All in the Family cannot be overestimated for the impact it had on this country's attitudes. It was probably the single most influential thing to get me started thinking for myself. It premiered when I was in 9th grade, ignorant and apathetic about the world. I used to tune in for the comedy, but would walk away with something to think about time after time. I know it had
the same effect on other people in my generation.

It was clear to most of us what the right way to look at things was.  All you had to do was ask yourself WWAD?
(What would Archie do?), and then do the opposite. There were racists and bigots and superpatriots, and generally closed-minded people, but that one TV show made it harder for them to be received with as much sympathy as they are today.

I didn't fully appreciate Edith at the time, but it's clear to me what she was and what she was there for. To me, Edith was the prototype liberal. If you wanted to know what to do in a situation, all you had  to ask yourself was WWED? (What would Edith do?) and it would probably be the right thing. Edith didn't know much, but she didn't have to. All she had to do was to listen to her heart. If you'll recall the episode with the two black burglars (DeMond Wilson from Sanford & Son and Cleavon
Little), her gentle influence changed their opinion of the household.Archie had bought a gun and an alarm system, but neither prevented them from being robbed. It took Edith talking to them as if they were human beings to discourage the robbery.

I'll never forget her asking them how they could laugh through such miserable lives.
The reply from Cleavon: "Practice, lady. Practice." Then she was making them coffee and  singing, and they were returning the things they had stolen. That was priceless to me. She was the perfect counterpoint to Archie, and helped drive the
points home harder. She was the dingbat, but her heart was always in the right place, and her way always won out over Archie's.

The show also showed downsides of excessive liberalism. Sometimes Mike and Gloria could go too far, being so much opposite Archie. Remember an episode where they all were playing a board game that required them to tell each other truths. Mike's number came up all night, and he was being called on his superiority about everything, especially by Lionel Jefferson.

When we saw the Jeffersons move in next door, we saw Archie's opposite number in George. Some of the most hilarious shows had to do with Archie and George butting heads over something, and never realizing that they were two sides of the same coin. George's racism and conservatism was just as ugly and counterproductive as Archie's. It helped point out
that narrow minded conservatism is ugly no matter where it comes from.

To me, what the show did was to show both sides of arguments, and let us decide who was right. Most of the time, America seemed to believe Archie was on the wrong side of issues. Carroll O'Connor was the perfect actor for what the part called for. He was so good at what he did, I remember people being actually shocked to find out that Carroll O'Connor was as liberal as Archie Bunker was conservative. I don't have any idea how the show would have turned out if one of the other people who tried for the part had gotten it. Tom Bosley (the dad on Happy Days) was a contender-what would that have been like?

Archie Bunker was the perfect character to hold up to this country and say, "Is this what we are? Is this what we want to be?". Most people said no.

The issues that came up on that show were unprecedented for television at that time. Gun control, death penalty, homosexuality, racism, sexism, political corruption, you name it, it all came up. The issues were well defined,
and you could tell where you stood politically by who you sided with.

Most people I knew didn't side with Archie on much. We still see the type-A struggling blue collar worker who blindly supported policies and politicians whose interests were not his. Nowadays, there are very many people who would probably see him for the first time and say that there's a guy with the right idea. Not a single issue brought out on that show from 30 years ago has been resolved, and I think that's sad, but at least we used to talk about them. I give that show a lot of credit for that.

I've mentioned other characters besides Archie, but I don't think it would have worked without Carroll O'Connor.
He provided a valuable service to humanity: he made us look inside ourselves.

Those really were the days.
 

Isaac, your letter made me think of many things.
One, Cleavon Little is a saint around BartCop Manor.
Besides Blazing Saddles, All in the Family was the only other work I've ever seen of his.

When you mentioned the issues that were inprecedented, it reminded me of a riddle they told:

A man had been in a car wreck, and they rushed him into ER and surgery.
But the surgeon said, "I can't operate on this man - he's my son,"
but the surgeon was not the patient's father.

What was the relationship of the surgeon to the patient?

Well, they stood around and guessed for 22 minutes.

Adopted son?
No.

The surgeon was his grandfather?
No.

Mistaken identity?
No.

They went round and round with a dozen nutty guesses, omitting the obvious answer.
The surgeon was the patient's mother.

At the time of the riddle, it was almost unheard of that women could be a surgeon.
They were making the point that people needed to cast off the shackles of sexism.
I'd think everyone who watched that episode remembered that riddle,
and possibly came away with an enlightened attitude about women.