Why is there so much nostalgia for the 1950s in White America? Why does this folk memory of pre-Obama America haunt the Progressive movement?
The answer: in almost every conceivable way, particularly in regard to cultural issues, life was better for the ordinary White American than it is now.
Let’s review:
1.) Divorce wasn’t as common.
2.) There was less sexual promiscuity.
3.) Families were stronger.
4.) Sexual mores were not as coarse. Men and women were expected to be ladies and gentlemen.
5.) Children were not as insolent.
6.) Men had more control over their families.
7.) Men and women dressed better.
8.) Vulgarity was less common.
9.) There was far less expressive individualism.
10.) Families saved more.
11.) Families were more self-reliant.
13.) Kinship networks were stronger.
14.) Homosexuals were in the closet.
15.) America was almost 90% White.
16.) The schools were segregated: White teenagers were less exposed to drugs, violence, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, all of which were problems that used to be associated with the black community.
17.) Test scores were higher.
18.) The rate of technological advancement was much higher.
19.) There was far greater income mobility. Compare the 1950s to the 2000s, otherwise known as the “Lost Decade.”
20.) Taxes were lower.
21.) Churches were stronger. Ethnic identities were stronger. White racial attitudes were much stronger. Communities were far stronger and more tight nit.
22.) There was no affirmative action.
23.) There was no massive third world immigration.
24.) The federal government was willing to stop illegal immigration. See Operation Wetback.
25.) Multiculturalism did not exist.
26.) Feminism had not yet caught on.
27.) Jews were far less wealthy and powerful.
28.) Public places were still segregated: restaurants, theaters, and hotels were cleaner, public places were not full of loud, uncouth, annoying black people loitering around. Whites had public swimming pools and all kinds of public amenities that have ceased to exist because of racial integration.
29.) Interracial marriage was outlawed in every Southern state. There was far less miscegenation. Miscegenation was heavily social taboo; the exact opposite of the ideal that exists today.
30.) There was less celebrity worship and idolization of sports heroes. Traditional American heroes like Lee and Stonewall had a much greater following.
31.) In the South, there was an elaborate code of racial etiquette. Blacks wouldn’t so much as look as a White woman. Blacks referred to Whites with terms like “sir” and “miss” and “boss.”
When a White man walked down a sidewalk, Blacks were expected to tip their hats and say hello. Can you imagine that happening today?
32.) Unions were stronger.
33.) There was more “authentic culture” in America. In the South, there was a much stronger regional identity. Southerners ate real Southern cuisine, not the slop that is served today at fast food restaurants.
34.) Obesity was much lower.
35.) Men and women didn’t disfigure their bodies with tattoos and piercings.
36.) Elaborate specialized genres of pornography did not yet exist.
37.) There was no cult of diversity. No one saw whiteness as a problem.
38.) Blacks were not crammed together in housing projects.
39.) There was no rap music. There was more folk music.
40.) America was still a “White Man’s Country.”
41.) The idea that America is a “nation of immigrants” didn’t have much currency.
42.) America was the world’s leading industrialized nation.
43.) Gas was ridiculously cheap.
44.) American culture was so healthy that it was mocked as square.
45.) Crime was lower. Americans were safer in their homes.
White Nationalists shouldn’t romanticize the 1950s. All the trends that have wrecked so much havoc in American culture were present in embryonic form back then. Underneath the facade of a thriving country, cultural termites were steadily undermining the foundation.
Jews were growing in wealth and entering the universities. The Supreme Court was attacking segregation. McDonald’s was opening its doors. Celebrities like Elvis and Marilyn Monroe were trailblazing pop culture.
Martin Luther King was launching his bus boycott. America was entangled in NATO and fighting a war in Korea. Hollywood was producing degenerate films. The beatniks were changing American culture. Playboy magazine was founded.
Relatively speaking, the 1950s were superior to our own times. It was cultural highwater mark of White America. The only argument of any merit against nostalgia is that technology was less advanced.
The advances in science and technology that have been made since the 1950s had nothing whatsoever to do with the cultural changes that have followed since then. They would have happened anyway. If anything is true, America would probably be wealthier and more advanced without them.
In the 1950s, Americans were almost drunk on cultural optimism. Everyone expected life to get better. There was a widespread belief that America could do anything.
Today, the opposite is true.
