I was watching the Alfred Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest with Cary Grant the other night, and was thinking about how cool everything was in the 1950s. Definitely a high point for style and design, amongst other things. Nice Caddies, clothes, music, etc.
Then I saw another good movie, Far From Heaven, with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, which was set in 1957. And it reminded me that the Fifties were not all peaches and cream, and that there was a dark side. Intolerance, the mass conformity, expectations being forced on women limiting their lives, the fears of the Cold War and so on.
Anyway, it made me consider how people think back about decades and either remember only the good, or only the bad.
So here's an interesting sociology question: What was the best decade of the 20th century? And what do you think were the good things and bad things about that decade?
My vote would go for the 1970s. In Canada the economy was going fine, everyone seemed to have a job, there was cheap gas here (mostly, we weren't hit so much by the Oil Crisis), cool music, Pong & Atari, bell bottoms for guys, hip-huggers for chicks, muscle cars were plentiful and relatively cheap, awesome movies like Jaws, Star Wars, Dirty Harry, relaxed social attitudes, and no home computers to cause obesity, carpal tunnel, and neurosis.
On the dark side, muscle cars died out with the emissions, crime hit an all-time high (1973 was the worst), pollution was rampant, and inflation started going up at the end of the decade (peaking in 1982) raising the cost of living.
Then I saw another good movie, Far From Heaven, with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, which was set in 1957. And it reminded me that the Fifties were not all peaches and cream, and that there was a dark side. Intolerance, the mass conformity, expectations being forced on women limiting their lives, the fears of the Cold War and so on.
Anyway, it made me consider how people think back about decades and either remember only the good, or only the bad.
So here's an interesting sociology question: What was the best decade of the 20th century? And what do you think were the good things and bad things about that decade?
My vote would go for the 1970s. In Canada the economy was going fine, everyone seemed to have a job, there was cheap gas here (mostly, we weren't hit so much by the Oil Crisis), cool music, Pong & Atari, bell bottoms for guys, hip-huggers for chicks, muscle cars were plentiful and relatively cheap, awesome movies like Jaws, Star Wars, Dirty Harry, relaxed social attitudes, and no home computers to cause obesity, carpal tunnel, and neurosis.
On the dark side, muscle cars died out with the emissions, crime hit an all-time high (1973 was the worst), pollution was rampant, and inflation started going up at the end of the decade (peaking in 1982) raising the cost of living.
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