Nostalgia vs Reality

      A dear  friend recently forwarded to  me yet one more spam e-mail, this time  photos of  iconic '50s figures in various settings and a sentence at the bottom bewailing the loss of such "values and morals" as shown in the photos.   While understanding the strong attachment nostalgia may give one to the past,  it was obvious that only a micro thin veneer of reason had been applied in this instance .

       One photo showed a secretary with a typewriter smoking  a cigarette!  First of all, anyone who at this point longs for the smoke filled office atmosphere of the '50s is, simply put, an idiot. In fact anyone who smokes, period, knowing all the myriad of negative health factors is also an idiot. Any woman who realizes the impact of smoking on her complexion and smokes,  is an idiot. If you don't believe me, look at a current photo of Joni Mitchell.

  

      One photo shows Sinatra  getting off a helicopter with a drink in hand.  Apparently even a short hop requires booze? Again, staying with Sinatra, the '50s concept of  woman's "place," and  required them to pretty much be relegated to subordinate rolls in society, held there not by lack of ability, but by many males' concept  of  their "place."  Sinatra used code words (broad, chick, skirt, frail etc.) to convey this. Commonly, executive secretaries ran offices while the nominal boss did the 2 martini lunch, also, by the way  almost a sacrosanct  '50s concept, especially in corporations like IBM.

        A photo of Cary Grant cites him as the icon of manly behavior, of course as we now know, he was, at best, bi-sexual and who truly knows his own mind, because in the Hollywood of the 50s,  gay men (like Grant, Randolph Scott, et al) and women stayed closeted because of the social and in many  cases physical consequences of coming out (Can you say Rock Hudson?) In an environment where women  swooned over Liberace, anything is possible, one supposes. As bad as that may have been for them, consider the youngster in school, scared to death to be who he knew he really was.

          Many of  today's '50s nostalgics are highly religious persons, and in some cases reject modern science in such areas as global warming and tissue research.  Of course some of  same people  who today criticize science when it refutes Creationists, are only alive because another scientist, Dr. Jonas Salk, conquered that '50s terror, polio. So in the eyes of those who long for yesteryear,  curing physical diseases is fine, but curing our rational thought disease isn't.

        Another '50s value,  widely held by many at decade's beginning, was that only some Americans should be allowed to vote, attend good schools, ride public transportation without supervision, live where they could afford, etc.  I get the feeling that people like the poster of this spam e-mail still think it should be so.     

       The "family values" crowd  also tends to cite divorce statistics as evidence for the decade's superiority. Of course , lost in the shuffle is the fact that many families "stayed together for the kids" even when that meant exposing them to the hostility, infidelity and poor parenting example exhibited in such households.  The idea that living with two parents who obviously hate each other is better, is laughable and tragic all at once, but they did it in the good ol' '50s.

       Another  '50s staple "value" was anything to do with rape. Of course, when reported, which it frequently wasn't, it was considered (by men) to be a sex crime, even when  rapists invariably exhibited animus toward women.  Judges had little problem with assuring women that they were "asking  for it,"  apparently not realizing that they were spouting drivel parallel to Muslim  interpretations which require women to cover because apparently they are all natural temptresses from whom men must be protected.  It would be interesting to know how many women's lives  have been negatively impacted because they either didn't report a rape, or were badly treated when they did back in the '50s

       Of course, women were considered, even when doing exactly the same job as a man, to deserve less pay for the effort. There is zero rational justification for this, but plenty of   traditionalists  who are ok with it. In fact, the '50s was a time of  subservient women with little chance of ever breaking out of the mold. A classic article in Seventeen magazine admonished  girls that when they marry ""Even in instances where you are correct and he is incorrect, it is wise to yield to his decisions"  I assume the reason is so she doesn't get beaten up?    Which brings me to yet another '50's attitude very much in the news. We heard very little about domestic violence in the '50s, almost to that point where you might actually believe there wasn't much (or any).

        In truth, the difference results from one of those  '50s values again ("We don't talk about it"). Spousal  abuse victims of the '50s rarely reported it because they were either: Unskilled and needed support (and there wasn't any) or ashamed and conditioned to being an enabler, or even worse, believing that they deserved such treatment.   In any case, abuse that was non-crippling was rarely reported, but it was (and is) certainly observed by children, whose interpersonal relationship  skills were/are formed by a corrupted model. We now know that many abusers  were children of abusers, just as we know that parents who physically beat their kids were almost always victims themselves, even when they won't or don't  understand it that way.   

       Of course the ultimate breeding ground of maltreatment and  bad behavior was, and is the frat/ and to a lesser degree, sorority house, where so many of America's top tier movers and shakers learned to abuse the helpless. Hazing is no more than bullying  with the guise of brotherhood or sisterhood covering the real sickness, the group behavior of abusing the weak.  Another '50s iconic behavior, though!

       So take your '50s values and reflect on whether the good old days were really as good as temporal displacement makes them seem. And the next time you're tempted to make such and asinine observation, think first and save me the trouble of responding.