I believe it was Cory Doctorow (though I could be wrong) was that Boomer nostalgia for the 1950's is also nostalgia for when they were children and their parents shielded them from much of the bad things in life and the world. I believe nostalgia for that stage is life is common and often not accounted for in our modern politics.
For sure, and he's not wrong. His take articulates the orthodox wisdom of our generation (Gen X). It is, like the myth of the 50s, both true and untrue. In the "untrue" department, it implies that 1) that's the only thing at play, and 2) it is therefore frivolous and worthy of dismissal.
Take a step back, though, and one notices that the 50s were considered a golden age by Builders, Silents, and Boomers. Only the Boomers had their childhood then. This indicates something else going on in the cultural substrate. If you look at what they all remember fondly, they are ALL markers of a high trust culture.
First, you say the US lacked experience of total war prior to and since WW2 although the Civil War came close. While I don't disagree, I'm surprised you didn't point out WW1 as a short dress rehearsal for WW2 on everything from women in industry (used as an argument for the 19th Amendment's ratification) to a functioning peacetime draft to nationalization of industry. Even the Liberty Ship got a preview with the Hog Islander.
I think the trust that came from WW2 built on that preview, which was also a part of the progressive experiment and provided leadership who'd kind of done it as middle managers.
The second thing is I think you've hit on the best explanation of not just MAGA but what, for lack of an artful term, I'll call the "not really religious cultural conservatives."
These are people who didn't care that much about gay marriage but are riled up when school boards hide gender transition at school from parents. Too many self-proclaimed enlightened people's first response is to say "they're bigots". None of those critics stop to ask "why do we assume parents will be abusive instead of trusting them" (their stated justification for the hiding) yet they are surprised when said parents don't trust the schools.
I picked the schools and trans because that seems to a huge point for the very reason you cite: proximity. Three letter agency spying is remote but school boards people who Jerry Pournelle pointed out you can reach with a buggy whip.
And most people would rather not have to reach for a buggy whip.
On WW1, it was huge and marked several important transitions, as you point out, but it was nothing like total war. Total wars are pretty unusual in history, including in modern history.
On the school board thing, the essential tension is between those who tacitly assume (or actively believe) that humanity is fundamentally broken and must be domesticated by the State, and those who believe that centralized power concentrations are inherently threatening to humanity as such (which, if you think about it, are basically optimistic and belligerent takes on the same exact idea). In my reading of history, I find that the most effective and enduring and benign power structures are those which devolve power to the lowest possible level and co-locate it with responsibility (in the sense both of accountability for results and the power to act decisively without interference from higher levels). The Catholic Church in the medieval era was pretty good at this kind of organization, as was Rome. Our current problems--ideologies aside--is that technology allows for concentrations of power in ways that divorce it from responsibility, which creates a honey-pot situation for those who are attracted to power for bad reasons (i.e. fueled by resentment and revenge).
I believe it was Cory Doctorow (though I could be wrong) was that Boomer nostalgia for the 1950's is also nostalgia for when they were children and their parents shielded them from much of the bad things in life and the world. I believe nostalgia for that stage is life is common and often not accounted for in our modern politics.
For sure, and he's not wrong. His take articulates the orthodox wisdom of our generation (Gen X). It is, like the myth of the 50s, both true and untrue. In the "untrue" department, it implies that 1) that's the only thing at play, and 2) it is therefore frivolous and worthy of dismissal.
Take a step back, though, and one notices that the 50s were considered a golden age by Builders, Silents, and Boomers. Only the Boomers had their childhood then. This indicates something else going on in the cultural substrate. If you look at what they all remember fondly, they are ALL markers of a high trust culture.
So, two things.
First, you say the US lacked experience of total war prior to and since WW2 although the Civil War came close. While I don't disagree, I'm surprised you didn't point out WW1 as a short dress rehearsal for WW2 on everything from women in industry (used as an argument for the 19th Amendment's ratification) to a functioning peacetime draft to nationalization of industry. Even the Liberty Ship got a preview with the Hog Islander.
I think the trust that came from WW2 built on that preview, which was also a part of the progressive experiment and provided leadership who'd kind of done it as middle managers.
The second thing is I think you've hit on the best explanation of not just MAGA but what, for lack of an artful term, I'll call the "not really religious cultural conservatives."
These are people who didn't care that much about gay marriage but are riled up when school boards hide gender transition at school from parents. Too many self-proclaimed enlightened people's first response is to say "they're bigots". None of those critics stop to ask "why do we assume parents will be abusive instead of trusting them" (their stated justification for the hiding) yet they are surprised when said parents don't trust the schools.
I picked the schools and trans because that seems to a huge point for the very reason you cite: proximity. Three letter agency spying is remote but school boards people who Jerry Pournelle pointed out you can reach with a buggy whip.
And most people would rather not have to reach for a buggy whip.
On WW1, it was huge and marked several important transitions, as you point out, but it was nothing like total war. Total wars are pretty unusual in history, including in modern history.
On the school board thing, the essential tension is between those who tacitly assume (or actively believe) that humanity is fundamentally broken and must be domesticated by the State, and those who believe that centralized power concentrations are inherently threatening to humanity as such (which, if you think about it, are basically optimistic and belligerent takes on the same exact idea). In my reading of history, I find that the most effective and enduring and benign power structures are those which devolve power to the lowest possible level and co-locate it with responsibility (in the sense both of accountability for results and the power to act decisively without interference from higher levels). The Catholic Church in the medieval era was pretty good at this kind of organization, as was Rome. Our current problems--ideologies aside--is that technology allows for concentrations of power in ways that divorce it from responsibility, which creates a honey-pot situation for those who are attracted to power for bad reasons (i.e. fueled by resentment and revenge).