Was Life Really So Great in the 1950’s?

Many Christians and others long for the good old days. The 1950’s always seem to be the point of comparison against today. The way they see it, life was just great then, and it’s really bad now. Well, the way I see it, things are generally better today when you look at the big picture. Who reading this really wants to go back to 1950’s technology? Who wants 1950’s knowledge about medicine and surgery? Or 1950’s attitudes regarding publicly institutionalized racism? Who wants 1950’s quality in filmmaking and music? It’s this last point that rattles the chain of many. Sex, violence and profanity is very prominent in the popular culture today compared to the 1950’s. But this is not true of every modern film or song. If I were a Christian in the film or music industry, I’d much prefer to have the technology available that we have today compared to what we had in the 50’s. And yes, while there are some great classic movies back then, on a whole the acting was not very good. Besides, does anyone want to go back to black and white television? Anyone want to give up their email or Internet access?

When it comes down to it, the only argument left is that we have too much sex, violence and profanity in the popular culture today. I don’t dispute this. But we also have to look at the big picture. Objectively life was not better back then. We whine that kids are too lazy today and don’t know the value of sacrifice. I generally agree. But do we necessarily want them to experience the same struggles our grandparents did during the Great Depression? Why exactly do we want to turn back the clock and make life harder? Don’t we want our children’s generation to be better than the one we lived in? Can not people learn responsibility today with the advances we’ve made?

In response to my earlier post regarding misconceptions that people were automatically more morally pure before the mid 1960’s, somebody left a number of interesting comments. Amongst other things, this person says:

“The schools continue to corrupt students. Now we have an epidemic of teachers seducing students. Until the 60s girls who became pregnant were expelled from school. Or they were quietly sent to homes for unwed mothers to await the birth of their illegitimate child. Now schools either advise students about Planned Parenthood and venereal diseases or they make accomodations for the students' bastards. Only "trashy" girls slept around until the New Morality took over. Schoolboys used to play a ball game called Smear the Queer but no children knew what queers did. They only knew it was something awful. Now, no child would dare speak the words "smear the queer" on school property but they will be taught in that school that being a queer is fine, that homosexuals are born that way and they have no choice in the matter.

”Unnatural as it may have been, TV actors who played husband and wife did not lie in the same bed. I still remember the first time I sat in a movie and watched simulated coitus. It was the late 60s and I was horribly uncomfortable sitting there beside my husband. Now simulated coitus is on daytime television, not even cable. For those who fancy themselves intellectuals, scientific sorts, one can, this month, turn on a travel program about a South American tribe to watch adult men and women filmed completely naked. The men wear a sort of phallic sheath of exagerated length but they wear no other covering. No attempt is made to blur the rest of their nakedness. Sin that used to be a source of shame is now a source of pride. Now "It's all good" as they say.”

Let’s break some of this down:

Is that really what we should go back to? Expelling unwed mothers from school and socially outcasting them? How exactly is that going to lead to anything productive for the mother or child? The way this person writes makes it seem like she’d prefer to make women walk around with the scarlet “A” on their clothing for the rest of their lives. And note the high view for the child: they are just “bastards.” Not little children also created in God's image who had no choice that they were conceived in unfortunate circumstances, just "bastards." A lot of Christian love here!

And just because we are opposed to homosexual behavior does that mean we should taunt gay people? Also, I’m not for sex scenes in any movies, but this person’s words reminded me the scene from Pleasantville where the mother and father slept in separate twin beds while holding hands and had never heard of sex. I think she’d much prefer this be the norm. When I saw that movie, it angered me because not only did it mock Biblical values, but did so in a way that pretended that all traditionalists were prudes and simpletons. Unfortunately, it seems that such individuals are out there and many of them are in our churches.

Isn’t it possible to hold to a Biblical Christian ethic without acting and sounding like an uncaring jerk?

In any event, people were not necessarily more moral back then. They are just openly now what they were quietly and hypocritically back then. Besides, there were a lot of other prevailing attitudes that reigned supreme during the golden age of the 1950’s. It was then when we still had “Colored Only” drinking fountains in certain areas of our country and racism was celebrated publicly and privately. So, we had problems then and problems now. The problems look a little different than they did then, and we face some new challenges. But especially for Christians, we should not cover our eyes and just hand the world over to Satan. We should not just “focus on conversions” and wait for Jesus to come get us in the so-called “rapture.” All of us, but Christians in particular should focus on personal and cultural renewal. This goes beyond just getting others to parrot a “sinner’s prayer.”

Much work has been done and much remains. Defeatism, escapism and phony separatist pietism is not honoring to Christ or what He’s commanded Christians to be in this life.