The majority of Americans believe their children and grandchildren will be worse off than themselves. Most Americans believe their country is in terminal decline. Polls show again and again that Americans believe their nation is “on the wrong track.” More Americans hate the federal government and see it as a threat to their rights.
White Americans want to “take their country back.” They yearn for the White America that used to exist. This is the nation that is withering and dying under the impact of Progressive social policies. Until those policies are rejected as identified as the cause of social decline, America’s national and cultural deterioration will continue.
Conclusion: If you are a White male, given the opportunity, you would be a fool not to hit the reset button on America.
All wasn’t well with America in the 50s and, yes, the seed that has grown into what the world today hates about America, was there. But, all in all, you are right, Hunter. Although I wasn’t born until 10 years later, my soul yearns for the world of the 1950s.
From the perspective of someone born in Europe, I’d like to add that the colonies were still just that; colonies, which meant stability and prosperity. Yes, I know that maybe it had been better to let Africa stew in it’s own misery, but once the White race was there and had established civilization, it could only be maintained through White presence.
Yes this is true, many good points you have made. However we must ask ourselves how we got there? We got there by destroying over 20 million of our German brothers and sisters in Europe. Why was America such a power house? Well after 1945 there was a great Patent heist of Germany. Over 4,000 patents were stolen from Germany along with many scientist. America’s two greatest competitions in the export market lay in ruin. With Germany and Japan destroyed America was the only country left with a large industrial manufactoring base. America was the only one left that made anything. Germany after they threw out the Jews were at least 50 years more advanced then the rest of the world, they were free too may I add.
The same international Jews that controlled Moscow also controled Washington, and no one else in the world stood in their way. With the Frankfort school already well established in New York, America did not yet know it, but they were on borrowed time. Within a decade scum like Abbie Hoffmen, Ralph Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem would polute the inocent minds of America’s youth and rip the country apart. Yes America made a deal with the devil and choose the side of evil during the second world war and now their grandchildren and great grandchildren must pay up.
Yes, the 1950s were a halcyon age. Also boring. Now we live in an age of ultimate crisis, where international organized Jewry and its hirelings are destroying our values, our culture, our economy, our nation, and our race. And we are organizing a counter-blast which will, after a long struggle, emerge triumphant. This is a much more interesting and exciting time to be alive. Screw nostalgia.
“This is a much more interesting and exciting time to be alive.”
Perhaps for us, but what about everyone else?
When a nation’s working class people aspire to be middle class, as was the case in the US of the 1950s, the nation will prosper. However,when the interests of the Frankfurt Schooled Jews militate against that quintessentially American process and the poisonous, media – laden message is that there is no need to improve your situation because we’re all equal anyway then the natural growth of the nation is impeded. Cancer often requires excision.
In the 1950s, Americans were almost drunk on cultural optimism. Everyone expected life to get better. There was a widespread belief that America could do anything.
Yes, as I once said to you, you can sum it up as “prosperity and propinquity.” It was just inevitable that at such a point some people were going to begin to question the assumptions they took for granted as regards blacks, and it was equally inevitable that there would be an outraged response to it that would only cause the reformers to dig their heels in (“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”). It’s not a given the reformers would have won (Jewish and other ethnic influence may well have been decisive here), but it is a given that they would have arisen.
On the bright side, look at this way: if you pull through, you’ll come out stronger and it’ll have all been worth it. And after all, “life is either a grand adventure or nothing.”
Good Lord, is silver still pulling your pecker, fade?
#19. There was far greater income mobility.
In fact, there was less income mobility: everyone was getting richer! (whether or not income inequality was increasing).
Today, more people have diminishing incomes: that’s real mobility.
I think there was also the idea that social status was improving for everyone because people were moving out of agricultural and industrial jobs and getting jobs in the service sector, not always great jobs.
Immigration and forced integration have been a disaster, together with the ideological subversion of the media, government and most institutions. But there have been a few other changes too: the growth of government, the contraceptive pill, the higher concentration of people in the cities, the fact that women have to work…
I have seen a video called “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class”, but it doesn’t say if the collapse is mainly due to immigration.
“In fact, there was less income mobility: everyone was getting richer! (whether or not income inequality was increasing).”
Well, at that time the federal reserve had totally screwed up everything with more fiat paper so people’s money even if ‘poor’ still bought something even though their income may have not increased.
These days, $60k or less for a family of (4) is merely treading water.
