What sparked your fascination with the "Golden Era"?

[Retro Spectator]

I have always been a history nerd. When I was 5/6 years old, I was a big time WWI airplane nerd. My Grandpa got me a WWII game, and then I became a WWII nerd.

I never ever feel drawn to modern culture. In fact, modern culture repulses me. The music, the morals, the clothes, the cars, the designs, everything. Modern society is, in my opinion, polluted with sin.

Thus, as I am repulsed by the modern world, I am drawn to the old world, a world which is not so heavily contaminated by sinful ways. But this is not all. Old time things had a quality, a quality which is not seen in the modern world. The modern philosophy of minimalism is a bane to quality and nice design. Old designs were all beautiful, and old music all sound wonderful, whilst Modern design looks awful, and barren, and Modern music sounds abominable, and bleak. Vintage clothes are properly designed, with correct proportions to look right, and are nice and modest. While Modern clothes are ugly, with wrong proportions, and are smutty. The Modern world is a foul world, full of sin, and awfully designed things. Clearly mankind fell down with the pants rise.

I personally love vintage things, since they are all beautiful, and quaint. People used to love God, and their neighbor, and it showed in their work. The clothes were comfortable, modest, and pleasing to see. The cars did not look aggressive, but rather, happy, and jovial. The cars were not built so they could go far over the speed limit, but rather, so they could get the passengers to their destination. Buildings were not minimalistic, but rather, beautifully detailed, even in the smallest of places. Music was pleasing to hear, joyful sounding, and did not glorify sinful behavior. Houses were wonderfully charming, with beautiful details, and plenty of color. Aluminum awnings and wallpaper were only some of the many details that brought quaint elegance to the houses. People wore hats, not just for a few decades, or centuries, but for thousands of years. The hats changed, but nevertheless, they stayed on the heads of fellow people. Movies were moral, and featured the Hay's Code, which was an underrated blessing to the film industry, as it kept films with as least sinful content as possible. People went to church, and loved the LORD, who created them all. People respected God far more than their modern kin.

However, it would be naive to say that all was wonderful back then, since racism, and other problems were more prevalent then today. However, if you take racism, and other things out of the picture, then it becomes an era, with moral, sane people.

In short, I assume you can say that I am merely drawn towards the Golden Era. It is like a magnet to me, it is part of who I am, part of my personality.

This is why I love the Golden Era.

 

[Fastuni]

People went to church, and loved the LORD, who created them all.

And billions of people didn't.^^

Don't let your religious views and rose tinted glasses obfuscate the view on the era.

You'd be shocked how "smutty, immoral and godless" the era really was. Just at any age.
How you define that - and whether it's a good or bad thing - is up to you.

Contemporary culture has become extremely vulgar - that is true. Also it is true that the all-pervasive stylishness of the past is gone.

I reject rose tinted glasses and cherry-picking aspects of the era - the good, the bad and the ugly aspects are all fascinating.

(P.S. Minimalistic design is part and parcel of the era. Not everything was decorative and "quaint". Fortunately.)

 

[hatguy1]

Don't let your religious views and rose tinted glasses obfuscate the view on the era.

Dont let watered-down revisionist history & politically-correct secularism obfuscate yours either. America at least was quite the faith-based nation in the Golden Era. Europe was as well.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I have always been a history nerd. When I was 5/6 years old, I was a big time WWI airplane nerd. My Grandpa got me a WWII game, and then I became a WWII nerd.

I never ever feel drawn to modern culture. In fact, modern culture repulses me. The music, the morals, the clothes, the cars, the designs, everything. Modern society is, in my opinion, polluted with sin.

Thus, as I am repulsed by the modern world, I am drawn to the old world, a world which is not so heavily contaminated by sinful ways. But this is not all. Old time things had a quality, a quality which is not seen in the modern world. The modern philosophy of minimalism is a bane to quality and nice design. Old designs were all beautiful, and old music all sound wonderful, whilst Modern design looks awful, and barren, and Modern music sounds abominable, and bleak. Vintage clothes are properly designed, with correct proportions to look right, and are nice and modest. While Modern clothes are ugly, with wrong proportions, and are smutty. The Modern world is a foul world, full of sin, and awfully designed things. Clearly mankind fell down with the pants rise.

