1971 to 2023: Have We Really Changed?

1971 to 2023: Have We Really Changed?

I was perusing the discards of our local library’s book sale, and came across some issues of LIFE magazine from 1971. Interested, I picked up a couple to read later. 

Scanning through the issue for May 7, 1971, I was encouraged to see the things that have changed, and depressed that so many haven’t in the 52 years that have passed.  

You’d like to think that we have progressed, but I’m not so sure. On the front, in bold huge white letters, proclaims there exists a feminist that even men like. Our culture is still very reliant on the prejudices that define the binary genders of man and woman, even though some of us are trying very hard to step out of that limiting world. But here are some of my observations while reading this magazine:

Something that hasn’t changed: the alcohol ads, especially whiskey. We are still addicted to our chemicals, and like the feeling it gives us, or need the feeling it gives us.  We keep it legal because some of us can control our intake, and only socially drink the liquid, while more and more of us have developed into alcoholics, where it dictates our lives.

Something that has changed: the cigarette ads.  There were so many in this magazine, it amazed me. We still have tobacco as legal, but we stamp the warnings all over the packaging, and you don’t see advertisements for the cancer-sticks in every other page that you read.  One of these even implies that you don’t have to light it, just keep it in your mouth, because smoking makes you look cool and sophisticated. Does anyone else miss the Marlboro Man?

In 1971, they were still getting used to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  It was still relatively new, and especially in the southern United States, some areas were having trouble adjusting. Now, you would think we would have had time to fully integrate our neighborhoods and lives and cities and businesses.  That isn’t the case.  Some neighborhoods are still not desegregated or treated equally; we are still dealing with racism and healing from wounds due to treating “different” people cruelly. We can put a law on paper, but you can’t force a person to stop handing their bad attitude down to their children.

Technology changed drastically in 52 years.  There were cameras with film, window air conditioners, a “new” concept in whole house air conditioning, the new toaster oven to try. Now, we take digital photos with our cameras, you can’t find window air conditioning because every house comes with central air, and who uses a toaster oven? We have air fryers and hot pots.  You would almost think their minds were primitive.  At least they weren’t scared of a vaccine. An article reminded us that, starting in 1923, they proudly came together and rid the world of diphtheria.  That disease is extremely rare today because everyone possible got vaccinated. Ditto with polio; every person bared their arms for the vaccine to eradicate the disease.  What do we have today with COVID-19? A situation like the flu.  When the flu epidemic hit in 1918, they didn’t stop it with a vaccine; it ran its course until everyone either died or became immune. That made the virus able to survive, and mutate into variants that still hit us today.  It keeps on mutating, so we are unable to eradicate it (there are too many variants now), we just fight it the best we can with the few antibodies we have in the flu shots you get each year.  This is what happened to the COVID-19 virus.  Because not everyone was willing to get their vaccine, it survived to mutate again and again, and lives among us to kill again and again. We are so hung up on our individual rights, that we can’t see what is better for the human race.  It is all about me, me, me. 

In 1971, they had a photo of a child playing with a gun to demonstrate danger.  You would never see that ad today.  What you saw then, and still see now? Complaints of city crime and overcrowded, clogged prisons, and varying opinions on how to solve that.

In 1971, people wanted the Vietnam War to end, even to the point of running against Nixon in the election (Paul McClosky).  We know how that went.  Now we are arguing over gun policies. Should we regulate guns, make you apply and pass a series of tests, and wait for your gun, thus handing out less guns to fewer people; or should we let anyone own a gun to fight their own crime in their own home; put the law in their hands?  Which one would lessen the violence? Again, is it about what is better for everyone, or is it all about me?

Other things that have changed:

·         Station wagons are no longer cool, especially the ones with the fake wood paneling

·         Cars no longer cost only $2174

·         Automatic transmission in a car is no longer a novel thing

·         Music is available on other medium than records

·         Water and ice dispensers are standard now on refrigerators

 

Some things still haven’t changed:

·         We have a fascination with death and hell and gore (then, The Exorcist was just coming out in book form.  Now, we have everything from IT to The Walking Dead to the creatures that you can kill in video games)

·         We use comedy to cover trauma; we laugh to change something painful into something that is funny (Neil Simon said this is why he wrote comedy instead of drama).

·         We are more concerned with political parties: Republican or Democrat: with how we differ than how we can come together to get along. Our politics and the outspoken on the soapbox are the rich, old, and extreme governing the masses, who fuel our anger, catch us off guard, and gather the vulnerable and uneducated under their wings.

·         The average person is ambiguous in their true beliefs on social issues. They are sorry for the downtrodden blue-collar worker and the hard-up person who can’t get ahead, but they blame them, too. They don’t want to hate anyone different, but they don’t want them as friends or living next door, either. They are frustrated and fearful, and this is what leaders feed on.

·         Feminism is still fighting. Germaine Greer’s big issue in 1971 was speaking out against marriage and abortion. Roe v. Wade hadn’t happened yet (1973). Who knew we would be back there again, running 52 years backwards? We need feminists even more than ever.

·         We are still hurting the environment. The Clean Air Act had just been written in 1970, and the government was still figuring out how to regulate it.  It went through a big change in 1990. We are getting better.  But. In 1971, there were wilderness fires that occurred because of draining wetlands. Now, we are still affecting global warming, and we are fighting wildfires and forest clearings, lowering native fruit tree yields that kill wildlife and melting ice, increasing global temperature and our continued use of coal.

 

Something I have learned from reading 52 years into the past: it’s an old saying….

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

Time moves so fast—sometimes, though…it doesn’t move fast enough. And sometimes it seems to be moving backwards.

 

Thanks for reading

 

May 30, 2023

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold