One of my complaints against conservatism generally is that it often seems to posit a decline in culture compared to days past. This makes me wonder when the peak was; when we stopped rising and started falling. Typically there is no concrete time for this, just some vague notion about the olden days when things were better. Or perhaps we started falling when Adam & Eve got kicked out of the garden. But, in today’s Courier Press, we get a date from column writer, Joseph Gleason: 1913.
What is so magical about 1913? The income tax was imposed and America started going to hell. Other landmarks in our spiraling descent into the abyss: No longer treating gays as mentally ill pariahs; commerce on Sundays; contraception for married people; abolition of slavery; and eating shellfish. O.k., I’m paraphrasing for the last two. The writer longs for society that conforms with the Bible, and certainly shellfish is shunned more than slavery in the Bible. But the writer specifically bemoans the decision of Griswold v. Connecticut which struck down as unconstitutional laws prohibiting married couples from obtaining contraception.
Ah, yes, those magical days of 1913 when child labor was still acceptable, separate but equal was the law of the land, and the flu could wipe out substantial chunks of the population. When honest businessmen could dump toxins in the water and befoul the air as they saw fit. When the Panama Canal was not yet in service, and we had to round South America to get from Atlantic to Pacific; and when polio still crippled its victims, both as God intended. I’m shedding a tear for our lost Eden.
I read an interesting sociology book a few years back called “The Way We Never Were” that tackles a lot of this conservative mythology about what the “the good old days” were really like – it specifically talks about family life, but the same concept could be applied across the conservative platform. Written by Stephanie Coontz in 1992 and updated in 2000. I’ll bet she could break out a new edition with new material since then.
In 1913 life expectancy for white men was 49 years (Black men:34 years).
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Women couldn’t vote.
Women could vote in some states i 1913 but not in others and none of them could vote in Federal elections.
For myself, I’m rather fond of penicillin, telephones and microfilm.
Still, I am intrigued to read the piece. (heads off to click on link)
Thanks for this post, Doug.
I’ve always thought it was odd to engage in these exercises. The most aggravating of these is the reference among some in the Religious Right to the 1950s as some general apex. The most amusing is the reference of the early 20th Century as the “Progressive Era”.
The left isn’t free of looking back for an alleged golden era. Paul Krugman recently penned an article that cited the 1960s & 70s as the apex of American civilization. (Wither Vietnam, Nixon, and inflation?)
Additionally, there is a current odd embrace of the Depression era by some on both left and right as a time somehow better because of the splendor of privation: It brought us together and made us less materialistic, by necessity. On the whole, I’d rather suffer the lonely and soulless existential trials of prosperity.
The great folly of any backward looking analysis is embracing the entire day and age as a whole. Obviously, we’ve made gains in meaningful areas. The authors would do a lot better by simply pointing to the a la carte items they would prefer to see brought forward, and why. Because they don’t, these Gleason and Krugman offerings get dismissed out of hand.
My lack of god, but I’m old and doddering. Not Paul Krugman! Michael Gerson.
Please- kick my ass. Do it for a man! I’m not asking, I’m telling!
Just a few notes on the 50ies remembered.I was 8 in 1950 and a high school grad in 1960.
In 1950 we listened to the radio as a family in the evening ,programs like Amos and Andy and the Great Gildersleeve.Only a few scattered people had TV sets.By 1960 ‘old time’ radio was dead,and everyone watched Gunsmoke.
In the 50s people began to retire with Social Security benefits .My grandfather ,I remember, had worked only 8 quarters of time under SS,but received benefits:it was a godsend for my grandparents,who otherwise would have had to apply for what was called ‘an old-age pension’.
People my father’s age were climbing up out of the lower class to the middle class by using the GI bill for job training and mortgages they had earned with military service..
My father was cussing government about 1950 because we were forced by the city ( Urbana IL)to install indoor plumbing.If not for govern- ment intrusion we would surely have kept our outhouse forever. And by 1960 we bought a water heater and had indoor already-heated water.About that time we also had our first telephone.
In early 50s people were moving to California and I lost quite a few friends growing up, whose parents decided to pack up and move.
In 1950s,driving anywhere was long and slow.That’s the time period when we used to drive to Indiana for the day.Turkey Run State Park was less than an hour’s drive.And still today TR is one of my my favorite childhood remembrances.
Indianapolis was the closest big city with new shopping centers and they also had a minor league baseball team we used to go see,although I can’t remember much about it.Indy was about 90 miles and Chicago was 150 and that was a big difference on 2-lane highways. Also Chicago was much more congested and slow..Even to go to Indianapolis for the day we usually left at dawn.
Now my family uses Indianapolis airport regularly using the interstate and they’re glad the airport was built on the west side of the city,convenient for Illinoisans.Otherwise, non-stop flights would require a much longer trip to Chicago or St Louis.
Serious integration started in 50s when I was in high school,but many race restrictions remained and there was still a sort of de facto culture-based segregation going into the 60s,even in Champaign -Urbana,a supposedly northern city.
But I also remember the McCarthy paranoia of my parents ( kids dont understand issues,but emotionalism of events last very long into adulthood).And who could forget the Civil Defense shelters marked everywhere in case of atomic bomb attack.One could come any day.
So my view is that what made the 50s positive were the seeds of liberalism that had been planted by the FDR era and after- war,which were beginning to bear fruits. But I dont think this is what conservatives remininisce about the 1950s.
But in truth, much still hadn’t changed in the 50s that was to change later.The 60s were to be more traumatic .
“On the whole, I’d rather suffer the lonely and soulless existential trials of prosperity.”
Beautiful!
I grow weary of people insisting that they were a part of the 1960s protests, ideologies and such like when they weren’t. At the time it was shameful, now it’s a mark of prestige.
What was traumatic about the 60s was not the anti-government protests against the Vietnam War,but the degeneration of the protesters into personal and public dissipation.
But isn’t that was also happened to the conservative anti-government movement begun with Reagan?
So now we’re restarting with another fresh, more liberal Obama era. .Let’s see how this cyle evolves.
Good God, I’m a retard. It *was* Krugman after all.
Doug- You may feel like the blogging is subpar (it isn’t), but at least you aren’t losing your marbles. :-)