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You might ask yourself whether the 1950s was a more ''conservative'' time than today.  Some, your teacher include, think that the nation is perpetually becoming more conservative as liberal ideas are perpetually demonstrated to be failures.  Like a young athlete or musician is perpetually improving from practice and growth, the nation might be constantly becoming more conservative.  Yet a glance at television shows from the 1950s suggest it was a more conservative time.  Was it really?  Consider all the issues, such as the tax rates (they were much higher in the 1950s), restrictions on freedoms (interest rates were fixed by the government then rather than by the free market today), the draft (it was required of young men then, but enlistment is voluntary today), unions are less of a problem today, communism (there were far more American communists in the 1950s), Second Amendment rights are more secure in most places today, the threat of all-out nuclear war is less now, and homeschooling is legal today, but was illegal in the 1950s.  Some of the post-World War II legislation, such as the Full Employment Act of 1946, which tried to guarantee employment for every citizen, seems like silly socialism today.  (Note, however, that the Council of Economic Advisers established by that law still exists to advise the president about the economy today.)

You might ask yourself whether the 1950s was a more ''conservative'' time than today.  Some, your teacher include, think that the nation is perpetually becoming more conservative as liberal ideas are perpetually demonstrated to be failures.  Like a young athlete or musician is perpetually improving from practice and growth, the nation might be constantly becoming more conservative.  Yet a glance at television shows from the 1950s suggest it was a more conservative time.  Was it really?  Consider all the issues, such as the tax rates (they were much higher in the 1950s), restrictions on freedoms (interest rates were fixed by the government then rather than by the free market today), the draft (it was required of young men then, but enlistment is voluntary today), unions are less of a problem today, communism (there were far more American communists in the 1950s), Second Amendment rights are more secure in most places today, the threat of all-out nuclear war is less now, and homeschooling is legal today, but was illegal in the 1950s.  Some of the post-World War II legislation, such as the Full Employment Act of 1946, which tried to guarantee employment for every citizen, seems like silly socialism today.  (Note, however, that the Council of Economic Advisers established by that law still exists to advise the president about the economy today.)

'''Debate:  Was the 1950s more conservative than today?'''

'''Debate:  Were the 1950s more conservative than today?'''

By the mid-1950s an undercurrent of rebellion in culture began which is not shown on television shows.  One evening in 1955 in a book shop in San Francisco, a man named Allen Ginsberg (who grew up in Newark, NJ) stood up to read a long poem called the "Howl".  It was an attack on the conformity, materialism and hypocrisy of the 1950s.  This was the beginning of the "Beat Generation," captured best in Jack Kerouac's book "On the Road."  The Beat Generation advocated freedom, drugs, and being different simply for the sake of being different.  The name comes from "beat-up" lives of its leaders, which were often ugly.  Both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, for example, suffered and died from illnesses associated with alcohol abuse.

By the mid-1950s an undercurrent of rebellion in culture began which is not shown on television shows.  One evening in 1955 in a book shop in San Francisco, a man named Allen Ginsberg (who grew up in Newark, NJ) stood up to read a long poem called the "Howl".  It was an attack on the conformity, materialism and hypocrisy of the 1950s.  This was the beginning of the "Beat Generation," captured best in Jack Kerouac's book "On the Road."  The Beat Generation advocated freedom, drugs, and being different simply for the sake of being different.  The name comes from "beat-up" lives of its leaders, which were often ugly.  Both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, for example, suffered and died from illnesses associated with alcohol abuse.