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Interesting topic. I am a late baby boomer (1948-1964 is the general BB scope) I feel lucky to have observed a tremendous period of change, mostly technological, but also socially. The world I was born into was mostly racist, sexist, and unable to accept different lifestyles. While some cling to those ancient ideas, we mostly have moved on to a different and better level. From computers that took up an entire room that now can fit in our hands via our cellphones, to men landing on the moon, to the fall of the Soviet Union, it has certainly been a ride for those of my generation.
I tend to think life is better today than it was from 1950-1990. I think some tend to romanticize "older" days because we selectively remember the good things rather than the bad things. A lot of folks don't remember how primitive computers were back in those days, and how complicated they were to operate. Today, they are simple for most.
Beyond that, as mentioned, as a society we have progressed with some current (hopefully short-term) hiccups.
No disrespect intended but if your in your mid 20s you just never lived it. You don’t know a world where most people believe in the Bible nor do you know the world where morality was clear cut and more defined. You know morality as shades of grey rather than black and white, you know a world more driven by emotion. You also don’t know a world where people did things that really involved physically doing things that don’t involve digital technology. When I grew up kids played outside, when I was a teen I did a lot of fishing and hunting, I enjoyed cars and playing sports. Kids today just don’t do those things, they go on social media, they play video games online. I lived and grew up vastly different than you likely did. For all the reasons above I see the world much different than most millenials. The reason it seems to younger people that we romanticize the old days is because we are being told to change our values and accept the new ones and if we don’t we are “bigots, backwards etc.” What is sad is many people don’t understand what has been lost in terms of quality of life, quality of families and values. Even the right to speak freely on issues is lost as is the ability to tell most jokes without offending someone and sending them running for a safe space. I do commend you for at least questioning the new attitudes rather than just drinking the millenial coolaid.
When I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s they taught us spacing, punctuation, and spelling. We also played outside, played team sports and extra-curricular activities, social gatherings with friends. It was great!
Kids still do that. I know this because camp and youth recreation have been my passion and career for the past ten years.
Kids definitely have screen addiction today; but to say "nobody goes outside" is very untrue.
When I was a kid; and definitely when my parents were kids; people who didn't fit "the norm" of two same-race, opposite-sex married folks who procreated and stayed together for life....were marginalized. Strangely enough now; while great cultural strides have made us an overall more inclusive society; some who fit that "norm" feel threatened. They think that somehow because their specific way of life isn't the only acceptable way of life....it is now "under attack"....which is very ignorant and short-sighted.
I say this as a heterosexual white male myself. We still have it waaaaaaaaaaay better than anyone else. It hasn't gotten "worse" for us in the past 20 years. It's gotten better for everyone else. Those two statuses aren't mutually exclusive. Archie Bunker mentalities like those quoted above are dying off but as they do so....they're getting louder.
When I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s they taught us spacing, punctuation, and spelling. We also played outside, played team sports and extra-curricular activities, social gatherings with friends. It was great!
Kids still do that. I know this because camp and youth recreation have been my passion and career for the past ten years.
Kids definitely have screen addiction today; but to say "nobody goes outside" is very untrue.
When I was a kid; and definitely when my parents were kids; people who didn't fit "the norm" of two same-race, opposite-sex married folks who procreated and stayed together for life....were marginalized. Strangely enough now; while great cultural strides have made us an overall more inclusive society; some who fit that "norm" feel threatened. They think that somehow because their specific way of life isn't the only acceptable way of life....it is now "under attack"....which is very ignorant and short-sighted.
I say this as a heterosexual white male myself. We still have it waaaaaaaaaaay better than anyone else. It hasn't gotten "worse" for us in the past 20 years. It's gotten better for everyone else. Those two statuses aren't mutually exclusive. Archie Bunker mentalities like those quoted above are dying off but as they do so....they're getting louder.
Rep point on that. You speak the truth. Glad to see other traditional white straight males understand the world we live in today.
When I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s they taught us spacing, punctuation, and spelling. We also played outside, played team sports and extra-curricular activities, social gatherings with friends. It was great!
Kids still do that. I know this because camp and youth recreation have been my passion and career for the past ten years.
Kids definitely have screen addiction today; but to say "nobody goes outside" is very untrue.
When I was a kid; and definitely when my parents were kids; people who didn't fit "the norm" of two same-race, opposite-sex married folks who procreated and stayed together for life....were marginalized. Strangely enough now; while great cultural strides have made us an overall more inclusive society; some who fit that "norm" feel threatened. They think that somehow because their specific way of life isn't the only acceptable way of life....it is now "under attack"....which is very ignorant and short-sighted.
I say this as a heterosexual white male myself. We still have it waaaaaaaaaaay better than anyone else. It hasn't gotten "worse" for us in the past 20 years. It's gotten better for everyone else. Those two statuses aren't mutually exclusive. Archie Bunker mentalities like those quoted above are dying off but as they do so....they're getting louder.