I personally love vintage things, since they are all beautiful, and quaint. People used to love God, and their neighbor, and it showed in their work. The clothes were comfortable, modest, and pleasing to see. The cars did not look aggressive, but rather, happy, and jovial. The cars were not built so they could go far over the speed limit, but rather, so they could get the passengers to their destination. Buildings were not minimalistic, but rather, beautifully detailed, even in the smallest of places. Music was pleasing to hear, joyful sounding, and did not glorify sinful behavior. Houses were wonderfully charming, with beautiful details, and plenty of color. Aluminum awnings and wallpaper were only some of the many details that brought quaint elegance to the houses. People wore hats, not just for a few decades, or centuries, but for thousands of years. The hats changed, but nevertheless, they stayed on the heads of fellow people. Movies were moral, and featured the Hay's Code, which was an underrated blessing to the film industry, as it kept films with as least sinful content as possible. People went to church, and loved the LORD, who created them all. People respected God far more than their modern kin.

However, it would be naive to say that all was wonderful back then, since racism, and other problems were more prevalent then today. However, if you take racism, and other things out of the picture, then it becomes an era, with moral, sane people.

In short, I assume you can say that I am merely drawn towards the Golden Era. It is like a magnet to me, it is part of who I am, part of my personality.

This is why I love the Golden Era.

Admittedly, I'm not a heavily religious person but your post definitely makes me wish the Lounge had a "like" button. I don't think I could have expressed it any better. :thumb:

 

[Fastuni]

Dont let watered-down revisionist history & politically-correct secularism obfuscate yours either.

Ah, help - buzzwords are flying at me!

Claiming in dreamy terms that the Golden Era was sort of a holy period inhabited mostly by quasi-angels and saints is a particularly crass example of revisionism, naivety and obfuscation. lol

America at least was quite the faith-based nation in the Golden Era. Europe was as well.

Yes... holy Golden era America - the quaint period where violent crime, money grubbing and licentiousness were absent - particularly during the prohibition, depression and war./sarcasm

Golden era Europe... the violent, corrupt place where the dominant ideas of the time - supported by millions of people - where on the totalitarian side variations of fascism (in some places - such as Spain, Slovakia or Croatia - in religious garb and carried by the "saintly" clergy), anti-clerical, racist Nazism or atheist Communism...

On the democratic side the most important forces where secular socialists on the left and capitalist/plutocratic/pro-market (call them as you prefer) conservatives - whose Gods more often than not were Mammon and their "inherited privileges".

WW2 was a lot of things - but certainly not an example of respect, civilty and understanding among mankind and towards culture and life. The "Golden" era brought to the forefront some of the worst traits of mankind in all history - on all sides. The lovely clothes, machines and music nonwithstanding.

And sorry to burst the rose tinted bubble... there also was pornography, swearing, alcoholism, drug addiction and - sorry to shock anyone- countless people also had sex before marriage.

But yes - it was a stylish, dramatic and interesting time. I also would have greatly preferred to live through this era.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

I couldn't have said it all better myself. We are kindred spirits here, all of us. I too have always been repelled by the world in general. The idiotic popular "culture" that poses for wit for so many people. I have always been a creative person and as such I think for myself. It never ceases to amaze me how so many people can be so easily led by sheer stupidity into believing that they are right and justified for just going with the flow of peer pressure. People have been lowered to the lowest common denominator of simply being accepted because they follow every trend.
Back in the day, people actually had to KNOW their chosen field of endeavor, now they simply have to show up for class and get a "D" grade.
It shows most glaringly in the arts. As in my field of visual arts. "Artists" no longer have to be able to accurately draw or paint their subjects, just merely "interpret" something that looks like it was done by a 2 year old with a box of crayons. The real honest to goodness WORK ethic is just completely absent for the most part now!
I really wish I had been born 150 years ago or so and had already lived out my life as a successful artist. Now I have to compete with a host of no-talent wannabees who have been blindly led by the "educational" system into believing that they are really artists somehow. The whole mess truly sickens me, but with their obtrusive and ever present technology it's becoming more apparent that we can not truly escape from it all or isolate ourselves completely from it. I find myself stuck in a time I despise for the most part, but at least I can surround myself with the things from the era, and like-minded people.

