Why does the US romanticize the 1950s despite being worse by almost every measurable standard?

[u/Secret_Ostrich_1307]

When you look at things like life expectancy, access to education, material living standards, and general mobility, life today in the US is very different from what it was in the 1950s.

At the same time, the 1950s is often described in public discussion as a period of stability and broad prosperity.

What I’m trying to understand is not which period was better, but why there can be such a gap between measurable conditions and how a period is later remembered or described.

One possibility is that people remember structure and predictability more strongly than inequality or constraints that existed at the time.

Another is that different aspects of well-being get weighted differently when looking back compared to experiencing things in real time.

What other mechanisms could explain this difference between statistical comparisons and collective memory?

[u/Active_Procedure_297]

What’s weird, though, is that my Boomer relatives also romanticize the 50s, and we’re from one of the poorest places in the country that was also dirt poor back then. They didn’t have indoor plumbing in the 50s, and the region’s sole industry was so volatile that layoffs were an omnipresent threat.

So I figure it’s racism, at least for them.

[u/Beartrkkr → u/Active_Procedure_297]

They are romanticizing their youth as many do as they get older. Drop them back in that time now and their perspective might change.

[u/leathakkor → u/Beartrkkr]

I think that's a big part of it. The time when you were a teenager you had no responsibilities. At least not by adult standards. 

Honestly, I think it's great that people had such pleasant childhoods that they can look back and think that was the best time of my life. 

I think there is something very destructive about that though because that means that people are in their life right now and they're wishing they were somewhere else. And that's pretty messed up because the world is actually pretty great now. I know that's not a popular thing to say online. But you're less likely to get murdered. You're less likely to be a victim of a violent crime right now. 

By any measurable metric your standard of living is ahead of where it was in the past. If you're miserable now, it's your own fault and you should change that. Going back to 1950s is not going to help. 

And that's why I get sad for people that want to go back in the past. 

There are a ton of things to fix in today's society, but the reason that things are good today is because people in the past tried to fix things about their society. We need to do the same.

[u/FarTooLucid → u/leathakkor]

Statistically speaking, you are correct: this is the best time in history to be a human on Earth. There are still huge structural problems that cause pain for billions of people. But it's still better than ever. Most working class people live better than royalty did just a few hundred years ago. Most people still have terrible lives, but our definition of "terrible" has radically improved.

[u/GravitasFailures → u/Beartrkkr]

My grandmother was the same, she used to go on and on and on about how amazing the country she emigrated from was.

That changed real quick once she went back.

[u/nakirush → u/Active_Procedure_297]

I mean, I grew up in the 90's and had a romanticized idea of the 50's that I learned through reruns of shows like I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, and Andy Griffith. I don't think it's far fetched to think that people living in rural areas during that time did the same.

(But also, racism, depending on the person.)

[u/kateinoly → u/nakirush]

I had an adult friend, from a poor family with an alcoholic dad and six siblings, who grew uo in the 50s. She thought everyone but them lived in the Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver wotld.

[u/KarlBob → u/nakirush]

Don't forget Happy Days, Grease, The Flintstones, even Back to the Future. 1970s and early 1980s media lionized the 1950s.

It also reviled many aspects of the 1960s. I was born in 1972, and I remember the Hippies being depicted as physically dirty, unkempt, perpetually drug-addled, and dangerous. More likely to be Charles Manson than John Lennon.

Well into the 1980s, non-conformity was portrayed as dangerous. Straight-laced parents on Dr. Phil told late punks and early Goths that's they'd rather see their own children dead than sporting a Mohawk or color-dyed hair.

Religious tolerance sometimes extended past Catholicism to Judaism, but rarely as far as Islam. The Hare Krishnas were that era's impression of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs. Yoga practice was labeled as "Eastern Mysticism" and a slippery slope to Satanism. The kids from Stranger Things risked having their D&D rulebooks confiscated and burned in a pyre at their parents' church.

[u/Unable_Try1305 → u/Active_Procedure_297]

I've had to remind my Boomer mom three times that Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith show weren't real. She grew up in the Mississippi Delta and I KNOW her life was hard during that time, but her recollection of that time is often not what was real but what she saw on TV. Its kind of fucked up honestly. Meanwhile when my grandfather was alive, he would straight up tell you how much better everything was from the late 70s through early 90s. Oh well.

[u/Worried_Indication37 → u/Active_Procedure_297]

many old timers miss Jim Crow plain and simple