Now you know how conservatives felt when Big Tech fucked us over in 2020 and banned us all. Thoughts? Shall we momentarily share a group hug
Now you know how conservatives felt when Big Tech fucked us over in 2020 and banned us all. Thoughts? Shall we momentarily share a group hug
I think it was far more widespread than you think. Yes, it’s absolutely the case that there were scary, intimidatingly conservative places in America in the 1970s… But it is also the case that people in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, etc. were all listening to what was being released from the coasts. Boomers & Gen X grew up knowing who all these stars overdosing on drugs and practicing alternative lifestyles were. Which is why things like Roe v Wade were possible…
You also see crazy numbers like this:
Gallup’s trend by age reveals that widespread experimentation with marijuana first occurred among adults aged 18 to 29 between 1969 and 1973, rising from 8% to 35%. It then continued to mount, reaching 56% by 1977, and remained at that level in 1985. Since then, however, marijuana use among young adults has progressively declined. At the same time, as the bulge of young adults who tried marijuana in the 1970s ages and replaces older Americans who never tried it, the rate of all Americans who have ever tried the drug has increased slightly.
Gallup
Check out these numbers
In the days when pre-marital sex was taboo, many couples had at least one powerful incentive to marry. This may have been the case in 1969 when Gallup found that premarital sex was frowned upon by two-thirds of Americans, while only 21% felt these relations were acceptable. That critical view dropped sharply by the early 1970s to 47%, and in 1985 Gallup found a majority of Americans on the other side, with 52% saying premarital sex was morally okay. Today, according to a May 10-14 Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults say it is wrong for a man and a woman to have sexual relations before marriage, while 60% disagree.
Gallup
34% of people in 1983 said that homosexuality should be an acceptable moral lifestyle as well…
Again, Gallup…
1/3 people saying it is acceptable probably indicates a far greater amount of people thinking it is somehow cool - like how being in a biker gang is cool, or like how being a drugged out disco burnout or hippie was also cool.
… But its impact never left. 1/3 of people found homosexuality a morally acceptable lifestyle in 1983. Do you think it was anywhere close to that prior to the hippie revolution?
Kids in suburban America were smoking pot in the 1970s.
My sources show 56% of people having smoked pot by 1977.
Widespread is relative. Compared to before, it was very much widespread. But overall, it was still not popular or mainstream at all.
Sure, but this was during a time where even within the left or left leaning spaces, homosexuality was seen as a controversial and often negative thing. Even if somebody was sympathetic to some aspects of the “hippie movement”, that doesn’t automatically mean that they were accepting of homosexuality.
Yes, experimentation with recreational drugs definitely exploded, but I don’t think that just because people tried pot doesn’t mean they were all ultra-leftist pro-LGBT activists.
Yeah it was the norm that pre-marital sex was taboo, that doesn’t suprise me at all. But as is often the case, many people still engaged in pre-martial sex, they just did it in secret. And the same was sort of true for the LGBT community because homosexuals and transsexuals have existed before the 1960s, they just existed on the edge of society.
But those people were not seen as “cool” by most people. Yes, there was a certain fascination with both the hippies and biker gangs as they were seen as outlaw rebels in a sense, which has some coolness factor, especially in America where the “rooting for the underdog” narrative is baked into the culture. Homosexuals were not seen as cool just as trans-people or non-binary people today are not really seen as cool in the same sense because they don’t really fit the rebel image.
Bikers and hippies were opposed by conservatives because they believed them to be revolutionaries who are threatening the system and causing instability and lack of order. Homosexuals and the LGBT community are/were opposed by conservatives because they are seen as degenerate, perverted, unnatural and weak.
OK I think we have just had some different experiences with this… And that is completely fine and valid. I do not dispute yours.
I knew a girl who struggled with a lot of gender issues that I did not understand because I was actually raised in a relatively liberal, upper middle class home. Of course, my father is a devout conservative, but so many people in my extended family have all manner of conflicting ideas, and discussion of these things was never barred…
So when she talked to me about how her family frowned on her for even being interested in sports or dressing "boyish"ly , I was shocked.
So, who knows.
The United States is a very big place.
I remember, as a conservative, even getting culture shock at the levels of conservatism among Texans (lol). So, I will say that… I just don’t know.
I think I am right for one segment of the society, and you are right for another. Which is another reason to prefer decentralization, IMO: let each area address its own issues, and to have a standard be one of largely tolerance.
Yeah, there are always many many variables and of course there are always exceptions and nuances, but speaking overall, there is a huge difference in how homosexuality is viewed and treated by society overall if you compare the 80s/90s and the 2020s. I don’t see how anyone alive during this time can deny that, even when you just look at popular media, you will notice that “gay” or “homo” was a mainstream insult that was universally accepted until quite recently.
Completely agreed. And maybe we should focus on the stuff we agree and the really core important stuff instead of having arguments that are never concluded.
The problem in my view is that most politicians use wedge issues to divide people. For example, they used to scapegoat gay men by claiming they are all pedos who want to rape and groom children and tried to pass/keep anti-gay laws. This basically forces the left to defend against this kind of legislation.