Introduction
The United States of America is an amazing country with its culture and rich historical heritage. It is unbelievable how many different people and nations live together and come along so well. Our country is also called a ‘melting pot’ for its racial diversity and cultural variety. It is interesting how the range of social interests and the variety of moral principles have been changing through time. The period under consideration is the 1950’s of the twentieth century and 2010 which is nowadays. Of course, it is hard to talk about any major differences that take place now in the social life of Americans due to the huge range of changing social issues. It is unquestionable that people of the post-war period had other views on life, love, relations, politics, and other less important things like fashion. Comparing the two Time Magazine articles dated January 1950 and January 2010, having two different topics I will depict some aspects of American culture and how they changed through time.
Paper’s Focus
The first side of the issue about time gaps is that any changes that take place on this planet do not simply slip by. Any aspect of our life, majorly transforming cannot be left unnoticed. The two articles under consideration are The Half-Century: The View from 1950 and Remembrance of Things Future by Nancy Gibbs. The two articles simply reflect people’s concerns and delights at two different age periods. It is important to mention that the historical frames we are talking about play a hugely important role in the two articles’ contents. Needless to say that the American nation of the post-war period varies from the contemporary people within the views on everything starting with ‘what is happiness’ and up to the notions of technical progress.
The Half-Century: The View from 1950
The latter is vividly depicted in the article called The Half-Century: The View from 1950. We can explicitly see how the author appraises the improvements that had been made since 1900. The main idea of the article is that people now get an advantage of the fifty years’ advancing movement in every sphere of our life, including interior design. This piece of writing represents the ideas that the author brought to the readers of those times, to be more exact, the ideas that concerned the nation those days. Namely, the content of the article posted on January 2nd, 1950 revealed the progress that country underwent which should have definitely upraised the self-confidence and patriotic feelings of Americans. The story talks about Americans being so delighted about the plastic snowflakes that had been invented in order to make Christmas time happier not only due to the falling snow since it is hard to keep real snow in New York.
In order to continue my observations of the patriotic leitmotif of the article about America’s 1950s, it is important to draw your attention to the predictions made in the writing about economical progress that has to evolve by the 1980s. It was said that the population of the United States would increase up to 175 million people, besides the working quality rate would rise to 2% every year as it already did by 1950. Hence, the economical productivity would rise each year and by the year 1980, the US would experience double as much profit of overall economic trades. This talks for the nation being absolutely confident in its stable grounds within the world’s economy. Moreover, it only explains the cultural feature of our nation, namely why people were and still remain so proud of being Americans.
Also, the article touches upon political events that shook America those days, such as the Cold War with the USSR and the ways to share democracy all over the world. Of course, the Soviet Union presented the most dangerous opposition to the US, and the Americans felt it because the two mighty states were at the historical arena proving each other’s power and forms of government. So, somehow it seems to me that it was a starting point of Americans being so overwhelmed about their democracy because there appeared another powerful state of different political beliefs that needed help and encouragement to escape communist power and experience freedom and democracy.
Remembrance of Things Future
The other article Remembrance of Things Future by Nancy Gibbs also talks about some predictions made, except those are about the XXI century. It is hard to believe, but only fifty years later the concerns of people living in the same country have changed immensely. Of course, it depends on the political events; however, mostly the worries of people depend on their culture. American nation of 2010 is not a society after WWII, though it still undergoes the crisis problems and the tempting variety of goods and entertainment.
The article explicitly shows how the predictions made in 1999 about the after-millennium time described the most important things that would change Americans’ leisure. It is said that the ‘cures for the common cold and baldness’ (Gibbs, 2010) will be found and that ‘…Teeth would become a fashion accessory, like fake nails, and the only thing we wouldn’t be doing online is brushing them.’ (Gibbs, 2010)
One can hardly deny that the youth of 2010 and that of the 1950s differ immensely. One of the characteristic features is the Internet being introduced into our lives and it’s getting the foremost role in almost all spheres of life. It is ridiculous now how we were awaiting the apocalypses and it never happened.
Though the tone of the article is somewhat mocking ‘…and there’s our once-a-decade constitutional ritual: the U.S. Census, in which we attempt to become more certain about ourselves’ (Gribbs, 2010) there still is a very good idea about Americans being a united nation of stable cultural values and about people who are used to adopt this life’s challenges in no matter what.
Conclusion
So, in order to conclude, I would like to express my utmost admiration for our nation that is ready to adopt any historical changes and adjust those to our cultural bases. It is wonderful there is the historical heritage we have. Having learned about cultural aspects of Americans in the mid of the twentieth century, I would like to admit that the patriotic feelings towards our country were very efficiently aroused within the political events taking place in foreign policy. People were taught to love their country as much as they do now no matter what policies and beliefs there are out there in the world. Moreover, disregarding the expansion of online invasion into our lives, we still are the people who we used to be fifty years ago – able to admire and be delighted at simple things like real snow and pretty fake snowflakes.
Works Cited
Gibbs, Nancy. Remembrance of Things Future. Time Magazine. Web.