Why doesn't the Golden Era extend to the 50s or early 60s?

[vitanola]

Lizzie,



Seems a bit contradictory to the ideals of the Golden Era which has a lot to do with individualism: be responsible, be accountable, take care of yourself, do not depend on others, challenge the unknown, endeavor is its own reward.... You won't find those sentiments today.

The above assertion is utterly ahistoric. If one wishes to understand these times one would be well advised to read actual periodicals of the first half of the last century, rather than revisionist fantasies, or polemics.

The Beatitudes and the Decalogue would be more relevant to most in the Era than Galt's radio speech.
Most average in the 1930's Americans would have found many of the tenets of Objecitvism to be shocking.

 

[John in Covina]

The Cult of the Individual -- the idea that the Almighty Individual stands aloof from any obligation to society -- is the most pernicious means yet devised for keeping the masses helpless and disempowered. Alone, separated, divided by trivialities like race, ethnicity, party, or sect, relying only on our own strength, we haven't got a chance. And the promoters of the C. of the I. know that.

One thing that happens when it is Cult of the Individual people always come into life situations and work as if what ever is happeneing to them has never happened to anyone ever before. There is this idea that people don't learn from what has happened before and constantly strive to re-invent the wheel. ( I see it in so many businesses today.)

 

[dhermann1]

Just to stay on this tangent a moment longer, I'm reading an excellent book at the moment called The Vineyard of Liberty, by James McGregor Burns. I'm in the period of Andrew Jackson right now. He makes the strong argument that the Americans who tamed the frontier in that period had a great reliance on interdependence. None of them could have gone it alone. Whether it was mutual protection from hostile natives, or raising a barn, or helping harvest the neighbor's crops, Americans knew they had to hang together to survive.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The above assertion is utterly ahistoric. If one wishes to understand these times one would be well advised to read actual periodicals of the first half of the last century, rather than revisionist fantasies, or polemics.

With the caveat that you shouldn't think the editorials of George Horace Lorimer, Colonel McCormick, or Bernarr Macfadden actually represented the views of the people who bought their publications. Most people bought the Saturday Evening Post for Florian Slappey, Scattergood Baines, and the Earthworm Tractor Company, the Chicago Tribune for Dick Tracy and Andy Gump, and Liberty for something disposable to read on the bus. McCormick tried his damndest to put Alf Landon into the White House in 1936, and made a fool of himself. Macfadden tried his damndest to put *himself* in the White House, and nobody ever thought of him as anything *but* a fool.

If you really want to know what the average American was thinking, read Winchell.

Most average in the 1930's Americans would have found many of the tenets of Objecitvism to be shocking.

Even Hoover wouldn't have gone down that road.

 

[John in Covina]

The above assertion is utterly ahistoric. If one wishes to understand these times one would be well advised to read actual periodicals of the first half of the last century, rather than revisionist fantasies, or polemics. The Beatitudes and the Decalogue would be more relevant to most in the Era than Galt's radio speech. Most average in the 1930's Americans would have found many of the tenets of Objecitvism to be shocking.

The lack of charity concept's is a deal breaker for most but the concepts of money, earning it as opposed to demanding entitlements is well described by Francisco D.Anconia's money speech. It's on the web a number of places you can go here to see one posting

http://www.dailypaul.com/133313/francisco-d-anconias-ayn-rands-money-speech-in-atlas-shrugged

 

[Fletch]

I think WW2 took a lot of the live-and-let-live out of American society. Fighting any war reinforces authoritarian values and male supremacy, because your soldiers need those things just to survive war, never mind win it. Our 1930s culture was beginning to get soft about the roles of men vs. women thanks to the depression, and also questioning the proper role of authority. The war stopped most all of that, and the split with Russia and the cold war cleaned up what was left, making subversives out of a lot of people who held on to 30s values.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yeah, I'd have ended up in Red Channels for sure, right in between Paul McGrath and Burgess Meredith. Which is all the more reason I don't think the Golden Era extended into the fifties. (See how we always bring ourselves back onto topic?)

 

[Foxer55]

Lizzie,

Yeah, I'd have ended up in Red Channels for sure, right in between Paul McGrath and Burgess Meredith. Which is all the more reason I don't think the Golden Era extended into the fifties. (See how we always bring ourselves back onto topic?)

I am beginning to think the Golden Era had segments. Visualize a bell curve and then think of vertical colored segments under that curve. The width of the curve represents the period of time of the Golden Era. Each of these segments has some meaning but what is it? Of course the segments had to have some common element as well but what was it?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Some here are just in it for the hats, so to speak, so their Era would end whenever the majority of middle-class businessmen left the house bareheaded. Some are in it for the music, so their era would end with the first Petrillo strike in 1942, or the death of Bix, or some other point. Some are in it for the decor and design, so they might say the rise of concrete brutalism ended the Era. And some, like me, will define it in keeping with their overall worldview. I don't think you can pin it down like a millenialist Bible scholar tries to pin down the Times of the Gentiles, or a baseball fan defines the Yankee Dynasty, because before you can do that, you have to figure out exactly what "Golden" is. Whose terms are you using?

 

[John in Covina]

We need a new HUAC...

 

[LizzieMaine]

We need a new HUAC...

