I never thought I would have to say this at this blog. What I mean by this is somewhat narrow in scope. People were much more likely to riot in the 1950s than now with violence. Because violence (not guns) was more a part of the culture ongoing since the Revolutionary war and Civil War ongoing. So, violence was a part of how things were settled often whether you were little (in school) or big (as an adult). Violence, (not guns) but fisticuffs was everywhere.
But, because of this people were also more open to diverse points of views (up to a point). For example, it was more likely to "tolerate" Nazis in our world than now on one level but high school kids might throw rocks through their headquarters at night (I watched this happen in real time in Glendale by the way in the early 1960s when I was in high school). But, Extreme socialists or communists as well as extreme rightest professors were often tolerated on college campuses. Also, professors that molested girl students on college campuses were often tolerated by the women because this was a way girls got A's on tests by blackmailing professors. This was a common practice for getting a college degree when sexism favoring men was at it's worst then in the 1950s and before. It was a part of the way women broke through the "Glass Ceiling" by sleeping with professors to get ahead. For many women then it was the only way to break through the culture barriers to women then.
Women who are idealistic now have no idea what women actually endured to have the rights young women have today. It would be beyond their belief systems to encompass just how bad it was for women even in the U.S. in the 1950s.
For example, I had to submit to being "Scrubbed" when I graduated 6th grade. What this meant was a a boy or a girl you had to submit to having lipstick put all over your arms and face and sometimes chest or in the case of the 6th grade girl lying next to me on the ground while 7th and 8th graders from the nearby junior high put lipstick all over us. I felt bad for the girl lying next to me because she was really pretty but to fight the people I would have had broken arms or face to stop them doing anything to us both then in 1960. So, this girl (who was one of the prettiest in the school and graduating 6th grade like me had lipstick put onto her legs up to her panties under her dress and she was crying because to her it was a lot like being raped. For me, as a boy I was used to enduring almost anything like a soldier then because we were even trained as children to fight and die in the Cold War. So, suffering then was just a part of our training because we all expected to die one way or the other in a nuclear holocaust or as soldiers in warfare with Russia or China. This was "Normal" for the 1950s and 1960s then.
But, often I think people (both boys and girls today) have no idea at all what we all endured during the 1950s and 1960s as young people during the Cold War and during the Viet Nam War.
People are just so spoiled now compared to what we had to endure on a daily basis. We lost friends it seemed almost daily from suicide of one kind or another or dying in Viet Nam or drugs from about 1965 to 1975 when Nixon Resigned in 1974. We lost so many young people to the insanity of the times then.
I don't think people realize in some ways just how similar the times are now to then. The main difference is that then people rioting were leftists who didn't want their friends dying in Viet Nam for no reason they could fathom then.
Now, the difference is people are dying en masse worldwide from bad governmental policies in the U.S. and other nations worldwide. So, what we are witnessing now is a mass die-off of epic proportions without a war going on out side of Afghanistan. So, we live in very strange times in this sense.
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