I have always been a history nerd. When I was 5/6 years old, I was a big time WWI airplane nerd. My Grandpa got me a WWII game, and then I became a WWII nerd.

I never ever feel drawn to modern culture. In fact, modern culture repulses me. The music, the morals, the clothes, the cars, the designs, everything. Modern society is, in my opinion, polluted with sin.

Thus, as I am repulsed by the modern world, I am drawn to the old world, a world which is not so heavily contaminated by sinful ways. But this is not all. Old time things had a quality, a quality which is not seen in the modern world. The modern philosophy of minimalism is a bane to quality and nice design. Old designs were all beautiful, and old music all sound wonderful, whilst Modern design looks awful, and barren, and Modern music sounds abominable, and bleak. Vintage clothes are properly designed, with correct proportions to look right, and are nice and modest. While Modern clothes are ugly, with wrong proportions, and are smutty. The Modern world is a foul world, full of sin, and awfully designed things. Clearly mankind fell down with the pants rise.

I personally love vintage things, since they are all beautiful, and quaint. People used to love God, and their neighbor, and it showed in their work. The clothes were comfortable, modest, and pleasing to see. The cars did not look aggressive, but rather, happy, and jovial. The cars were not built so they could go far over the speed limit, but rather, so they could get the passengers to their destination. Buildings were not minimalistic, but rather, beautifully detailed, even in the smallest of places. Music was pleasing to hear, joyful sounding, and did not glorify sinful behavior. Houses were wonderfully charming, with beautiful details, and plenty of color. Aluminum awnings and wallpaper were only some of the many details that brought quaint elegance to the houses. People wore hats, not just for a few decades, or centuries, but for thousands of years. The hats changed, but nevertheless, they stayed on the heads of fellow people. Movies were moral, and featured the Hay's Code, which was an underrated blessing to the film industry, as it kept films with as least sinful content as possible. People went to church, and loved the LORD, who created them all. People respected God far more than their modern kin.

However, it would be naive to say that all was wonderful back then, since racism, and other problems were more prevalent then today. However, if you take racism, and other things out of the picture, then it becomes an era, with moral, sane people.

In short, I assume you can say that I am merely drawn towards the Golden Era. It is like a magnet to me, it is part of who I am, part of my personality.

This is why I love the Golden Era.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Religion in the Era was a highly controversial topic, just as it is today. Church *membership*, that is, people professing to belong to some particular denomination, was much higher than it is today, but regular every-Sunday church *attendance* depended a lot on where you lived. The Northeast in general was much more secular than the South, just as it is today. The mainline churches were far stronger than they are today, and were much more influential in public life than the fundamentalist-oriented groups, except, again, in the South. The views of the mainline were best represented in the gentle ecumenical liberalism of Harry Emerson Fosdick or W. Parkes Cadman, with old-time fire and brimstone confined primarily to Southern-oriented denominations. Charles E. Fuller's "Old Fashioned Revival Hour" on the radio was as close as most Americans got to the sort of evangelical fundamentalism that's common today, and that was presented as, very consciously, a contrast to the religious modernism that dominated the Era. There was little emphasis on Scofieldian dispensationalism or premillenarianism except in small, controversial sects. Dominionism didn't yet exist as a significant movement, and wouldn't until the 1970s. As for religion in Europe, Faustini has it about right, and there were Americans in the 1930s who would have loved to see us go down that same route. Father Coughlin, for example, praised the despotic Fascist Franco as a "fine Christian gentleman." Nuff sed.

