I Miss Old-Fashioned Values
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
Avengers: Age of Ultron comes to theaters this Friday, and because of that, I thought I’d take a look at some of the lessons hidden in the first movie. A couple of the posts I’m going to share in this Tuesday series are flashbacks (I posted them when the original Avengers movie released), but I’m going to be adding a few new ones as well. Hopefully, I’ll find as many gems in the second movie as I did in the first. So here we go…
Do We Need to Be a Little More Old-Fashioned?
If you woke up one day to find that 70 years had passed, would you be excited or would you mourn for lost friends and family and the way of life you’d known?
When we meet Steve Rogers again in The Avengers, he’s still struggling with this very thing. Back in 1942, a special serum turned him into Captain America, and in the middle of fighting a rogue group of Nazis known as Hydra, he accidentally ended up in suspended animation. He wakes up in the “present day.” The world has changed a lot since 1942.
Not surprisingly, Steve feels like he and his values are obsolete. He doesn’t understand Tony Stark’s cavalier attitude or circumvention of the rules, or Bruce Banner’s scientific mumbo jumbo, or any of the pop references the others make (except for one about flying monkeys—and he’s almost pathetically excited about finally “getting one”).
It doesn’t look like there’s much that can break up the gloom surrounding what should be a golden boy character. But on their way to the flying ship, Agent Coulson tells Steve that they’ve updated his Captain America costume.
“Aren’t the stars and stripes a little old fashioned?” Steve asks.
Agent Coulson looks him straight in the eyes. “With all that’s going on in the world, people might want a little old fashioned.”
Throughout the movie, Steve comes to realize that Coulson was right. People are starting to not only want a little old-fashioned, we’re starting to need it.
And it’s not about the evils of technology. Technology isn’t evil. It’s not about needing to reconnect with nature and unplug. It’s not about retro becoming the latest fashion trend or collecting records or bottle caps.
It’s about reviving some old-fashioned values. I suspect that, like me, a lot of people long for the return of some of the things we’ve lost.
I’m only 30, but when I was a child, stores in my town were closed on Sundays. Was it an inconvenience if you wanted to buy something? Yes. But didn’t we always manage to survive until Monday? And wasn’t that a small price to pay to give everyone a day of rest, a day focused on friends and family?
I miss the idea of a day of rest. And a 40-hour work week that gave you enough income to live off of. Not only live off of, but raise a family on.
I miss when a handshake meant something, people did what they promised, and you could leave your doors unlocked.
I miss teamwork. Days when it wasn’t about getting ahead as an individual by stepping on others, but rather about working together to make sure everyone achieved their goals. We didn’t feel the need to shout to be heard. We didn’t feel the need to sing our own praises because we knew that if we did a good job, someone else would sing them for us.
Those are the type of things that made the good old days good. Those are the things that are now old-fashioned, and those are the things I think we need to fight to get back.
I’m an optimist, but even I know that I can’t turn back time. I can’t change society to make stores close on Sundays again, and we can’t safely leave our doors unlocked even in small towns anymore.
Captain America couldn’t force Tony Stark or any of the others to accept his values either, but he chose to act on what he believed, and by the end of the movie, however subtly, it was his example they followed, even Stark. The man who “didn’t play well with others” worked as part of a team, and even risked sacrificing himself to save the world.
While I can’t change the world, I can change me. Like Captain America, I can still live by those old-fashioned values.
I can refuse to work seven days a week because my body and my relationships need that day of rest. My handshake and my word can still mean something. And I can support others and let my actions speak for themselves. I have control over me.
And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us change ourselves, the world will one day follow.
What old-fashioned value do you think needs to be revived? How are you helping to bring it back?
Interested in knowing when my novel is available to buy? Sign up for my newsletter. I give my newsletter subscribers exclusive discounts and freebies. I never share your email, and you can unsubscribe at any time!
I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” botton.
Apr 28, 2015 @ 14:09:52
My husband and I just had a similar conversation. We just moved from a fairly poor county in Colorado to Bend Oregon where the cost of living is a bit higher in some ways. We’ve noted how much happier everyone seems and how much friendlier even the WalMart worker seems. Why? One difference is the overall beauty of Bend. In Colorado you can visit beauty, but it is ridiculously expensive to live IN the beauty. Just driving around puts a smile on your face. But a bigger piece we’ve seen is just an accepted, integral core value of responsibility. People here seems to want to earn their income, their respect, their lifestyle. They don’t believe it is “owed” to them. Not that all of Colorado is that way of course. But from one county to another, those old fashioned values seem way more embraced. I can’t help but smile with every personal interaction and it’s so nice not to be looked at as strange for smiling all the time! Yay for Captain America (although Tony Stark is WAY hotter!)
Apr 28, 2015 @ 15:43:13
We’ve made some great advances in the world, but the situation you’re talking about is evidence that we also need to be careful to hold on to some of the things that worked and were valuable in the past. I’m glad you’ve found a place where smiling is the accepted norm. I’m a smiler too, and I’d have a difficult time adjusting to a place where that wasn’t common practice.
I’d have a hard time saying whether I thought Captain America, Tony Stark, or Bruce Banner was the best looking. Thor doesn’t hold a candle to those three 🙂
Apr 28, 2015 @ 16:47:33
I’ve lived and traveled all over the country, and you’re right, Marlene, that locations can have vastly different attitudes. I still remember when I first went to college and how every student would smile at each other when passing on the sidewalk, stranger or not. That was quite a change from my upbringing, where I went from one of the most economically depressed and violent school districts in the country to being an outsider in a la-de-dah school. Neither of those facilitated friendliness. LOL!
Apr 28, 2015 @ 16:13:13
Hi Marcy,
I think respect is probably the biggest thing lacking in young people today (besides their warped sense of entitlement). I was in a clothing store last Christmas and a group of teenaged girls were blocking my way. I said “excuse me” twice (very nicely). Then I very gently touched one girls arm and said excuse me again. She moved out of the way and one of the other girls said “Oh my god, that lady totally pushed you.” I grew up on the south side of Chicago. Trust me, she’d have known if I had actually pushed. her.
I also think a strong work ethic is missing. Even in my own 16 year old daughter I see this. She says she wants to get into NYU or Boston University, but she doesn’t want to have to study for it (and her GPA reflects it). My husband and I have worked hard for everything we have in our life and we’ve done our best to instill the proper values, so I’m not sure what the problem is (or the answer). On the bright side, my daughter is very kind to strangers and is passionate about women’s rights 🙂
Thanks for the great post Marcy. I too miss the good old days.
Apr 28, 2015 @ 16:51:35
I love your point about how, regardless of the others around us, WE can choose to live by old-fashioned values. My post today is about making sure our writing is intentional, but the same thing applies to our lives. WE get to choose how to behave or react, and if we consciously decide on the values we want to embrace, we might be a little more intentional in those behaviors and reactions.
For example, I’m *always* friendly with cashiers at stores, doesn’t matter my mood. I’ve made a conscious decision to make sure I’m doing what I can to improve their job. 🙂 Thanks for the great post!
Apr 28, 2015 @ 18:15:36
Another great post Marcy. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century, because I, too, miss the days when a person’s word meant a lot. These days, it seems that for many, words are cheap currency. It’s sad to see so many surprised faces when I say “Have a great day/weekend” to a store employee. You would think they never hear that. I hold out hope that more of us “old-fashioned” folks will feel the rewards of that type of thinking. 🙂 Have a great week, folks!