09. BEAT The Status Quo

2.  Conservative America:

A brief summary of the goals and ideals of the burgeoning post war middle class of America, and the new problems they never anticipated.

As middle class child in the 1960's I was a just a kid totally oblivious of the upheavals going in in post-war America.  But looking back in time it is a fascinating journey to examine the development of our modern way of thinking, we all take for granted today.

In this section I will explore the progression of events that led to the popularization of the Beat poets literature in a society that was diametrically opposed to the radical ideas they espoused. 

In This Blog: 

1. My Experience as a Baby Boomer growing up in Africa.
2. The differences: Well we lived in Africa.
3. We were middle class suburbanites.
4. The real "Inconvenient Truth".

5. The Status Quo.

1. My Experience as a Baby Boomer growing up in Africa.

• Whilst it is true that I grew up in Africa and not the USA, it seems there were some strong connections we shared - and also some contrasts. 

We totally identified with Tom Sawyer 

• The values we lived with were the same, the same language culture and customs. 
• We too were a post colonial society built on traditional values hearkening back to Imperialist Britain. In Zimbabwe we even had TV and all our programs came straight from the US. When I was young it was Star Trek, Dr. Who, we saw the Flintstones and I dream of Genie and a host of others I have forgotten now, but suffice to say it was all imported American TV. 
• We read Tom Sawyer and his life on the edge of a river and bush-land which was very similar to the life we lived as kids. 
• All the current movies we saw from Hollywood as well. We basically looked towards the USA as a little child would look up to an older brother. 

Playing Marbles in a Norman Rockwell utopia - for us kids this was exactly how we grew up. 

2. The differences: Well we lived in Africa.

•  White colonials were firstly, the minority and secondly we were the overlords. So we white south African kids grew up with an air of entitlement which we took completely for granted. It would be accurate to say we formed little enclaves of Britain and the USA like first world islands dotted across the third world African continent. 
• The American dream for middle class white Americans who lived in suburbs and used all the latest gadgets was ours as well. And I distinctly remember feeling a sense of loyalty and pride towards our "big brother" America. 

"The Help" This is the lifestyle we enjoyed in Africa - just like the Yanks did across the sea.

3. We were middle class suburbanites

• So we can say we experienced this middle class dream from the inside, this was how I was brought up. Anything or people outside of the formula was regarded with suspicion and distaste by our Parents, which was transferred onto their children. We were conservative middle class whites who lived in suburbs, we lived in families with a Mom and a Dad. Dad worked, Mom stayed at home and ran the house, (with the help of paid servants). In Zimbabwe we had 'live in' servants quarters on our property and typically hired male workers, one for the house (house boy) and one for the garden (garden boy).
• Sex was a taboo subject and we had never even heard of homosexuals and had never even seen one (or maybe we had but he was too firmly closeted for us to know).
• I have previously mentioned the religious philosophy of middle class America and once again, we were no different. Middle class people of the 50's followed a bizarre hybrid philosophical outlook. 
• Some may have called it Christian, which it was not. But, it did include the Church as an institution, which still played a role in society.  
• The Church to most, was the place to be christen your new baby, attend on holidays such as Christmas, then get married in and when you died you got buried there too. It was a western institution, in which centuries old traditions were maintained for ceremonial purposes, their original meaning and purpose were no longer relevant.  
• The Schools we attended taught us the "scientific realities" of life, and so we were indoctrinated into Darwinism. And so the two mutually incompatible systems managed a happy co-existence in which not too many questions were asked. It was a conservative society that also maintained the moral code of Western Christianity even though the reasons for it were lost.
• And so promiscuity was frowned upon as was divorce, even being single was not acceptable in this family orientated society. Anything outside of this such as homosexuality was way beyond the pale and simply written off as essentially criminal behavior.

Norman Rockwell - again shows the prevailing attitude towards Christianity, as being harmless, the domain of sweet old aunts who teach children good values and manners but later tends to fade with maturity.

• The middle class society was big on appearances and anything that was not acceptable would have to be hidden and denied.
• In every suburban society like this there surely existed many individuals who did not fit in. Be they homosexual or just never made it at School or poor academically or hopeless on the sport field, there was just no way out for them. In this world of conformity, just how many kids suffered silently from all kinds of problems they just couldn't speak out about. There was no-one to talk to, parents were unable to counsel their Children, since they were just as ignorant and the age of the therapist did not exist yet. 
• Nobody could have known how many suffering kids and teenagers desperately needed someone to talk and speak of fears and hangups that they thought were unique to them but in fact were shared by most kids.
• The pastors and priests were often used for this purpose, but they tended to have a very limited perspective as well and probably heaped even more judgement and condemnation on the people they should have been helping.
• This kind of society which now had more time and more wealth and did not spend every waking minute struggling to survive began to experience new problems. People had psychological hangups they had fears and insecurities, they felt trapped. Kids began to see their parents and their institutions as the enemy and not as allies.
• The young people began to feel misunderstood and ignored, they didn't know what to do with the mounting frustration they experienced. Didn't anybody understand? Who cared about their ideas their feelings and hopes and fears?

Disaffected Youth - The appearance of alternative codes of dress and rebellious behavior, a symptom of a Society ill at ease.  

4. The real "Inconvenient Truth" 

• In every society there were tell tale signs, the parent who drank just a bit too much, the lady at the office who got divorced. The music teacher at School who seemed a bit effeminate and never got married, the teenager who had to leave home to go to a distant relative after some rumors of a pregnancy. All these anomalies were signs, evidence rising to the surface that all was not quite as well as everyone wished, symptoms of the frustrations and suffering that lay just beneath the surface.
• Whilst the proponents of the new prosperity tried desperately to sweep all these problems under the carpet, the Beat poets felt it was their mission to blow the lid off this pretentious world of secrets and shame. Their writings were going to open up a wound that had been festering for years underneath layers of civility. 
• But first they would have to face the wrath of the Status Quo they had challenged. 

5. The Status Quo

• Their racey new cars, the plethora of gadgets, the opulence of the shopping malls were all part of a huge publicity exercise that broadcast to the world, Western Democracy is superior to Eastern Communism
• It was reasonable that people wanted this to be true, everyone wanted a peaceful and secure world with no more war, and no more poverty, with shared values that everyone understood. In 1950's America it certainly looked possible. The great US government and the Newly formed United Nations would keep the peace and the rest of us should simply tow the line and the good life is ours. American society exported it's image to the rest of the world as a sophisticated family orientated, garden of Eden. And by and large, it was a success, the rest of the world totally bought it, eyeing the US with envious eyes, and trying in vain to match it or just trying to keep up.

Famous American Billboard 1950's

• The Greatest country in the World was not ready to deal with these kinds of issues and the cold war certainly demanded the middle class America dream be maintained at all costs. And the cost was a growing number of casualties among the populace of baby boomers who were entering early adulthood.
• Where could these young adults go? The misfits and the rebels and the outcasts. . . 

Where indeed. . .