As a queer person (agender) with a conservative dad, I don’t get why he says he wants to go back to the 1950s. What was so special back then besides his reasoning that times were simpler? I feel like it would be harder for me then as a queer person.

  • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
    10·
    6 hours ago

    A little later, maybe, but much the same… on the upside:

    • we were optimistic.
    • we were going to conquer space, and it was going to be real live humans, not semi-autonomous robots
    • society (in the US and W. Europe) was (very) slowly getting more progressive.
    • Hitler had been killed, and fascism defeated forever. Never again would we have another dictator; never again would the watch a country commit genocide against a people.
    • life was slower. TV was the bad influence rotting kids brains. We didn’t have an entire industry focused on commoditizing us.
    • computers were fucking incredible. The future we imagined coming from computers was very, very different than what we ended up with. For one thing, we didn’t imaging a single-minded focus of all software and computing power on commercializing every aspect of our life.
    • no Facebook, no Twitter, no TikTok
    • Income disparity was far less extreme, and class mobility was a realistic dream. You could imaging buying a nice house and raising a family on a single income. If you worked hard and had a little luck you could pass on some reasonable wealth to your kids.
    • shit really was - in the aggregate - getting better all around. Technology was advancing and bringing amazing products; science was being discovered that you could basically wrap your head around. Lives were improving for most people, and all this at a pace that didn’t up-end your world every day, 365 days a year.
    • you could get all the news you needed for a fairly rounded world view in a single newspaper, much of which you could read over breakfast. There was no information overload.

    On the downsides,

    • dad beat us with a belt as punishment
    • we were having Wars that were disrupting society
    • we were constantly afraid that nuclear war could happen any time
    • commies were hiding under our beda
    • minorities of all kinds were fighting for their rights, and fighting to get them enforced. It sucked to be gay, or black, or a woman, but it was getting better.
    • nobody I knew has a PC into well into the 80’s, so you had to infiltrate University computer labs.

    It was a slower world, with fewer consumer goods, fewer conveniences, and worse medical care. Everybody smoked, all the time. Best of all, the world wasn’t ending.