Matt's larger point is correct, but I think misses that there is something true in these critiques. Saying the people in that photo are living in poverty by today's standards is really off. They certainly did not think of themselves as living in poverty. Likewise saying the Amish live in poverty is like saying the pope cannot get a date. It really misses the point.
I have been thinking about this all day. I do believe that the average standard of living was worse in the 1950s than today. But what is the current trajectory? I know wages have risen in the past few years, but before that they were stagnant for quite a while.
When I was a recent college grad, I made the equivalent of $34,000 (checked it on several calculators). I was able to afford an apartment with one roommate in Boston. I didn't live lavishly, but I could afford all necessities, new clothes needed for a job, going out to dinner, movies, etc with friends a few times a month, vacations to nearby places like Maine and Cape Cod, and weekend trips to NYC several times a year. I don't see that being possible on $34,000 today. So maybe when people say there are nostalgic for the 50s, they really mean, like 1990?
The average college grad is also making more than the one a couple decades ago, even after adjusting for inflation. I think $34,000 would be pretty low coming out of school now.
Try shifting the comparison with today from the 1950s (or the 1990s) to 1964-69. With a political "consensus," integration was the law of the land and color-blindness was the watchword. People were experimenting with sexuality and psychedelics; "gender identity" was becoming blurred (rather than celebrated). We moved from a 3-room apartment to a modest ranch house on a quarter-acre (yes, with a washer and dryer), 10 minutes' drive from the Walt Whitman Mall.
As I lament to my cat these days -- "Lucy, I don't think we're in Woodstock anymore."
I love how MY emphasizes the true miracle of 1950s, how much better everything had gotten SO QUICKLY. If you were born in 1920s in some no-plumbing tenement building, spent your childhood in the 1930s in line at the soup kitchen, your young adulthood shipped off to the western front, you probably had some low expectations for the rest of your life. So it must have seemed genuinely magically that instead you were able to afford a 900sq ft bungalow and a car.
Ska and Politics: the original ska movement was white British and Black Caribbean British youth coming together in a joint music scene, making and enjoying music that was the product of that fusion. It was anti-racism embodied. And though some of the songs were overtly political, a lot of the politics was just baked into the very existence of the bands and their fandom.
None of that survives the U.S. attempt to imitate it, because immigration patterns have unfolded differently. The U.S. version was just punk with a horn section. Which is fine! (Honestly I like the sound of the U.S. stuff better.) But of course it's not political and it was silly of anyone to ever think it would be.
Don't really have anything of substance to say that hasn't already been said by others, but this post brought out a lot of U Street nostalgia from me, from an era a bit later than what Matt is talking about--2013-2014, when I lived in DC and had my early mostly-pleasant experiences of gay nightlife as a post-college adult. Now Town is condominiums and most of the bars I used to go to are gone. It does make me a bit sad.
It doesn’t seem that the tide is slowly turning and people have come to realize that maybe requiring the input and sign off of 47 different stakeholders in order to build something might not be for the best.
There’s actually already been progress because of toiletgate. We removed the silly boycott laws that prevented us from doing business with half of US states.
Only one thing is wrong here - you don't actually have the choice to live in a much smaller house, in most cases. It's not likely that wherever you want to live has small 1950s houses on it anymore. I guess if you can buy empty land in a place with no (or a liberal) HOA you might be able to build a very small house lacking amenities, but otherwise good luck.
Oh, sure. I didn't even mean "whatever glamorous city you want to live in," though. I meant, like, if you wanted to live within 20 minutes of where you work, or in a walkable neighborhood, or near your mother, or...
Nostalgia as an explanation of current political trends is incomplete and overly dismissive of those who disagree with you. I don't deny that nostalgia exists and distorts our perception of the past. But it has always existed like death and taxes. The question is why nostalgia for the mid-20th century is more prevalent in our politics today than it was back in the 90s when most people were more future oriented (and note that our political visions of the future -- such as the Internet Utopianism of the 90s -- are often just as distorted as nostalgic memories of the past).
Saying that people are just more nostalgic than they used to be is unhelpful as historical analysis. The question is why nostalgia is more appealing as a political stance. What people are missing from the mid-20th century is the reduced social, cultural, and economic inequality and the higher sense of social cohesion and trust. For me, authors like Markovits (The Meritocracy Trap) and Putnam (The Upswing & Bowling Alone) do the best job of analyzing the changes in American society that make nostalgia appealing to so many of us.