As far as social unrest is concerned, the thirties were the sixties with better music. The entire decade was a bloody battleground between labor and capital, and working people all over the US stood up with clenched fists to fight for their rights. There is little in the unrest of the sixties that can equal the violence of the shoe and textile strikes of 1934, or the auto and steel strikes of 1936-37. This wasn't the age of "passive resistance," this was an era where foreclosure judges were dragged thru the streets at the end of a rope, and where rocks, bricks, and blackjacks were brought to bear by men and women alike in the cause of workers' rights. They weren't out to "Occupy." They were out to *overthrow.* Odets and Steinbeck were the literary vanguard of this movement, and they were far more characteristic of the period than the stylized escapism of Hammett or Chandler.

The emphasis on "style" varied depending on where you lived and your social class. There were many millions of men who wore overalls or other work clothes every day of their lives and didn't own a single suit or fine fedora. There were many millions of women who never wore anything more sophisticated than a home-made housedress. Decor in most working-class homes -- which made up the majority of American homes -- tended to be a melange of inexpensive and second-hand furniture, with an emphasis on dark woods and heavy fabrics like velvet or mohair. Ordinary people looked at the movies and marveled at the polished floors, chrome accents, and white telephones for the simple reason that they'd never seen anything like that in real life.

And that's what I like most about the lingering aspects of the Era that I knew firsthand growing up. My grandparents were simple, unpretentious 1930's-style working-class people, and that's the environment I was raised in. I don't romanticize any of it -- it's simply familiar and comfortable to me in a way that the 21st Century way of life is not.

That said, I'm right on board with Bro. Jones' views on the deterioration of art, even though it all goes back to Duchamp and his urinal nearly a hundred years ago. Wrapping a building in plastic a la Christo isn't a bold artistic statement, it's the work of an attention-seeking Boy From Marketing. The only modern artist I respect is Mr. Brainwash, because at least he's honest about being a complete fraud.

 

[hatguy1]

Oh, brother; do you rant and rave and spew the religious hatred much?

Ah, help - buzzwords are flying at me!

If you say so. How about quoting some credible websites where accurate and dependable facts and figures that prove me wrong can be found, then?

Claiming in dreamy terms that the Golden Era was sort of a holy period inhabited mostly by quasi-angels and saints.... holy Golden era America - the quaint period where violent crime, money grubbing and licentiousness were absent - particularly during the prohibition, depression and war./sarcasm.....

Nobody made any such claims. You're the one that seems to be advocating such nonsense in attempt to defend your outlandish accusations about the era and people who enjoy the nostalgia of it. As for sarcasm, you seem pretty willing to invoke it to distract from how hysterical your claims are.

Golden era Europe... the violent, corrupt place where the dominant ideas of the time - supported by millions of people - where on the totalitarian side variations of fascism... anti-clerical, racist Nazism or atheist Communism...

You said it. WE didn't.

...(in some places - such as Spain, Slovakia or Croatia - in religious garb and carried by the "saintly" clergy)....

On the democratic side the most important forces where secular socialists on the left and capitalist/plutocratic/pro-market (call them as you prefer) conservatives - whose Gods more often than not were Mammon and their "inherited privileges".

Speaking of a buzzword campaign....

WW2 was a lot of things - but certainly not an example of respect, civilty and understanding among mankind and towards culture and life. The "Golden" era brought to the forefront some of the worst traits of mankind in all history - on all sides. The lovely clothes, machines and music nonwithstanding.

Man, I've never heard such embitteredness and skewed thinking this side of Joseph Goebbels or perhaps Nikita Kruschev. Nobody on here said WW2 was any of the things that you allege to discredit.

And sorry to burst the rose tinted bubble... there also was pornography, swearing, alcoholism, drug addiction and - sorry to shock anyone- countless people also had sex before marriage.