Well, I ain't naming names.

 

[Foxer55]

vitanola,

The above assertion is utterly ahistoric. If one wishes to understand these times one would be well advised to read actual periodicals of the first half of the last century, rather than revisionist fantasies, or polemics.

Since I was a teenager in the 1950s, not utterly historic. My idols and mentors (except for the flakes who were my school teachers) were all military. That means they grew up and adopted those traits in the 1930s and 1940s. The traits I listed were their traits and were the traits to which I and my peers aspired. I still see those traits as achievable, admirable, instructive, and beneficial.

 

[Feraud]

vitanola,

Since I was a teenager in the 1950s, not utterly historic. My idols and mentors (except for the flakes who were my school teachers) were all military. That means they grew up and adopted those traits in the 1930s and 1940s. The traits I listed were their traits and were the traits to which I and my peers aspired. I still see those traits as achievable, admirable, instructive, and beneficial.

I've always felt if one wishes to understand an era they must do it by taking the entire era itself, warts and all, into account and not just one subjective experience to it. How one man or woman is raised means little about an era. It's a very subjective slice of life.

We need a new HUAC...

This time it'll be the politicans and businessmen on the hot seat.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always felt if one wishes to understand an era they must do it by taking the entire era itself, warts and all, into account and not just one subjective experience to it. How one man or woman is raised means little about an era. It's a very subjective slice of life.

Indeed. The overall zeitgeist of any historical period is the sum total of every experience. The worldview of, say, the typical career military officer in the 1930s was very very different from that of the average factory hand -- but there were a lot more factory hands in 1937 than there were career military officers.

This time it'll be the politicans and businessmen on the hot seat.

I know which side of the torch I'll be holding.

 

[vitanola]

vitanola,



Since I was a teenager in the 1950s, not utterly historic. My idols and mentors (except for the flakes who were my school teachers) were all military. That means they grew up and adopted those traits in the 1930s and 1940s. The traits I listed were their traits and were the traits to which I and my peers aspired. I still see those traits as achievable, admirable, instructive, and beneficial.

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue."

"My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”

"Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the non-ideal, or virtue to vice."

"In the name of the cross men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors... To love as Christ is, in other words, immoral, and what you do for “the least of these, my brothers” is a waste."

This sort of stuff owuld have scandalised most Americans, as yet it scandalises me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the non-ideal, or virtue to vice."

This sort of stuff owuld have scandalised most Americans, as yet it scandalises me.

You know, I hate to bring down an evocation of Godwin's Law, but that sounds exactly like something out of Mein Kampf. Except that Mrs. Rand, however she might have defined herself, was quite a long way from being Aryan.

 

[dhermann1]

Shakespeare said it in a somewhat less theoligical manner:

POLONIUS
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET
God’s bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

 

[Foxer55]

vitanola,

This sort of stuff owuld have scandalised most Americans, as yet it scandalises me.

First, I want to reemphasize what I said earlier. Folks of the Golden Era were tough. Most of them were barely 2nd generation Americans having come from the fields. They knew depravation, poverty, war, and the Great Depression. These experiences taught them that thrift, hard work, and self reliance were the necessary character traits needed to achieve a better life. That better life is what we are calling “The Golden Era.” The traits and ethics of that era are as necessary today as they were then if you wish to live a comfortable life. I doubt you would find anyone from that era even mildly receptive to the culture of dependence we have evolved into. They knew full well from their own experiences there are no free rides.

Life is tough. Anyone who doesn't believe that is living in a fantasy. Your post of Rand’s quotes does nothing to contradict the way people lived and believed in the past and is not so shocking now. Joseph Campbell taught that your ONLY purpose in life is to seek your “bliss.” I would personally add this caveat just to be sure it’s understood: “your ONLY purpose in life is seeking your bliss and to do no harm.” I believe Campbell and Rand were saying about the same things, Campbell was more conciliatory in how he said it. Of course, Rand came from seeing the worst of the worst first hand in her own life while Campbell had the advantage of learning about the world from his comfortable surroundings on the inside the Golden Era. Not surprising they would both have similar thoughts but would convey those thoughts in radically different ways.

In the end they were both saying, your life is yours, not anyone else’s, and ONLY you can and will make it worthy. Those living in the Golden Era knew that and anyone with any sense knows that today.

If you think we're talking past each other, let me know.

 

[ldbenj]

The idea that all entertainment in the past was clean and wholesome is a misconception. I recently purchased a CD entitled "Actionable Offenses," a collection of obscene phonograph recordings of the 1890s. Most of the tracks refer to sex, bodily functions, and the like, with more profanity than George Carlin's act.

Also, the idea of the "Golden Era" covers only fashion and art, not society as a whole. During that period, racism and sexism were taken for granted, there was no social safety net, and there was just as much depravity as today, the only difference being that it was hidden, so everyone could make believe it wasn't happening.

 

[Feraud]

I don't think anyone would argue there was not unwholesome activity in the past.
What folks will argue is the modern wholesale media bombardment of smut advertised as empowerment, hip, and enlightened. For men this translates as of you aren't lowest common denominator, you're weak and unmanly. For ladies, "if you ain't a ho, you ain't in the know".