A good article, and yes – looking back the 1950s was the best time for America ever. I would put this American golden age to be:
1945- 1965
Post war prosperity – America the undisputed industrial, manufacturing nation (helped that Europe and Japan were bombed down and out).
The really nasty part of the 60s didn’t take place until the second half – the Beach Boys music was the music of the early 60s, what could be better than that?
1965 immigration act and the racial treason of the LBJ years – it wasn’t there yet with JFK.
That said – the 50s and early 60s had Whites in an optimistic, America can do anything type of mood – do stuff like get involved in bringing American style democracy and prosperity to South Viet Nam.
There is never a lot of desperately needed skepticism, understanding of racial realities in economic boom times.
Look at Detroit Michigan in 1955-65 – such optimism! Things getting better and better, Blacks getting good jobs, better education – Motown music, cross over music that all Americans loved – yeah, that must have felt good.
But racial realists understand that with the NW masses, especially Black Africans – the big danger times are when restrictive laws, and cultural mores are being relaxed.
Freedom and economic good times mean different things to Blacks and Whites.
Too this day, most Whites can’t understand why Blacks riot, loot, push for anti White racial revolution in places like Detroit 1967, Los Angeles Watts 1965 instead of say Mississippi during segregation, the Depression.
It took twenty years for Jewish television to ruin the culture. Compare America 1950 to America 1970 and it’s day and night.
Why is there so much nostalgia for the 1950s in White America? Why does this folk memory of pre-Obama America haunt the Progressive movement?
RE: Pre-Obama? People have nad nostalgia WAY before Obama. Hell, I’m pretty sure the men in the 1950’s had nostalgia about the 1900’s, and so on.
The answer: in almost every conceivable way, particularly in regard to cultural issues, life was better for the ordinary White American than it is now.
RE: Nope.
Let’s review:
1.) Divorce wasn’t as common.
RE: According to AssitedDivorce.com, white have the highest divorce rate, then blacks, then hispanics, then asians. The numbers are, respectivly, 27-22-20-8%. Ha.
2.) There was less sexual promiscuity.
RE: Depends on what type, whenever or not it is a bad thing.
3.) Families were stronger.
RE: Okay.
4.) Sexual mores were not as coarse. Men and women were expected to be ladies and gentlemen.
RE: Okay
5.) Children were not as insolent.
RE: That REALLY depends on what family you focus on.
6.) Men had more control over their families.
RE: Of course, if women had control of their families…I can’t even BEGIN to describe the horrors!
7.) Men and women dressed better.
RE: Completely opinoated.
8.) Vulgarity was less common.
RE: Except for the N word.
9.) There was far less expressive individualism.
RE: …And expressive Individualism is a bad thing how?
10.) Families saved more.
RE: And families today still try to save. Some can barely hang on.
11.) Families were more self-reliant.
RE: Debatable
13.) Kinship networks were stronger.
RE: Mainly because of the lack of TV, internet, cellphones, etc. I’m not trading those for “stonger kinship networks”. I think I, and most of sane America, like our technology.
14.) Homosexuals were in the closet.
RE: Those active homosexuals! They…they…do everything regular couples do. Whatever! I’d rather see a REAL wife-beating husband and traditional wife than two men in love!
15.) America was almost 90% White.
RE: I don’t care.
16.) The schools were segregated: White teenagers were less exposed to drugs, violence, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, all of which were problems that used to be associated with the black community.
RE: Al Capone proves you wrong. People of all races are into drugs. Not to mention, despite your paranoid beiliefs, the crime rate is in fact down from earlier eras.
17.) Test scores were higher.
RE: I couldn’t find data for 1950’s, but I did find data for 1970’s-1990’s. Test scores have actually been rising, even among minorities.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sat.htm
18.) The rate of technological advancement was much higher.
RE: Pick up an issue of Discover magazine and tell me that again. The only reason advancment seemed so much easier back then was because everything was so new: Atoms, DNA, etc. But to say nothing is happening, well, just look at renewable energy, bio-technology, stem-cell reasearch…
19.) There was far greater income mobility. Compare the 1950s to the 2000s, otherwise known as the “Lost Decade.”
RE: That’s what happens when you give tax cuts to the rich and have a several trillion dollar war. Thanks, white president!
20.) Taxes were lower.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
Actually, no, not the mariganl income tax rate. Try again.