If you don’t like my grammar spelling or punctuation then do not read it, I simply do not care. This is the internet, not a doctoral theses so I won’t invest the effort to proofread it for those things for your benefit. If I had said things you agreed with you would not have pointed out the grammar issues. Your pointing out of grammar issues does not make your assessment of our society today correct nor does it make mine incorrect. It is however a common tactic used by “progressive” thinkers to demean the opinions of those who espouse conservative beliefs of any kind. Maybe you should take part in a spelling bee, there you will find your zeal for spelling matters and maybe you’ll get a trophy too
If you don’t like my grammar spelling or punctuation then do not read it, I simply do not care. This is the internet, not a doctoral theses so I won’t invest the effort to proofread it for those things for your benefit. If I had said things you agreed with you would not have pointed out the grammar issues. Your pointing out of grammar issues does not make your assessment of our society today correct nor does it make mine incorrect. It is however a common tactic used by “progressive” thinkers to demean the opinions of those who espouse conservative beliefs of any kind. Maybe you should take part in a spelling bee, there you will find your zeal for spelling matters and maybe you’ll get a trophy too
If you can't express yourself tactfully or correctly in written format; how do you expect readers to take your points seriously? It's not just that rambling rants with bad spelling, grammar, and spacing make you look unintelligent; it's that it makes it mostly unappealing to read. Almost as unappealing as the weak arguments you are trying to make in the first place.
The funniest part is your lash-back is more defensive of your writing style than of the actual counter-points to your assessment of the topic at hand in this thread.
I feel kind of shamed for having my views about today's world. I think when you're in your 20's and have these kind of sentiments, it feels like you are alienated.
The other thing is that I am prone to worrying and anxiety, and I really sometimes believe that the end of all this is that I'm not going to "make it" in society or that society will have a very apocalyptic or dark collapse in my lifetime. It wouldn't really come as a surprise if that sort of event happened before I hit my 30th speaking to the earliest. It's killing my spirit. Even hoping and praying won't change what happens. I reject faith in some force above that he/it will be able or even willing to spare us away from that theoretical tragedy.
On the other hand, there are still some things that make me feel good, like movies or music. I am not really anti-21st century so much as I just feel depressed. I have felt that sentiment ever since I had a coming-of-age "waking up" 10 years ago. I have seen more thoughts of worry and depression on average ever since, and my social anxiety grew also.
Let's put it this way: you have never had to worry about polio epidemics(happened every summer for decades) in the USA, for instance. I remember one of the last ones in the early 1950s before the Salk vaccine. Polio was a huge factor in American lives during the 20th Century. FDR was crippled by it. The fear of it was very real as it infected and killed thousands of people.
Google 'iron lung'. Imagine ending up in one of those in, oh, 1949 during one of the worst polio outbreaks.
Measles almost killed me in 1958. You've never spent a second of your life thinking about any such thing. Correct?
You mentioned the Cold War but you, obviously, have no first hand knowledge of it. You didn't do " duck and cover" and you didn't experience the incredible close call we had with nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Worry and anxiety? Off the charts.
You also missed the major political assassinations during the 60s: JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK.
Vietnam? You know the conflict that kind of tore the country apart.
I could go on and on... I'm almost 70 years old and spent most of my life during the 20th Century. Very little about it interests me wrt returning to since I'm gay and the very thought of living in the closet, as most did in 1950s, fills me with rage not nostalgia.
Glamourizing or romantizing the past is not a useful past time.
I'm not trying minimize your anxiety which sounds real but try to consider what actually happened in the past.
No comparison here. The pre 1990 world was way better. It was safer, it was simpler and it was simply a better way of life. People still related to each other rather than interface through digital tech, people went outside and enjoyed activities like sports, hunting, fishing, real hobbies rather than play stupid games and live on social media. Even the sky seemed more blue lol.
People now rely on government, they cry out for more daddy government. They are entitled, especially those of the millenial generation. Today we have whining easily offended snowflakes dictating to me what is and is not PC. We have open perversions and it is celebrated. Our freedom of speech and right to keep and bear arms, basic American freedoms are now challenged by these people. God is even challenged. Our last great president from “the good old days” once called the Soviets an evil empire and built up our military to ensure we would win the Cold War. Today some of our people sound more like those soviets than they do Americans. The great Cold War leaders like Reagan, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman are likely spinning in thier graves.
The OP is right about technology destroying brick and mortar businesses. Too many people shop online and they do not think about what they are contributing to. Now retailers and restaurants I grew up with are disappearing. There is more to life than a computer screen. Heck people now even use it to find dates, so much for the old fashioned way. I guess I am old fashioned too. This country is nothing like the America I grew up in during the 1970s and 1980s.
Obviously I am not a fan of the 21rst century.
I was born in 1949 in Philadelphia. Were you in the south growing up? If so do you remember anything about Jim Crow when you were a kid?
