Been thinking about how things got to be the way they are. Funny to me it goes back to the fifties. Yes, many people I think point to this timeframe, but where it seems to have started is pretty simple and there are no evil monsters to blame for some of our troubles. Well let me back up a bit, there are some monsters to blame but for today's thoughts I am not going down that path.
In some ways the trouble for the middle class in America is because in the fifties the middle class in America achieved something that no other group of people who weren't rulers had ever achieved. After WWII things in America were great, they really were. Oil ( read energy for future discussions) was cheap and plentiful, we were building, jobs were plentiful, material possessions were truly possible ( though not the consumer madness we have now), technology was starting to creep into our daily lives, and the middle class in America decided to,,,,, well enjoy it. And that really is to be expected. This was a historic time.
Middle class living was something new in world history. We were a powerful nation, economically strong and totally ignorant of what was going on around us. Not bad ignorant, just no one really could expect us to understand what was happening. Now people like me can look back and say oh yeah we should have done a better job ( and really the opportunity was there), but no one in history had ever faced the wonders we were facing.
So for the fifties we cruised thru (pun intended if you know pop culture of the fifties) and rested on our laurels,not rested as in did nothing, people worked hard, again technology was growing and people were developing new products, producing them in factories, middle management jobs were on the rise, engineering and science were growing at rapid rates, all sorts of development was going on, but it was going on to satisfy a need to continue to be middle class. The future was just that ,,, the future, no one thought truly about the possible impact (some did, even a presidential candidate) but for the majority the idea of improving the future was an abstract thought.
The sixites came along and the youth questioned morals and lifestyles and all sorts of crazy things. There was questioning of what was going on, but not at how can I improve the future, but questioning what kind of life was being middle class and "establishment" in America. A well known problem, the Vietnam War unfortunately sidetracked much of the youth's attention in the sixites so that any development of new ideas was thwarted by attacking establishment and the war. Unfortunate diversion to progress to the future.
Then the seventies,,,we went back to thinking about ourselves and unfortunately it became the "me" generation. This is really an outshot of what we wanted in the fifties. America developed a mental snapshot somewhat incorrectly that we should always be like the fifties. That there was a perfect Norman Rockwall existence and we could always regain it and some in our country developed a political allegiance and philosphy that we should always have it.
We can still have our middle class and be successful, but we need to adapt to the world. Fifty years ago we just couldn't get that through our heads. So to cut to the chase we end up with a middle class that is dying, a economic situation that doesn't seem to improve, but is that the end of it all. Actually no,,,, we still have the ability to rebuild our middle class to a dynamic group, but if we do; will we learn that next time we have to pay attention to the future?
Rebuilding the middle class will continue to be a theme in my posts going forward. America will never have the fifties again, but we can have a strong middle class with some forethought and some changes and some hard work. IF democracy is to thrive so must the middle class. Rebuilding both takes us down the same path.
An example of what happened comes from our public education system. We built this system that produced great teachers, principals, academians, administrators, but we never learned anything from ourselves. Go back and do some research on what we researched. We started doing excellenet work in child development, it took awhile to really get it going, but now there are mountains of information on child development, but we never changed the way we educate our children. We still use many of the same ideas and practices we used in the fifties. Really think about it for a bit. Yeah we made some changes, but really most of public education is memorization and simple writing. No critical thinking, no ethics development, no what are the best topics for certain age groups, yet all that is there and documented for us to implement. We just never do, of course now we are stuck with an economic crisis in our public education system. Again though if we had thought about the future, the priorities would be there for us to put our resources where we need it. This example isn't meant to be about all our problems, but rather an example of much energy used, but what did it get us,,, when we actually have a great result, we just didn't take the next step.
Just some food for thought for now. And hopefully we can start digesting it now before it is too late.
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