Well, it may be that each generation has its own immoralities. But I feel constrained to put in a few good words for the ‘50’s since, growing up during that era, I didn’t particularly note that “hardness and materialism” were being glorified. Now, perhaps among the elite or the great Gatsby’s of the time, that was the case, but I didn’t see it in my own world. (The elite of our own time are strikingly and unapologetically materialistic.)
The 50’s (and 40’s and earlier) did have its own particular immoralities: Discrimination was rampant. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus and weren’t allowed in white restaurants. Jim Crow, and housing and job discrimination had real and deleterious effects. At the same time, black families were largely intact; and that is no longer the case. Somehow, in saving the black family, we have managed to destroy it.
But we’re working on the white family as well. Among my classmates in elementary and high school, there were no pregnancies, no STD’s. Actually, there was no sex. But then, there isn’t supposed to be any among school children, is there? It wasn’t that some boys didn’t try. It was mainly that girls uniformly and universally said no. Second base, if not first, was their limit. Parents simply did not worry about their kids having sex, because it didn’t happen. Now, it seems, parents expect their children to have sex, and make sure that they have protection.
Divorce was a rarity. Nobody I knew or any of their friends had parents who were divorced. Ronald Reagan divorced Jane Wyman and it nearly killed his career.
If anybody wanted pornography, it took a lot of work to find it. You’d have to ask some sleazy guy in the back corner of a bookstore located in remote part of town. It’s kind of hard to be constantly tempted by lust in that sort of environment.
We played Sorry or Monopoly instead of Grand Theft Auto, and watched Doris Day movies.
(But maybe that Monopoly was an ominous sign of the corporate culture.)
And we spent a lot of time outside, because there were only three TV channels, with not much on. Before 6am and after midnight you could only get the test pattern. Lucille Ball was about as racy as the programming got.
Our parents let us walk or take our bikes anywhere in the city without supervision, and without knowing where we were at all times. Because no matter where we went, there were adults who would make sure we didn’t get into trouble. And the city was pretty much safe anywhere.
But there’s no doubt—things were beginning to go bad. With contraception came promiscuity, divorce, abortion, and family breakups. Hugh Hefner found that naked women could be successfully marketed, and everybody else including advertisers got on that bandwagon.
Porn producers found big profits in video, internet, and pay-per-view.
Cable channels found that kids could be profitably marketed.
Sex educators found that increasing sexual promiscuity could create a big demand for their services.
On the other hand, we are more compassionate now. Aren’t we?