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• I'm so tired of hearing all this nonsense about the fifties "unbridled sexism, racism and cold war terror". People back then were saner and more reality based than now, or indeed, in the Spicoli years. I went to school in the 60s and 70s, taught school in the '80s, and the fact is that most people treated each other better before whatever it was that happened in the mid to late '60s happened. Before that, water found its own level and if you were really capable of doing something and were really desirous of doing it, assuming it wasn't damaging to others, you could probably do it. If you did it well you were respected. In the end nothing else mattered.

  And as far as "cold war terror", I was in the thick of the duck and cover school drills stuff. I never gave it much thought. Yes, a nuclear war could have happened, and it still might. It's probably more likely now than then in fact. Then again, you'd be just as dead if an asteroid hit the Earth, or there was an earthquake, fire, or tornado. Ask the dinosaurs.

  The United States, and the rest of the Western world, took a big deviation from reality when whatever took us over took us over. If I could push a button and destroy this "modern" mentality, this determination to believe what isn't so all the more the more it is proven false, I'd do it in a minute.

  On the other hand, Pat Benatar WAS a lot better than what they play on the radio now. Ditto Van Halen when DLR was in the band.

  • This is a website about audio culture and how audio technology/tools create and change social behavior/create meaning for listeners. So i don't want to get too off-topic here. I appreciate your sentiment Ken; and you are right: i wasn't there. I was born in 1976. But if you don't think that there has been enormous social progress in our country since the 1950s as concerns the rights and opportunities that are available to women and non-whites: then I would encourage you to consider the perspective of your fellow Americans who are not white males. I mentioned those dynamics simply to point out that the 1950's were not all 'gravy.' They were a time of great 'industry and productivity and abundance,' which we lack now; on the other hand, we have gained a tremendous measure of social justice. Just my $.02, like everything else on this website.

• I'm dubious there is "social progress". What can people do now that they could not, as a practical matter do then? What there IS now is a rigidly enforced idea that everyone must like and approve of things people in the past were free to disapprove of. They still don't approve, and they never will. Some things are just detestible and odious even though the state can not and should not get involved in stamping them out. But now the resentment just boils below the surface and occasionally breaks out in bizarre forms, often destructive ones.

  People back then had a sense of shame and shame was a good thing. People today have none. They think Snooki, for example, is funny. There's nothing funny about such a person. No one would have laughed at Snooki and her antics: they'd have simply, quietly avoided her. Shunning is the tool that's kept the Old Order Amish a surviving community for hundreds of ears with no real violence or coercion. The Amish are free to leave and many do. I don't want to be Amish, and I couldn't if I did, but I respect their way of life. No one respects Snooki nor a society where she's a folk hero-or even entertaining.

• Pining for the past is like saying the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. They forget it was because of all the manure.