Category: the Rant Board
I've decided at this point what irritates me about people is when they want to show you articles and news stories that basically illustrate the lengths and depths to which humanity has supposedly sunk. I don't know whether people think such things are amusing or whether it depresses them and they want to share the misery, but it's one of the few things that gets me down. I'm not one who necessarily wears rose-colored glasses. I'd rather believe there's both good and bad in people, it's not all one thing or another thing. But the first question that comes to mind with this point of view is, "If you think things are so craptastically awful, exactly when were things better?" I doubt anyone can answer that one. I heard a friend of mine say in the Nineties that things would have to get worse before they get better. OK, have things gotten worse or better since then? And at what point will things turn around and get better if they're so bad, or are you waiting for your higher power to tell everyone to strike the set and call it a wrap with no option for a do-over? Ugh, ugh, ugh, pessimism, at least in a highly concentrated form, can get me down, and I'm usually a fairly positive and even-keeled kind of guy if you can believe it.
This is an interesting question, and one which I doubt many have a real answer for. I do find it interesting though that throughout all the history books (as well as in the bible as well as the book of mormon (no need to turn it into a religious debate, I'm merely using these as examples)) humanity seems to go through a continuous cycle in which a society prospers well, but then everything goes to hell before eventually picking itself back up. I know this is a generalization, but I'd venture that we're probably in one of those sociological slumps.
This said however, it's easy to look at a point in history (take the fifties, and now for examples) and pick out some really great, and really terrible examples of human dapravity and mirracles.
I think every generation has viewed their own time in history as he worst and scariest it's ever been. I don't think the golden age ever really existed.
You really have to live an entire lifetime before you can really say when the worst time was. I've heard of some people saying how horrible the fifties and sixties were because of the cold war, but they brag about these decades now that the cold war is over, and they can look at the good parts without fearing the bad.
Nostalgia, not religion, is the opium of the masses I think.
Most people have a memory of history that equates to that of your average chicken anyway, and even within their own lifetimes forget some past event / are surprised when it repeats itself.
Personally I think it's yet another way people can defer responsibility: after all, shouldn't you get some sort of break for your behavior if you live in the worst of times, where prices have never been higher, where kids are less well-behaved than ever, where nobody respects anybody anymore? Sounds to me like a. and easy out, and b. a way of creating excitement in an otherwise mundane existence.
Nastalja is definately a key factor in the way we view history. We're also bound by our own perception of the happenings around us. If all one sees is violence, sorrow, and terrorism then that's how one will probably view the world at large. Likewise to view the world with rose-tinted glasses also dulls our perception of history too.
As I think about it, as a kid in the Seventies I was not a news person at all, cartoons were more important, but I do remember there were a number of economic recessions including a couple of gas shortages, and we had more recession in the Eighties with Ronald Reagan, who also brought back concerns of whether our then sworn enemies, the Russians, would press the button to launch missiles that'd turn us into so much ash. We had the Iran hostage situation in about 1979 or 1980 and there was also the Gulf War. But whether society in general was any better or nicer or people were overall smarter, I can't say. There's always been mean and stupid and whatever, so I can't say things are any worse than they've ever been. It's just been good times and not-so-good times.
Sounds like this fits in the category of "These young kids are so rude". When it's a lot of the older ones being rude it as much; if not more? I hate to hear that complaint and than have those same people stand in the middle of a shopping isle so no one may get around, use the express line when they have like 50 items, pull out in front of a driver without warning, run into you with their purse; (or even themselves) without an excuse me or by your leave...All because they're not looking.
It's funny but I always felt the 90's were better. Isn't that strange? Perhaps one reason I felt that way is because I was comming of age, so to speak. But you know what? It seems like it was better. The music, the general vibe...I don't know. It is all a matter of perception and nothing can ever truly be "better" if you get my meaning.
That's what we all say of our coming-of-age decade. What's happening is you're gettin' old man. If I read your profile right, you've turned a quarter of a century. One more quarter plus five to go and you'll be lined up for AARP!
*gasp* Lol.
I'm 26 and am quite conscious and proud of my quarter century and one year. I've definitely seen things slide downhill toward much more darkness. I have some vague and some distinct memories of the late 80's and early 90's and it really was better then. People were nicer the music was better and we weren't plugged in all the time. I think the poster who said everything cycles was right. If it can get worse it can get better. The fifties were a grand illusion and people knew it too. They taught their kids upright morals because they had to teach something but didn't believe it anymore. We've got a great deal of sorrow coming to us when our troops come home. The va is failing or has failed thousands and hundreds and will fail again. We're staring in to the pit, I hope we have the strength to look up and not down and lend a hand. Tiffany
Agreed completely. Blarg, you kids and your rock N roll music! hahahaha!
People were nicer in the 1980s? The "Whoever has the most toys wins" decade? That's news to me as one who came of age in the 1980s. Seems like per capita more young people seem to be aware of problems like homelessness, disadvantaged groups and the like. In the 80s we had Live Aid which was a great show, and all the accompanying trends, but it seems now that for some it's not trendy they actually do think about this stuff. Yes we are in a war of unprecedented length in this country and we have a lot of problems to solve, and we have groups on the left and the right, both fundamentalist extremists in their own rite who try and stifle innovation. I remind you the 1980s was the era when the modern Palin conservatives came into being. Read up on Jerry Fallwell, Phillip Morris/Pat Robertson and Bob Jones University.
They created their movement which was a backlash to the movements created in the 1960s. We no longer live under threat of total and worldwide nuclear warfare, real or imagined, many were truly frightened of it during the 1980s. The 80s wasn't all bad, of course, plenty of good times there, but I wonder if it and Reagan will be canonized like the fifties is for some people: Edit out what you don't like, keep what you want and hold up a disproportionate ideal, sorta like a Barby doll - physically and gravitationally impossible but plenty holding it up as their ideal.
Think pink, I guess?
I think it's fair to say that perspective can really help to shape a person's view of the world, and it's state compared to where it was, and where it's going.
Let me say it this way then:
My little bubble has changed. Oh my!