21.) Churches were stronger. Ethnic identities were stronger. White racial attitudes were much stronger. Communities were far stronger and more tight nit.
RE: Which made them all the more hateful to outsiders.
22.) There was no affirmative action.
RE: How DARE we help minorities! We only repressed them for centuries!
23.) There was no massive third world immigration.
RE: No, despite popular belief, Mexico is not a third world country.
24.) The federal government was willing to stop illegal immigration. See Operation Wetback.
RE: Because, as we all know, all illegal immigrants are evil, souless leeches. Not human at all. Worse than white murderers, if you ask me.
25.) Multiculturalism did not exist.
RE: The EVIL of more than two cultures! Ack!
26.) Feminism had not yet caught on.
RE: Women? Wanting equal rights? What?
27.) Jews were far less wealthy and powerful.
RE: Those Jews and their power-hungry ideaology…only white Christians can be power hungry!
28.) Public places were still segregated: restaurants, theaters, and hotels were cleaner, public places were not full of loud, uncouth, annoying black people loitering around. Whites had public swimming pools and all kinds of public amenities that have ceased to exist because of racial integration.
RE: Bullshit. Blacks don’t ruin every place they go to. I’ve been to those places, and primarily white paces. There was hardly a difference.
29.) Interracial marriage was outlawed in every Southern state. There was far less miscegenation. Miscegenation was heavily social taboo; the exact opposite of the ideal that exists today.
RE: Remember: Two people, if different races, can’t love each other. This has been a proven fact: you can see it in the local scientific journal.
30.) There was less celebrity worship and idolization of sports heroes. Traditional American heroes like Lee and Stonewall had a much greater following.
RE: “Heroes” that supported a nation that supported slavery. Heroic!
31.) In the South, there was an elaborate code of racial etiquette. Blacks wouldn’t so much as look as a White woman. Blacks referred to Whites with terms like “sir” and “miss” and “boss.”
RE: Because we are SUPERIOR! We shouldn’t treat them as equals! Even if you are equal!
When a White man walked down a sidewalk, Blacks were expected to tip their hats and say hello. Can you imagine that happening today?
RE: Of course, if white men were expected to tip there hats to black men…it makes me sick!
32.) Unions were stronger.
RE: Maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t.
33.) There was more “authentic culture” in America. In the South, there was a much stronger regional identity. Southerners ate real Southern cuisine, not the slop that is served today at fast food restaurants.
RE: Culture is for those who are not able to create their own lifes, ideas, and beliefs.
34.) Obesity was much lower.
RE: Boo hoo.
35.) Men and women didn’t disfigure their bodies with tattoos and piercings.
RE: Agreed.
36.) Elaborate specialized genres of pornography did not yet exist.
RE: Wait, just plain regular porn is okay, but specified porn isn’t? What?
37.) There was no cult of diversity. No one saw whiteness as a problem.
RE: They just was blackness as a problem, which is 100% OKAY!
38.) Blacks were not crammed together in housing projects.
RE: They were just forced to live in lower income areas and be hated by most the country.
39.) There was no rap music. There was more folk music.
RE: I hate both. Therefore, both cultures are inferior, nyah nyah.
40.) America was still a “White Man’s Country.”
RE: Now it is not a WMC place, therefore it sucks. it is a Third world country now. Oh wait, is isn’t. Strange.
41.) The idea that America is a “nation of immigrants” didn’t have much currency.
RE: Immigrants – The epitome of evil. White criminals – Awesome!
42.) America was the world’s leading industrialized nation.
RE:…And it still is the richest.
43.) Gas was ridiculously cheap.
RE: Again, blame Bush.
44.) American culture was so healthy that it was mocked as square.
RE: Indeed it was.
45.) Crime was lower. Americans were safer in their homes.
RE: Now you are just lying.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html
The murder rate, in the 1950’s, at its bottom, was 4.0 per 100,000. The lowest in the 2000’s is 5.5. So, despite minirioties taking over the white man and the “fact” that this will cause the end of days, the murder rate is only 1.5 people more out of 100,000 people?! Hell, the highest crime rates were in the 1980’s, the pristine time that many consertives like to look back to, with Reagan and Bush Sr. and all.
So, no, we are that much more at risk in our houses. And amierica is not going to fall down due to a large amount of melinin suddenly appearing in the population.