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SDAI-Tech1 — (archived)

Those described the 'beat' generations new maxims. They were symptomatic of a mindset that wanted to counter 'societal norms'. Pre-marital sex isn't anti-American, it was only a facet of a new way of life - of thinking.

And like it or not public education in the USA had used school texts (like these) to indoctrinate/educate children of how wonderful America was.

But for the 'beat' - if the masses taught it and believed in it - it must be dead wrong. To the beat, the US was nothing special, in fact, Ike was a "simpleton, warmonger" and the educated viewed him with as much contempt as later folks would project at Reagan and Bush - with the exact same complaints. Europe was sophisticated! Legal prostitution! Red light districts where prostitutes sit in chairs, adorn shop windows to be bought like articles of clothes. Even Las Vegas was positively primitive to the 'beat' mindset that adored all things Euro at this point in time.

So they despised those old books and the 'America is wonderful and special' theme they always took when teaching US history.

It took awhile (about 50 years) but the glorification of the founding fathers, of the hardships endured, the superiority of our Constitution and the uniqueness of our freedom loving land - it's almost all gone now. Only the most watered down fragments remain.

I have a number of these glorious things and they are chock-full of nationalism. After WWII they already started toning (and dumbing) it down. Today's kids often don't even get texts anymore - the schools download standardized homework off of websites like edhelper.com - so why even send your kid to school when the teachers are too lazy to write up their own stuff??

But the timeline shows how all these things contributed to the steady cultural Euro-glorification and America-demonizing.

And while the US educated were busy idealizing European 'culture', many Euros were idealizing American prosperity and culture for quite awhile (1955-1990)

Hope that clarifies it.

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