A Distorted Vision of the 1950s is Used to Manipulate You

In this episode, the hosts discuss the contrasting realities and myths surrounding the 1950s, focusing on various social, economic, and cultural factors. They debunk romanticized views of this era by highlighting the real struggles, from economic disparities to social issues, that were prevalent. The episode features detailed comparisons of living standards, employment, mental health, and black Americans' experiences then and now. They also explore how modern advancements and opportunities can recreate the desired aspects of the 1950s while avoiding its pitfalls. Dive into an eye-opening analysis of why life today, despite its challenges, might actually be better than the nostalgically viewed 1950s.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] But yeah, it was like, well, of course, like the thing I can really dunk on is the experience of black Americans in the 1950s, and I'm trying to find all the stats and I look at their marriage rates and I'm like, oh, okay.

Well, in the 1950s, 64% of black women. Or married, roughly comparable to white women.

Malcolm Collins: And and their kids born out of wedlock were fi were were half the white rate today,

At only 5% were at the white percent. Born out of wedlock was 10%.

Malcolm Collins: it's like or so. Yeah. .

Simone Collins: But black infants soared to born out of wedlock, soared to 77.3%,

like, I mean it's obviously there were horrible things about, about.

Like pre-Civil rights but okay, so like fertility is worse out of, out of wedlock births are worse. Mental health is worse, even. Wealth too. , in, in wow, black household income is 58% of white households, which is unchanged since 1953.

Malcolm Collins: , I heard her say all this and I was like, this can't actually be true, right? Like, this doesn't sound true to me. So I decided to start Googling it and oh [00:01:00] my god, it's so much worse than I thought. , If you look at, , this graph by the Washington Post, , which is looking at medium household wealth adjusted for inflation since the 1950s, white wealth has.

, Gone up about three x black wealth. Is approximately the same as it was in the 1950s.

Simone Collins: So also, like I was looking at that, I was like, oh my God, I've just, I've been lied to about the fifties. Like, whoa, so much more expensive.

Except, well, we spent like 15% of our income on clothes. So I

Malcolm Collins: don't know. No,

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: . Hello Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to be talking about the 1950s, and obviously we enjoyed tossing rotten vegetables at the 1950s. We point out how trad wives are both unsustainable and a progressive conspiracy. We point out how sexually debauched they were in the 19, oh, hold on, hold on.

Malcolm Collins: We gotta, we, I gotta make a few notes on these things where people haven't seen these episodes, specifically what we mean. Is that the trad wife phenomenon as it is practiced today is more of [00:02:00] a cargo cult than representative of how people actually lived in the 1950s. Yeah. And, and well, and before

Simone Collins: the, the, the real family format that has existed for thousands of years is what's called the corporate family, which is more an extended family group of both right people and unrelated colleagues.

Malcolm Collins: And the modern trad wife is more downstream of BDSM culture.

Simone Collins: And you don't even know Malcolm, but this is trending now online because there are these trad wives who are now. I don't remember what they call them, but there's this one, there's one woman who, who calls it the princess treatment. And then, or experience or something like that.

And then there's this other one who literally wears A-B-D-S-M collar, but calls it like. A a, like, she, she thinks that it's a, a conservative Christian thing, but she had literally bought this color that a day, a day color, I think she calls it a day color to signal her subservience to her husband, not realizing that literally she purchased this caller from A-B-D-S-M site and it's.

So amazing. And the Internet's laughing like crazy. But anyway, yeah, it's such a thing and it's, it's showing up again because it's a [00:03:00] thing.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, it's, it, well, it's so funny because a lot of these people were so hidden from that that they don't realize that it's like, no, these words you're using. Did not come from the 1950s.

They literally came from BDSM culture. Like this is not the things that you're buying these styles that you're adopting. Yeah. Not to

Simone Collins: kink shame or anything, it's just, it's not like the traditional Correct way to do family.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I, I think that that's always funny to get into, but continue.

Simone Collins: Right.

So as much as we like to dunk on the 1950s, there were absolutely major elements of it that rocked, including affordability, employment, quality of life, social stability. There were even some commonly high highlighted shortcomings of the 1950s that are. May, maybe not as short as I thought they were previously.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. Oh, and hold on. I should also note for people who haven't seen our episode on the 1950s being debauched mm-hmm. It also was way in, in many ways way more sexually debauched than modern times. Yeah, yeah. Where we point out the prevalence within literature of the period and was in studies run during the period of, [00:04:00] young male mutual masturbation and the prevalence of nudity like, like group showers and stuff like that, that people don't do anymore, and the prevalence of, oh, but it was like,

Simone Collins: it was no homo group showers, you know, it was like they, they people were based enough to not insinuate too much or read too much into it?

Well, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: no, they didn't see it as gay to like. Jack off your friend in the 1950s, they were like, yeah, you're just helping out a friend. Come on. And I love people were like, oh, that was like the, those studies were, were debunked. And I was like, bro, if you have actually read a lot of literature from people who grew up in the 1950s that describe like underground culture, what it was really like you will very frequently.

Fine stories of mutual masturbation among males. I have not read a single like non-gay story where that happens in modern times. I don't have a single friend who has admitted to me, oh yeah, I did this, this thing that, that just, yeah, I think even

Simone Collins: are totally straight. Doesn't get go that far. Yeah.

So

Malcolm Collins: continue.

Simone Collins: Anyway, I wanna make the argument basically that, okay, yes. A lot of things about the fifties [00:05:00] either totally misunderstood or actually sucked, but there are a lot of things that were great, but I have zero respect. For anyone who pines after the fifties, and I will explain why, but basically mid wis crave the 1950s.

And it's because you believe it's all recreated live the 1950s.

Malcolm Collins: So the reason she doesn't care is, is she thinks that you can remake everything that was good in the 1950s was in the modern day.

Simone Collins: Exactly. That's my point.

Malcolm Collins: And I'll push back. So, so make your argument.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, so let's go over what's good.