would probably have a huge impact in what your views on this are ? I hate using that because I don't want to say that some people are too privileged to see this, imo obvious, change. As someone who was raised in a rough neighborhood (poor/high crime rate) and then moved out to a better place, I was shocked how my world view changed and I really thought the whole world had moved to a better place until I went back and realized there are still people in that "old world". It was incredibly shocking that I believed some of these things and now I'm vigilant and accepting that my world view (large part to where I live) tints the world. I obviously don't know the solution and maybe "trust" is a value we have to lose to have some of our more progressive values or maybe it's just harder to incorporate those other values with trust. I think it's fair to say that in the 50's communities were more trusting (for some, racism/monoculture related I'm sure). Not better but more trusting (huge emphasis on for some).