The reason it seems to younger people that we romanticize the old days is because we are being told to change our values and accept the new ones and if we don’t we are “bigots, backwards etc.”
This covers most of my feelings (I was a teen in the 80's, had my first computer in 1984).
While it is VERY easy to remember the good, look at ones life and point out the things that created good characteristics and see that they are missing from today's world, it's not really that hard to look at the bad either (not that there were much ~ worst I remember was the largest employer in my town closing down and the place shrinking by about half). Maybe another aspect is that I was born and raised in Wyoming, I've seen to said/written time and time again over the years that Wyoming seems to be about 20 decades behind the rest of the country when it comes to social change/movements (women voting being an exception, that was a political maneuver).
On that social front I have little input as I'm 3rd gen American born European. Those who were fresh immigrants from Russia, Austria, Germany, etc... might have had persecution and tough times, but not me. Looking back I do see that social change was needed, looking currently and forward it sure seems to me that the scales have shifted the other direction, but that's just opinion.
With regards to technology, I'm torn. I spent my career working with computers after starting with BBSes in the mid 1980's, and finally a university connection in 88. I remember Eternal September, though the iphone is a Much bigger negative landmark in my mind. Online communication went from professionals sharing ideals (exclusively, before my time), to Mostly professionals also sharing passions and hobbies and a few new folks like me, to the start of the AOL flood when the overwhelmingly intelligent and respectful posts started getting flooded with trolling (thankfully, most AOLers stuck to their little ecosystem and didn't venture out into the greater 'net). Through the 90's more people got online and were force-fed "Netiquite", proper behavior online.... the smartphone caused a flood that almost completely destroyed any semblance of the polite, educated, well written net that was before it. To the point that now, when the rates to have an internet connection exceed my threshold, I'll joint the ranks of those who "triple cut" (landline phone, cable/sat TV and internet ~ I don't do smartphones or their data plans as they're way too expensive for what's offered). But I made good money with computers and technology, I *like* technology (mostly). It can make lives easier, better, but I think it's being used mostly for manipulation now on such huge scales that weren't previously accessible to anything outside of Government entities. The most obvious example of this is the extreme polarization of politics. I vividly remember talking politics online in the early 90's with people who didn't share my viewpoint. It wasn't toxic, it didn't end communication, no one "doxxed" someone else because they disagreed. Heck, I was educated by those debates, learned new information (and fortified some beliefs with that information, changed others). I think I'd changed a few opinions on some issues myself... try that today and you alienate yourself.
But, if the universe allowed, I'd perpetually live the 1990's. Always aging, but just restarting the decade over again and again.
While there were some good things about the 1950s-90s, the bad attributes far outweigh the good. Our cities suffered the most during that time, and the blame can be placed almost exclusively on the federal government. The FHA literally killed neighborhoods in major cities due to redlining. Since FHA-backed home loans would not be extended to people who lived in these redlined neighborhoods (which usually contained the oldest and most beautiful housing stock), they began to hollow out. This was compounded by the fact that it was easier to obtain an FHA loan in a newer suburban neighborhood. Speaking of suburbs, this period in American history saw the greatest expansion of suburban areas. Living in these suburban areas necessitated owning a car, which also came back to haunt our cities. Highways were driven through formerly vibrant neighborhoods and added to the decline of sections of cities. My city, Philadelphia, made off better than other cities due to successfully fighting off a series of proposed highways; however, I-676 and I-95 cut our northern neighborhoods and the Delaware River, respectively, off from Center City.
Personally, I wouldn't want to live in that time period either. As someone who loves to travel, I know that it would have been a lot harder for me to do that back then. My grandma has told me stories about how her family would pull to the side of the highway to eat during long road trips. She didn't know it until she grew a little older, but it was because certain restaurants didn't allow black people to dine in. Her family also had to look through a Rand McNally book in order to see which hotels allowed black people to lodge. Secondly, I'm not sure if I would have been able to successfully obtain a career in my field. I'm getting ready to enter the finance field, and I doubt that I would have been able to find something with a Fortune 500 firm as easily as I can today. Finally, skin color doesn't matter to me when it comes to dating. My last girlfriend was white, as were some romantic partners before and after her. That would have certainly warranted my death, especially in the 1950s-70s. I hate to mention race since I feel like it's so irrelevant to my generation; however, it was much more of a factor back then.
I believe that the 21st century is, overall, a MUCH better time for this nation. I may only be a 22-year-old Millennial, but I sincerely believe that 2017's America is much better than 1957's America, even with some of the problems that we face today.
I believe that the 21st century is, overall, a MUCH better time for this nation. I may only be a 22-year-old Millennial, but I sincerely believe that 2017's America is much better than 1957's America, even with some of the problems that we face today.
Since you mentioned 1957, look up the Little Rock Nine. And yes, I remember those events.
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