Just from what I gather about the 50's...comparing that to today...wow. Seems like people just behaved better in general, things were less complex, and life had more quality.
If you were a white middle-class male, that was probably true.
You might be interested to know that (from what I recall from a sociology class) tranquilizer use among middle-class women was three times as high as it is today, and teenage unwed pregnancy was much, much higher as well.
People get this rosy-colored view of the 50's because they don't realize that problems simply weren't talked about back then. Sure, white folks may have been polite to white folks, but it was also an era of raging civil inequality and racism, and sexual repression of women.
You might want to do some more research yourself before coming to a conclusion, but try not to pit the fictional history of the 50's against the reality of today. That's not exactly a fair fight.