What has western civilization given up that we should have kept? (general, Washington)
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We've all grown up in a civilization that strongly focuses on the future and on the macro (global) scale outlook... and with that model we've changed the general human way of life more than any time in history, probably since the invention of agriculture.
But in the mad dash towards the future, we've left a lot behind too, both good and bad.
What part(s) of the old ways do you think we should have kept and/or reinstitute in today's world?
Smart growth - smaller housing, spaced closer together, that allows kids to walk to school, getting exercise, and people to walk or bicycle at least to some activites. One reason for childhood (and adult) obesity.
The story is often told of how Henry Ford or a tire company or somebody?? arranged for cities to tear up all their streetcar tracks, in order to increase demand for cars and car products.
The amount of plastic, and other packaging consumed today, is simply atrocious. For example, people used to use large bars of soap instead of squeeze bottles. Ballpoint refills, instead of throwing away the whole pen casing every time. Refillable razor blades instead of plastic throwaways. People would return bottles for a refund, and they would be washed and sterilized an re-used. Plastic eating utensils and clamshell containers were unheard of. Crumpled newspapers were used for packing items, instead of styrofoam "peanuts." Overall, the volume of plastic waste today is enormous.
This may sound silly, but I wish we still tried to make things functional AND beautiful.
I'm thinking of victorian era stuff, where they put superflous decoration on EVERYTHING, even mundane stuff like water heaters, stoves, plumbing, ect, or the artistry that was put into weapons before mass production, or even the quality of art itself, which to me seems vastly superior to today's art.
Toolmaking is what made us what we are today; through evolution lions got sharp claws, antelope got the ability to run really fast away from danger. Humans survived by making tools to get past their physical limitations under the same general laws of nature.
...Anyway, the better the tools, the better the survival chances and the bigger the brain needed to make better tools caused a 7 million year feedback loop that played a large part in evolving us into what we are today. We love our stuff by nature...it's built in just as much as hunting is for lions or running is for antelope!
We shortchange ourselves by acquiescing to inferior tools and built environments, and I think they indirectly lead to many of the "psychological problems" we face today that were nonexistent only a hundred years ago. People sensed this in the old days and made their goods accordingly, but we somehow forgot and tried to fill the voild with quantity instead.
Smart growth - smaller housing, spaced closer together, that allows kids to walk to school, getting exercise, and people to walk or bicycle at least to some activites. One reason for childhood (and adult) obesity.
The story is often told of how Henry Ford or a tire company or somebody?? arranged for cities to tear up all their streetcar tracks, in order to increase demand for cars and car products.
The amount of plastic, and other packaging consumed today, is simply atrocious. For example, people used to use large bars of soap instead of squeeze bottles. Ballpoint refills, instead of throwing away the whole pen casing every time. Refillable razor blades instead of plastic throwaways. People would return bottles for a refund, and they would be washed and sterilized an re-used. Plastic eating utensils and clamshell containers were unheard of. Crumpled newspapers were used for packing items, instead of styrofoam "peanuts." Overall, the volume of plastic waste today is enormous.
Up until a few years ago, my children went to a small neighborhood school, that they walked to, right beside the library. But the district decided to consolidate, and built a bigger school on the dge of towm. For us, my kids could still walk, but many kids have to be bussed now, and we lost the convience of it being next to the library and right near down-town.
I also sometimes wish sun-bonnets would come back in style lol!
Common sense and the freedom to use it. Once, decent people exercised common sense. Now, everything must be done by a flow chart, and employees risk their precious jobs if they deviate from it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowlane3
The story is often told of how Henry Ford or a tire company or somebody?? arranged for cities to tear up all their streetcar tracks, in order to increase demand for cars and car products.
The story is far too rarely told, it is absolutely true, and it one of the most shameful events in US history. Ford was innocent: It was a conspiracy of GM, Firestone, and Standard and Phillips oil. The street cars were replaced by buses made by (the envelope please) General Motors, running on Firestone tires, using gasoline.
Common sense and the freedom to use it. Once, decent people exercised common sense. Now, everything must be done by a flow chart, and employees risk their precious jobs if they deviate from it.
The story is far too rarely told, it is absolutely true, and it one of the most shameful events in US history. Ford was innocent: It was a conspiracy of GM, Firestone, and Standard and Phillips oil. The street cars were replaced by buses made by (the envelope please) General Motors, running on Firestone tires, using gasoline.
This is reminiscent of how the railroads lost their primacy. They saw no need to counter the trucking industry because they knew railroads were more efficient. But they didn't count on the trucking industry paying millions to lobby congress to pass friendly legislation.
The same with SUV's. The auto industry fought tooth and nail to keep SUVs from being held to the same safety standards as cars, and succeeded. Then we had the tax write-offs, and then Government turned into a huge purchaser of SUVs. When people claim that the "free market" determines growth and market success, they are dead wrong. There is no free market anymore. The book "Winner Take All Politics: How Washington made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class" by Paul Pierson and Jacob hacker, is a fine look at this. "Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class" by Robert Frank (1996) is also interesting.
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