Do you know what the Overton Window is? According to Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge??) it is "...the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.It is also known as the window of discourse.The term is named after the American policy analyst Joseph Overton..." To make that sound less academic, think of the Overton Window as what is allowed in polite conversation---or TV, movies, books, sports, etc Think back to your youth (I know geezers, that's a long time ago) but only "certain" things were said in polite conversation. When I was a kid, no mom-to-be said she was "pregnant" instead she said "she was expecting." No one said anything about "sex" as that was beyond the pale. No one used "four letter words" as that was not nice, especially in front of children. My father never swore, nor did any of the other fathers on the block. To put that in sociological terms, that was not inside the Overton Window of the time. Think about television when you were a kid. Did anyone sleep in double beds? The answer was NO--Beaver's mom and dad had twin beds...so did Donna Reed and her husband...and every other married couple. The first time we saw a pregnant woman on TV was Lucille Ball...she shattered the Overton Window by showing off her "baby bump" (it was her second child at the time as the first one had been "covered up") The Overton Window has made us more humane too. We don't talk about various ethnic groups or personal choices as bad/ugly/etc. We talk about people in a kinder, more accepting way. Certain pieces of the window have been closed for now and might not open again. We don't know what the future holds. The Overton Window has shattered many times since mid-20th century. Think about all the broken glass that has happened since then. We talk about pregnancy, single motherhood, drugs, sex and rock and roll without batting an eye. Four letter words are splattered in everyday conversation, books, movies and television and no one seems to bat an eye. The Overton Window seems to have opened wider by the decades as "stuff" that was considered taboo is not taboo any more. And, stuff that was commonplace is not. Some of the breakage is logical and good--some not so...but the beauty of the Overton Window is, it keeps marching along. Opening and closing according to the times. Every generation has an Overton Window of polite discourse and the older we geezers get, we are probably more and more annoyed as the "window" changed and we have not embraced all of the change.
To that end, I'm annoyed when I look at a Netflix program that is littered with F-bombs exploding every 30 seconds. Is that really necessary? I'm annoyed when I read a book that turns violent with no good explanation, or a movie that has sex scenes that are better left unshown. I'm annoyed when I see people dressed (or is it undressed) in a costume that should have a bit more fabric. I find I've become a geezer-prude who harks back to a different, more innocent Overton Window. Don't get me wrong...sometimes the Overton Window needs to be opened more...sometimes it needs to be closed. To that end, I need personal filters so I can open and close my "individual" Overton Window and forget about what others are doing with their private Overton Windows. So I ask...am I the only one who is geezer-prude? Are there others out there? Please let me know. Remember, we're in this together.
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