It doesn't hurt to keep telling Americans that they are richer than they used to be b/c having accurate information is always useful, but doing so will never address the deeper anxieties, concerns, and sense of loss that is driving our politics today.
I'm 54 .... '88 high school grad...two kids in college.
I'm blown away by how much my kids and their friends love (prefer?) music from the 60's - 80's (and some 90's) compared to new / newer / modern music. I think The Atlantic did an article about it a couple of years ago.
It makes me sad to an extent, given there are undoubtedly some very talented kids right now that...if you were to turn back the clock...could / would / should be famous right now...or at least more exposure? But ... I think I read that +/- 1,500 new songs are released daily on Spotify...or something to that extent ...and the days of getting discovered on MTV or the radio are obviously dunzo.
I have posed the following question to my kids' friends many times...and here it is...
Name the bands (band = minimum of vocalist, lead guitar, bassist, and drummer whose names are well known and iconic*) that have been together at least 30 years and ....if they were to tour right now...would at the very least sell out (or close) baseball stadiums with a capacity of +/- 40,000 ....if not an American football stadium or European soccer stadium with capacity of 60,000+. On their own....not as part of a festival. *Some original members may have passed away.
None of them get it right the first rattle. They'll rattle off several bands that meet the criteria and could sell out (or close to sell out) a +/- 20,000 seat NBA arena....but then they dwindle when you start talking 40,000+ seats.
I then ask them to name a modern or modern(ish) band that has vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums ....everyone knows the name of each musician ...that will one day meet the criteria of being together at least 30 years and still sell out (or close) venues with 40,000+ seats.
They throw out some names....but none of them fit the well-known vocals, guitar, bass, and drums criteria. Mostly solo artists.
At any rate....I guess it is what it is....and curious if I get any replies with respective guesses. Without cheating!
Trust me, if you get rid of nostalgia, you’re gonna miss it when it’s gone.
Matt's larger point is correct, but I think misses that there is something true in these critiques. Saying the people in that photo are living in poverty by today's standards is really off. They certainly did not think of themselves as living in poverty. Likewise saying the Amish live in poverty is like saying the pope cannot get a date. It really misses the point.
Wait, so what is the tune that induces Matt to dance?
Great post, Matt. Kudo's for shouting out Operation Ivy; imho a band that has long been tragically overlooked and underrated.
I have been thinking about this all day. I do believe that the average standard of living was worse in the 1950s than today. But what is the current trajectory? I know wages have risen in the past few years, but before that they were stagnant for quite a while.
When I was a recent college grad, I made the equivalent of $34,000 (checked it on several calculators). I was able to afford an apartment with one roommate in Boston. I didn't live lavishly, but I could afford all necessities, new clothes needed for a job, going out to dinner, movies, etc with friends a few times a month, vacations to nearby places like Maine and Cape Cod, and weekend trips to NYC several times a year. I don't see that being possible on $34,000 today. So maybe when people say there are nostalgic for the 50s, they really mean, like 1990?
The average college grad is also making more than the one a couple decades ago, even after adjusting for inflation. I think $34,000 would be pretty low coming out of school now.
Try shifting the comparison with today from the 1950s (or the 1990s) to 1964-69. With a political "consensus," integration was the law of the land and color-blindness was the watchword. People were experimenting with sexuality and psychedelics; "gender identity" was becoming blurred (rather than celebrated). We moved from a 3-room apartment to a modest ranch house on a quarter-acre (yes, with a washer and dryer), 10 minutes' drive from the Walt Whitman Mall.
As I lament to my cat these days -- "Lucy, I don't think we're in Woodstock anymore."
I love how MY emphasizes the true miracle of 1950s, how much better everything had gotten SO QUICKLY. If you were born in 1920s in some no-plumbing tenement building, spent your childhood in the 1930s in line at the soup kitchen, your young adulthood shipped off to the western front, you probably had some low expectations for the rest of your life. So it must have seemed genuinely magically that instead you were able to afford a 900sq ft bungalow and a car.
There was some study about nuns at a convent who were surveyed in depth about their lives twice something like 20 or 30 or 40 years apart.
Of course their recollections of the old days were much happier than the actual answers they gave in the middle of the old days.
Ska and Politics: the original ska movement was white British and Black Caribbean British youth coming together in a joint music scene, making and enjoying music that was the product of that fusion. It was anti-racism embodied. And though some of the songs were overtly political, a lot of the politics was just baked into the very existence of the bands and their fandom.