So? Welcome to the human race if you're just now discovering that. In the Victorian Era much of the same thing could be said. So what? Nobody here had said none of those things existed or in any percentages. What was stated - in general terms that you took issue with - was that most of the people in the Golden Era identified with some kind of faith body and practiced it.

But, I tell you what; since your rants are quite a bit off-topic, offensive to some and certainly revealingly embarrassing to you, why don't we just get this string back onto topic of what attracted folks to the Golden Era?

 

[Fastuni]

No bitterness or hatred on this side - just amusement paired with bewilderment at so much delusion.

I will ignore the lowbrow adhominem slurs for your sake.

The only things embarrassing here are the rose-tinted selective nostalgia (obsessing about "sinful pollution") and your evasive, non sequitur rant that lacks any substance and coherence.

How about quoting some credible websites where accurate and dependable facts and figures that prove me wrong can be found, then?

You need "credible websites"? :suspicious:
Start reading some history books. What I stated is most basic knowledge about the era.

Nobody made any such claims.

Did you even read the post of Retro Spectator? :eusa_doh:

Nobody on here said WW2 was any of the things that you allege to discredit.

Retro Spectator claimed to be a "WW2 nerd", yet ignores the war completely in his fairy-world painting of the era.
Reminding him of the immensely important aspects of the era that entirely contradict this idealized image was very apropos.

Of course there is the easy way, as Retro Spectator shows:

However, if you take racism, and other things out of the picture, then it becomes an era, with moral, sane people.

Yes, just ignore the bad things and only good things remain! lol

 

[Fading Fast]

As a amateur history buff, I'm pretty comfortable that almost all periods of history had their moral and immoral behavior and some hypocrisy around religious beliefs. In weaker moments, I romanticize the Golden Era, but in honest ones, I know that all of man's failings where present.

What I do like about the Golden Era was there was a surface (and, possibly, honest) attempt at a higher standard of morality and culture. People dressed nicer, addressed each other by their surnames until they were more familiar, listen to classical music, went to church or read poetry not because it was alway fun, but to improve their minds and morality. I like that they demanded a better morality of their public officials.

Was this hypocrisy? If you go to church on Sunday and cheat on your wife on Tuesday is it all a joke? FDR and Eisenhower had affairs, underhanded deals were made by public officials, etc. then as now, so by creating a standard that wasn't followed, were we being dishonest to ourselves?

I am not going to argue that I have the only answer to the above, because I think about it and debate it with myself a lot. I am not a fan of hypocrisy; if you don't like classical music, then don't listen to it. But what if you listen to it, even if you don't initially like it, because you think it will help you develop an understanding of a music that you believe is worthy of the effort. What if you know you aren't going to be a perfect Christian, but go to church each weak to help you battle against your moral failings?

I see our Golden Era efforts at maintaining public standards as an attempt at improvement, an attempt to become a better society by striving for higher standards. While most at the time knew what we did in public was not what always happened in private, is that hypocrisy or an honest attempt at improvement?

My parents taught us not to lie, by not lying themselves. Did they ever lie - yes (not sure my Mom ever did, but my Dad did on rare occasion), but it was clear to me that they sincerely believed in the standard, but fell short themselves. Were they hypocrites - maybe by definition, but in my mind, they were honest humans who saw a high standard as the proper way to live ones life and raise ones child even if one fell short of it.

To be sure, if no one really believes in the standards, then the society becomes a cynical and hypocritical one, but if society believes in the higher standards and strives but falls short, then I see a good society trying to maintain standards and improve itself. That is part of why the Golden Era appeals to me versus what we have today.

Today we pay lip service to moral standards, but really our society rewards and embraces the spectacle - the recent Super Bowl ball deflating event was a perfect example. The event - the coverage of it, the hat Brady wore to the press conference - became more important than the question of the integrity or honesty of those involved. Sure, it was portrayed as a morality issue, but it was covered like everything else today - as an event to be played for all it can by the media and social media and then forgotten.

