Why do I hate the 1970s so much?

[Dr Doran]

Wow, this one is still going? damn. I created a monster.

 

[Sefton]

Wow, this one is still going? damn. I created a monster.

A plaid polyester elephant bell wearing monster...

 

[akaBruno]

I was born in '55 and survived it all. And I still wear my hair LONG and wave my freak flag high, just to bug people like jamespowers. Yup, I'm just an old dyed in the wool, Tshirts and jeans kinda guy.

The trick to surviving any era is by ignoring the fashion experts. Face it, for the most part, the experts are just a bunch of gay guys (no offense anyone) dressing up a bunch o' skinny young girls and boys, as if they were their own personal Barbie collection. Then the Mommies of the world see this crap in a magazine and try to dress their families in like fashion. Ugh...

Personally I think the toughest era had to be that of my parents, or what some of you refer to as the "Golden Era." Leaving fashion out of it, I just want to bring up some of the highlights of those times. 1914 and we have WWI. The roaring 20's and Prohibition. The 30's and that wonderfully Great Depression. The 40's brought us the (sequel or remake, you call it) WWII. And the 50's start off with the Korean War. Ah but what a "Golden Era" of style, eh?

No... I'm not bashing your "Golden Era." And believe me, I bashed the 70's fashion while living through it. I do have to admit to owning bellbottoms and a couple o' pair o' platform clogs (I could could run in them).

There's enough to hate in this world today, without going back and bashing past generations.

As in the words of the great Nick Lowe, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"

BRUNO

 

[Senator Jack]

As in the words of the great Elvis Costello, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"

Actually, Nick Lowe. Funny story about that. When I was a kid incessantly listenting those early EC records, I tuned into a radio interview with him. The first question the dj asked was 'How did you come to write "What's so funny...', and I cringed. Sure enough EC comes back with 'Well, you'll have to ask Nick Lowe about that.'

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[akaBruno]

Thanks for pointing that out Senator. I did not know that but, I do remember Nick Lowe, so edited.

 

[Dr Doran]

Bruno, I agree that this thread became vilely negative from time to time. And I think your comment about the fashion industry is funny and pretty accurate (and, I doubt it will offend anyone with a sense of humor OR historical accuracy, regardless of their orientation). But the original point of the thread was to express horror more at aesthetics of the period than the gas lines and such. Everyone here is an amateur social historian of the "golden era" (I use quotation marks because I agree with you, it wasn't so golden if you were there) so they know about the Depression, the two world wars, etc.
But at least the sense of style in the "golden era" was truly beautiful compared to later generations, such as the period of the 70s, which was, with the exception of the two (2) suits Senator Jack showed earlier in the thread, the absolute nadir of 20th century style (and arguably of human style as well).
Personally I think the thread is done and I might unsubscribe to it. I only wrote that as a statement of the original intent ... some 44 pages ago when I started it.

 

[jamespowers]

I was born in '55 and survived it all. And I still wear my hair LONG and wave my freak flag high, just to bug people like jamespowers. Yup, I'm just an old dyed in the wool, Tshirts and jeans kinda guy.

So you found your way to the Fedora Lounge---eh Joe?

Regards,

J

 

[akaBruno]

So you found your way to the Fedora Lounge---eh Joe?

Regards,

J

Whatever, Kadiddlehopper.

 

[nobodyspecial]

A great deal of the gear I use backpacking was made in the 1970's, so the decade wasn't not all bad. Some great companies came and went during that decade. One company is making a comeback (and he makes GREAT backpacks):
http://rivendellmountainworks.com/ I'm the first one on the gallery page of the Rivendell site.

Here's some gear maker's history.

http://www.oregonphotos.com/Backpacking-Revolution1.html

 

[deanglen]

Good thing about the 70's: Strategy & Tactics. Some will know the reference. I hope.

dean

 

[Lincsong]

What I like about the 1970's???????? 44 pages and still thinking. (Well, besides the Lincoln Mark III, IV and V and the 1971-1976 Thunderbird, those are just givens.)