None of that survives the U.S. attempt to imitate it, because immigration patterns have unfolded differently. The U.S. version was just punk with a horn section. Which is fine! (Honestly I like the sound of the U.S. stuff better.) But of course it's not political and it was silly of anyone to ever think it would be.
South Park already covered this ...member? https://youtu.be/Ncps_RYHoAI?si=RCgnCCat_-uqVRps
This is why I keep coming back. Nice work.
Don't really have anything of substance to say that hasn't already been said by others, but this post brought out a lot of U Street nostalgia from me, from an era a bit later than what Matt is talking about--2013-2014, when I lived in DC and had my early mostly-pleasant experiences of gay nightlife as a post-college adult. Now Town is condominiums and most of the bars I used to go to are gone. It does make me a bit sad.
Article meant for Matt!
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.html
It doesn’t seem that the tide is slowly turning and people have come to realize that maybe requiring the input and sign off of 47 different stakeholders in order to build something might not be for the best.
There’s actually already been progress because of toiletgate. We removed the silly boycott laws that prevented us from doing business with half of US states.
Only one thing is wrong here - you don't actually have the choice to live in a much smaller house, in most cases. It's not likely that wherever you want to live has small 1950s houses on it anymore. I guess if you can buy empty land in a place with no (or a liberal) HOA you might be able to build a very small house lacking amenities, but otherwise good luck.
Oh, sure. I didn't even mean "whatever glamorous city you want to live in," though. I meant, like, if you wanted to live within 20 minutes of where you work, or in a walkable neighborhood, or near your mother, or...
Nostalgia as an explanation of current political trends is incomplete and overly dismissive of those who disagree with you. I don't deny that nostalgia exists and distorts our perception of the past. But it has always existed like death and taxes. The question is why nostalgia for the mid-20th century is more prevalent in our politics today than it was back in the 90s when most people were more future oriented (and note that our political visions of the future -- such as the Internet Utopianism of the 90s -- are often just as distorted as nostalgic memories of the past).
Saying that people are just more nostalgic than they used to be is unhelpful as historical analysis. The question is why nostalgia is more appealing as a political stance. What people are missing from the mid-20th century is the reduced social, cultural, and economic inequality and the higher sense of social cohesion and trust. For me, authors like Markovits (The Meritocracy Trap) and Putnam (The Upswing & Bowling Alone) do the best job of analyzing the changes in American society that make nostalgia appealing to so many of us.
It doesn't hurt to keep telling Americans that they are richer than they used to be b/c having accurate information is always useful, but doing so will never address the deeper anxieties, concerns, and sense of loss that is driving our politics today.
Ahhhh...music nostalgia.
I'm 54 .... '88 high school grad...two kids in college.
I'm blown away by how much my kids and their friends love (prefer?) music from the 60's - 80's (and some 90's) compared to new / newer / modern music. I think The Atlantic did an article about it a couple of years ago.
It makes me sad to an extent, given there are undoubtedly some very talented kids right now that...if you were to turn back the clock...could / would / should be famous right now...or at least more exposure? But ... I think I read that +/- 1,500 new songs are released daily on Spotify...or something to that extent ...and the days of getting discovered on MTV or the radio are obviously dunzo.
I have posed the following question to my kids' friends many times...and here it is...
Name the bands (band = minimum of vocalist, lead guitar, bassist, and drummer whose names are well known and iconic*) that have been together at least 30 years and ....if they were to tour right now...would at the very least sell out (or close) baseball stadiums with a capacity of +/- 40,000 ....if not an American football stadium or European soccer stadium with capacity of 60,000+. On their own....not as part of a festival. *Some original members may have passed away.
None of them get it right the first rattle. They'll rattle off several bands that meet the criteria and could sell out (or close to sell out) a +/- 20,000 seat NBA arena....but then they dwindle when you start talking 40,000+ seats.
I then ask them to name a modern or modern(ish) band that has vocals, lead guitar, bass, drums ....everyone knows the name of each musician ...that will one day meet the criteria of being together at least 30 years and still sell out (or close) venues with 40,000+ seats.
They throw out some names....but none of them fit the well-known vocals, guitar, bass, and drums criteria. Mostly solo artists.
At any rate....I guess it is what it is....and curious if I get any replies with respective guesses. Without cheating!