It's a balance between striving for standards and become hypocritical - I think we maybe struck a better balance most of the time in the Golden Era, but I debate this issue in my head all the time. When I see it in action in movies or remember my parents, I think the Golden Era struck a better balance, but I know there was a lot of hypocrisy and pain from that as well.

 

[Fastuni]

Good post Fading Fast.

Yes, there was a common ethos and collective attempts to "improve". I think the spirit of improving and developing towards a "better and more prosperous future" was the most universal of these aspirations. Though it took shape in various and sometimes very divergent ways. Some good ways towards improving human society, but also some very errant ways... i.e. the eugenic movement, Nazis and Bolsheviks - who all also thought (or cynically claimed) they were "improving mankind" towards the "natural/historical destiny".

Human civilization consists of sublimating nature (instincts, emotions and drives - all positive or negative) into culture.
Culture always was and is a sort of facade. If built well it can keep the negative sides of human nature in check.
The Golden era has done that well in many areas, but all too often the facade of cultured civilization came down in the grossest way.

Todays culture is more primitively sensate and has largely ceased to sublimate.
The very lowest common denominator and the reasons for this devolution of culture has been mentioned before in numerous discussions.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I am not going to argue that I have the only answer to the above, because I think about it and debate it with myself a lot. I am not a fan of hypocrisy; if you don't like classical music, then don't listen to it. But what if you listen to it, even if you don't initially like it, because you think it will help you develop an understanding of a music that you believe is worthy of the effort. What if you know you aren't going to be a perfect Christian, but go to church each weak to help you battle against your moral failings?

That shouldn't even be Era specific. The whole point of Christianity is not to encourage the Christian to point out and attack the moral failings of others but to cause the Christian to be acutely aware at all times of their *own* failings and imperfections before God -- and that your standing before God is due only to the sacrifice of Christ, not any particular righteousness on your own part. That's the whole point of "let him who is without sin cast the first stone," and a point which is too often ignored. The fact that you wear your pants pulled up or say "yes sir" or "no sir" means nothing if you think your own moral worth makes you in any way righteous.

But that said, there was, indeed, a real sense in the Era that it was important to leave the world a better place than you found it, an attitude that goes all the way back to the reform movements of the Progressive Era. The workers who bled in the streets in the 1930s didn't do so just to feather their own nests, but to ensure that other workers yet to be born would receive their fair share of the wealth they produced. There was a general sense thruout the New Deal era that conditions *could* be improved for the better, and that individuals acting thru collective strength could accomplish those changes -- as opposed to the nihilistic and viciously cynical "everybody's in it for themselves, I've got mine, hooray for me and the hell with you" attitude that's dominated the national discourse since the '80s.

 

[Fading Fast]

That shouldn't even be Era specific. The whole point of Christianity is not to encourage the Christian to point out and attack the moral failings of others but to cause the Christian to be acutely aware at all times of their *own* failings and imperfections before God -- and that your standing before God is due only to the sacrifice of Christ, not any particular righteousness on your own part. That's the whole point of "let him who is without sin cast the first stone," and a point which is too often ignored. The fact that you wear your pants pulled up or say "yes sir" or "no sir" means nothing if you think your own moral worth makes you in any way righteous.

But that said, there was, indeed, a real sense in the Era that it was important to leave the world a better place than you found it. The workers who bled in the streets in the 1930s didn't do so just to feather their own nests, but to ensure that other workers yet to be born would receive their fair share of the wealth they produced. There was a general sense thruout the New Deal era that conditions *could* be improved for the better, and that individuals acting thru collective strength could accomplish those changes -- as opposed to the nihilistic "everybody's in it for themselves, I've got mine, hooray for me and the hell with you" attitude that's dominated the national discourse since the '80s.