 

[J.S.Udontknowme]

What I like about the 1970's???????? 44 pages and still thinking. (Well, besides the Lincoln Mark III, IV and V and the 1971-1976 Thunderbird, those are just givens.)

If you were my age, you would have fond memories of the women of the seventies.

 

[jamespowers]

If you were my age, you would have fond memories of the women of the seventies.

 

[Diamondback]

Good thing about the 70's: Strategy & Tactics. Some will know the reference. I hope.

Think I saw that one on the shelf at Borders recently... even though I prefer Armchair General myself.

 

[deanglen]

Think I saw that one on the shelf at Borders recently... even though I prefer Armchair General myself.

Me too. No game inside, no real interest; afterall, beside the topics the game made it special.

dean

 

[akaBruno]

Looks like jamespowers would like to put women back in their place... in the kitchen.

 

[Dr Doran]

Looks like jamespowers would like to put women back in their place... in the kitchen.

It is possible to have misgivings about the extremeness of Second Wave feminism of the 1970s, and also to dislike the styles, without wanting women to go back into the kitchen!

I like the suffragette movement fine and I find 1990s/2000s Third Wave feminism quite interesting. However, I remember some very ugly and ill things done in the name of 1970s Second Wave feminism and let me point out that one did not need to do all these things in order to get out of the kitchen. As with almost all movements, there was an overreaction included with the good part. I suspect Powers will agree that there was a good part. Hearing things like "Women can do anything men can do ... but better" when you are a 7 year old boy is bound to rub you the wrong way, to come off as very aggressive and needlessly nasty -- especially if the men in your family were very considerate and polite toward women, without being Second Wave feminists.

I am pleased that Third Wave feminists largely agree that a great deal of the ideas contained in 1970s feminism, although it made certain advances, is in great need of rethinking and modification.

 

[Dr Doran]

I agree women should not be forced into the kitchen (and I cook almost everything in my house). However, if anyone doesn't believe me that Second Wave feminism of the 1970s had some very unadmirable qualities, check out the abominably inaccurate book When God Was A Woman by Merlin Stone. An attempt to posit, with no evidence whatsoever, and special pleading left and right, the idea that there was a prehistoric matriarchy that was disrupted when the big bad Indo-Europeans came wheeling into Europe unleashing destruction on the innocent peaceful Europe-wide"goddess culture" which not a single archaeologist presently believes ever existed. Merlin Stone was not even an archaeologist or scholar of any real sort, and she was using inflated ideas from the presently discredited Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. This evidence-free nonsense about a matriarchy was politically driven. This is unacceptable in scholarship.

Another Second Wave feminist "masterpiece": Sexual Politics by Kate Millett. Somewhat more respectable than Merlin Stone, but utterly filled with the most hackneyed and cliched interpretations of literature imaginable in the Western Canon including a laughable take on Aeschylus' Oresteia. (A good antidote to this is Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia.)

Or take a look at the writings of Germaine Greer. The contempt and animosity toward men is way out of proportion to the actual suffering of these (mostly upper middle class, very comfortable) women; further, many women I know agree with this point and feel rather ashamed of the extremism to which Second Wave feminism went during the 1970s. Even some very bright 1970s women thought it had many horrid elements, such as Joan Didion; her book The White Album has a very interesting analysis of Second Wave feminism and it was written in the 1970s, and she is very very far from some reactionary patriarchalist.

Luckily the 1970s trope of "everything must be analyzed in terms of victims and oppressors" is going away in favor of something more nuanced, more interesting, less black-and-white, less full of blame against Oppression and Oppressors.

 

[J.S.Udontknowme]

Maybe I should have said the women that I knew in the seventies.

 

[Lincsong]

J.S. if you mean; Farrah Fawcett, Cheryl Tiegs, Jacqueline Smith, Barbi Benton and a host of other '70s babes I've got no argument with you.:eusa_clap

But as for Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Linda Ronstadt, Jane Fonda, they are offensive today, yesterday, and millenium in to the future.
:rage: