Black and White World

 

Some years ago my youngest son asked me if the whole world was in black and white when I was a child.  I suspect he arrived at this conclusion from looking at old black and white photographs.  It was a logical assumption based on the information he had at the time.  I of course corrected this misconception and assured him we have all been living in technicolor for a long time.  For some reason the memory of this popped into my head the other day.  I chuckled at the memory, but then I started to think that maybe we did live in a black and white world in “the old days”.

When I was growing up there were only two political parties that I was aware of, Republicans and Democrats.  That was pretty much a black and white scenario.  You were either one or the other and oddly enough I do not recall people hating one another because of their political affiliations.  Since then we seem to have inserted many shades of grey between the black and white politics.  Now we have right and left wing, conservative and liberal, progressive, moderate, libertarian and probably some others that I am forgetting or not aware of.   Each group does not like the other.   Democrats hate republicans and Republicans hate democrats and all the various shades of light grey hate the various shades of dark grey.  Sadly, it seems that the hatred has gotten so intense that it is impossible for anything productive to be accomplished because the hate is in the way.  It needs to stop.

Also, when I was growing up the concept of gender was basically black and white.  You either were or you were not.  By that I mean you were either one gender or you were not and if you were not then you were the other gender.  The choices were limited to only two, male or female.  The restrooms were clearly labeled as men or women, boys or girls.  There was no gender-neutral bathrooms and the concept of separate bathrooms was pervasive, unless you were at a rock concert.  There a lot of the ladies seemed to abandon all modesty because they “just really had to pee”.  Gender confusion was not a problem then either.  If one was confused by their gender, they simply had to look south of their navel.  If something was pointing out, they were male, if they saw a vertical smile, they were female.  That ended the confusion.  This idea of a man in a woman’s body or vice versa is, in my opinion, just so much baloney.  Again, either you are, or you are not.  And while on the subject, boys being permitted to use the girl’s room is just plain wrong.  Personally, I think this was thought up by some horny teen age boy because it was easier than drilling a peep hole, such as was demonstrated in the Porky’s movie.  If you are not familiar with that, click here for a short demo.

My final point on the black and white world of long ago is that at one time people either got married, or they stayed single.  If married, they lived as a couple and usually raised a family, if single, they lived alone or with roommates. They did not co-habitate and live as if married while retaining the illusion of being single.  Some time in the late sixties, in the era of the hippies and free love, this black and white concept of married or single was abandoned.  In the fifties the nuclear family was the predominant life and the goal of most young people.  That was black and white.  In today’s world the lines have become quite blurred with people living together, jumping from relationship to relationship, same sex marriages, single parent households and so on.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not advocating for or against anyone’s lifestyle.  How one lives their life is their business and as long as it does not negatively impact mine I  really don’t care.  You do your thing and I will do mine.  I just point it out to illustrate the difference of the black and white world of my youth compared to the 49 shades of grey of today’s world.  So, you decide, were we better off in our black and white world?

 

Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

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Tom Lind

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