Was America once as insane as depicted in Bioshock Infinite?

[Sicarus]

I mean the racism and religious zealotry.

Yes, because everyone was a racist or religious zealot and just absolutely hated dem chinamen/darkies/injuns/whatever else!

No but really, religious zealotry wasn't uncommon, and racism was maybe 70/30. 30 being the racists.

[Nurabashi]

I mean the racism and religious zealotry.

I don't understand how someone could be so naive. Does the whole slavery in America not ring any bells? This was in the 18th and 19th centuries, were racism and religious zealotry flourished.

[Arganis]

What makes you think America isn't insane now? Go live somewhere else for awhile and you'll see "insane" is only a question of perspective.

[xindralol]

well I didn't live in the 1920s (nor the pre wwi era of BS:I), but I don't even think it's that crazy. racism was very prominent at the time, and it's reflected to some point in the game. many people were 'tainted' by pre-civil war America.

[Endus]

Are you referring to the civil war?
And the fact is, we didn't have the ability to begin with as we do now to spy on a citizen, throwing out the premise of would they have the intent.

You couldn't track a persons purchases, or where they went for summer like we can now for instance.

You do realize that this isn't the government doing this, right? The government is accessing information you voluntarily give away. It's certainly possible to live "off the grid", if you want to. You'll lose out on some advantages, but that's your choice.

The main methods for tracking purchases, for instance, are due to the move to debit/credit cards over cash as a means of transaction. This means your bank is advised of every purchase you make. Government can subpoena that stuff, sure, but it wouldn't be there to subpoena if you didn't freely let the bank have it. If you instead pulled out cash and paid for everything that way, there'd be no way to track your purchases at all.

Most people prefer the advantages and conveniences of living on-grid, and aren't concerned about the information they're asked to give up, though. But don't pretend it's government doing this; the primary agents have been banks and credit companies.

[Grummgug]

I mean the racism and religious zealotry.

You want to talk about racism in early America.....get this....the definition of white has changed over time. it used to mean pretty much exclusively anglo saxon protestant. if you were italian, eastern european, russian....you were not considered white. you were a minority. benjamin franklin ussed to write about the dangers of letting such minorities like italians and spanish overrun the country. by franklins definition of white america became minority white probably over 100 years ago. white will probably change in definition again latinos are considered white.

[Wells]

Are you referring to the civil war?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

This whole chunk of American history doesn't get taught. Our country was a distinctly shittier place back then.

[Endus]

You want to talk about racism in early America.....get this....the definition of white has changed over time. it used to mean pretty much exclusively anglo saxon protestant. if you were italian, eastern european, russian....you were not considered white. you were a minority. benjamin franklin ussed to write about the dangers of letting such minorities like italians and spanish overrun the country. by franklins definition of white america became minority white probably over 100 years ago. white will probably change in definition again latinos are considered white.

Even "Anglo Saxon" is a bit strict.



There was a pretty huge anti-Irish movement for a while, there.

[Deleted]

I mean the racism and religious zealotry.

Yes. That is preety much true. Some areas still have those things even.

Look on wikipedia for the battles mentioned in the game, the one with the indians and the chinese one, can't remember names now, you see them before Slate in the museum. This should give you an idea of how things were once.

Also, don't think this was limited to USA alone, most countries had the religious zealotry and racism as well. Just that the USA had a high migration back then. The Irish were then to USA what the Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian are today to UK or the Spanish speaking people from Latin America are for USA. So, as you see, the mentality of the masses hasn't changed in the world even, it's just hidden better by the government.

[Slybak]

The racist imagery found in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is actually worse than the imagery used in Bioshock Infinite, while the themes are roughly parallel. There were certainly people, including prominent politicians, who believed that the United States was a "white man's country," in an era when the term "white" would not apply to various ethnic groups (Irish, Italian, European Jews, etc) that it does today. The excluded groups were associated with traits that were deemed fundamentally incompatible with the rights and responsibilities of self-governance; they were often portrayed as animalistic, particularly in their sexual habits, dirty, lazy, violent, thieving, and generally parasitic.

I could add some popular images of the time period, but I'm not sure what would and would not be permissable. Regardless, you can find all manner of historical documents through a quick google search.

As for the religiosity of the period, the time of the game roughly corresponds to the end of what's called the Third Great Awakening; a period of religious revivalism and broad cultural change that was brought about because of it. It's difficult to describe the Third Great Awakening in a nutshell, but two of its principle themes were postmillenialism and public morality (in the form of the Social Gospel movement). The early Progressive Movement emerged largely from this religious transformation, with its largest political goals being the banning of alcohol, the promotion of public education and an end to child labor, the protection of the white urban laboring class, and the "civilizing" of both indigenous and immigrant communities.