As a devout agnostic (tee-hee), I always get a raised eyebrow when I express my respect and admiration for Christianity. Yes, I know the bad things that were done in its name in history - what major philosophy, religion, movement, country doesn't have a checkered past, but my personal believe is that the net sum of Christianity has been that is has been a great force for good in the world.

At its best, it has improved many lives and has brought a spirit of caring and respect for ones fellow man that I admire greatly (and I wasn't kidding about being an agnostic). I do see these admirable traits in other religions, but am most familiar with Christianity and see the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of Western Civilization as the greatest force we've seen in history for improving life for the greatest number.

I do not dismiss or minimize the ugly parts of Christian history, but again, I take it as a sum of its good and bad parts. That is a very long way of saying I agree with your first comment as I am equally disgusted to see Christianity used as a cudgel to judge and denounce others - but that is a human failing that some subset of Christians, conservatives, liberals and everyone else with a ardent belief system has. "You are not a good Christian," "You are ruining the world with your gas guzzling car," "your peace nick demonstrations prove you aren't a patriot" - righteousness / denouncing others feels really good to a lot of people and will always be with us no matter the era and no matter the ideology.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Todays culture is more primitively sensate and has largely ceased to sublimate.
The very lowest common denominator and the reasons for this devolution of culture has been mentioned before in numerous discussions.

Indulgence sells. It's all about the dollar, the pound, the euro, the yen, and the Boys From Marketing know this. And before Loungers get too high up on their own horses, let them ask themselves how much they spend on suits and hats and leather jackets. How is a closet full of overpriced "vintage" any less the product of a sensate and materialistic society than that of the trend-hopper with a closet full of overpriced skinny jeans?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And sorry to burst the rose tinted bubble... there also was pornography, swearing, alcoholism, drug addiction and - sorry to shock anyone- countless people also had sex before marriage.

Yes, there was a lot of that back then as now but the most fundamental difference between then and now is how such social pathologies are viewed. Today they are unfortunately seen as "alternative lifestyles" and often encouraged and glorified by our popular culture. :eusa_doh:

 

[Fastuni]

@LizzieMaine

I know my own weaknesses - having closets full of vintage clothing (maybe more than what would suffice for my actual needs) certainly makes me an indulgent materialist in this regard. I can live with that.

Collecting and "reviving" the material culture from the Golden era is for me a source of joy and learning (which I can share with others), that I wouldn't want to miss.

Yet having one or a few "egoistic" indulgences of course doesn't mean one can't be altruistic in other (even more important) respects.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandfather swore more skillfully and more thoroughly than any man I ever knew. It wasn't so much a lifestyle for him as it was an artistic calling. Part of my love for language can be attributed to the awe I felt at the effortless way in which he strung his phrases together when somebody cut him off in traffic or when Sonny Siebert gave up a game-losing home run.

As far as sex-before/outside-of marriage is concerned, Dr. Kinsey did his research beginning in 1938, and uncovered a lot of interesting information that's worth a read -- not just about what people did or did not do, but how they *felt* about it. I think it's probably safe to say that there are a great many of us here who are either direct products, or direct products once or twice removed, of various situations which he described. The Depression and war years were, you should pardon the expression, a particularly fertile period in this respect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fair enough - having closets full of vintage might make me an indulgent materialist.
Collecting and "reviving" the material culture from the Golden era is for me a good purpose.
I wouldn't ever want to miss this source of joy and learning to me (which I can share with others).

Having one or a few indulgences doesn't mean you can't be altruistic in other respects.

I'm not setting myself out as any ideal in that respect. My closet might not have much in it but my bookshelves more than make up the deficit. I'm just pointing out that we need to be, at least, aware of the rafter in our own eyes before we try to remove the splinter in someone else's.

 

[Fastuni]

My closet might not have much in it but my bookshelves more than make up the deficit

That "indulgence" is easily forgiven as you are always ready to share the knowledge to the benefit of all.

 

[Fading Fast]

That "indulgence" is easily forgiven as you are always ready to share the knowledge to the benefit of all.

+1, good catch Fastuni