Harking for a simpler time.....

[Amy Jeanne]

You may have been able to buy a full load of groceries for $10, but didn't the average person make about $30 a week? If so, that's not much different from a modern income/grocery bill.

As for the era....I love it. I love knowing the good AND the bad! I like knowing obscure little things and I also like to know how ALL people lived (race, class, gender, location, etc.) I don't think it was simpler than today, but as someone pointed out -- the lack of immediate information may have made it simpler.

Hell, when I think back to the 80s and 90s now I sometimes sit and think "What a simpler time!" lol

 

[KayEn78]

Once my cousin asked me, "Why do you like history so much? Do you realize if you've lived in the '30s, '40s or '50s how it would be for someone like you? It would be awful." I told her I already this, but I enjoyed studying 20th Century History because I get to see what went on before I was born. I get to learn about the different fashion, hairstyles, fads, music, movies, famous people, radio programs, TV shows that were around before I was even thought of or even my parents were even thought of.

Since I am visually impaired being born three and a half months premature, weighing only 1 lb. 12 oz. my chances of living before 1978 were very, very slim to none. Sometimes, I think, it wouldn't be so bad for someone like me, after all, I'd do the same thing I'm doing know, keeping house. Sure, everything would be a little different and take longer, but I'd still know how to do it and be able to be a proper functional human being of society. I realize that I probably would've gone to a School for the Blind, since that what was done for people with low vision or none at all. I would still be able to listen to the radio and I'd learn all skills of keeping house at the school.

On the other hand, there are some instances where I am glad I live in this day and age. Medical advances for one thing. I had multiple eye surgeries four years ago, that allows me to have some vision in my left eye today. Things a different for me than they were before that, but I do fairly well. If my retina had detached even seven years ago, my doctor told me that I would've been totally blind. Thanks to advancements in medical technology, and with the help of the silicone oil holding my retina in place, I am able to see 20/400 with my glasses. I have no lens in my left eye, but had I not lived today in this time, I do know what would've happened to me. I am also aware of how others with disabilities were treated back then and all that, but I also believe there were good people who believed that they too could be somebody and lead a productive life. It wasn't always negative and it's not always negative today either. It probably just seems that way.

Would I like to live in another time? No. Would I like to visit for awhile? Sure, I would!

-Kristi

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I feel exactly the same as you Kristi! I would KILL to visit and maybe even be able to see through the eyes of anyone of my choosing. But I'd like to come back. I don't dispute that others may be happier if they went back, I just don't think I would be. But as another poster pointed out -- we don't have that knowledge. WHO KNOWS!? I fully admit what I know about the golden era is seen through modern/slightly romantic eyes. The hair and clothing makes the bad stuff seem more glamourous and I fully admit to thinking this way.

 

[Blackjack]

Rue
“What always amazes me more than anything is that we are on a site that is about the Golden Era, but there's always this fight against those of us that would be happier back then. Aside from this computer, my life is exactly as it would be in that time period. I don't really need anything that was invented in the last 40 or so years and for the most part I don't use it “

AtomicEraTom
“Baffles me, too. I don't tell the modern-day-ers that what they're doing's wrong. I'm happier to discuss my issues with today with folks who understand; that's a big part of my membership here. I can be fairly certain that I would, in fact, be happier then, than now. I know what I am, I know what I like, and a society years back would be more tailored to a fella like myself.”

Forgive me, but I think you both are deluding yourselves by the notion that you’d necessarily be happier living back then. You (we all for that matter) have no choice but to view previous eras through modern eyes. As a result there is no immediacy of context for us, no uncertainty from moment to moment or day to day, no opposing forces to influence our choices and effect our circumstances. The trouble is that we know how it all turned out, for better or for worse, and unless a psychologist can elaborate otherwise, I really don’t think you deny that - you just can’t un-know what you know. Sure we can dream about living in earlier times, and I’ve done it myself, but without the exigencies and realities that gave meaning to the original context, we have no actual investment in the reality of another time period. Thus we pick and choose what makes up our impression and understanding of that era and in the end it all remains a fantasy, wearing costumes and play acting, nostalgia for times we never new. However, I might suggest that one can certainly, though perhaps only at best, aspire to those qualities and aspects which make a certain era appealing - facilitated of course by various garb, accoutrements and period methods - a fun and entertaining exercise to be sure.

Maybe you would be happier living in a previous era, who is anyone to say otherwise, unfortunately that’s something you’ll never be able to know; that knowledge simply does not exist.

Just a thought.

Oh my, I just noticed this is my 100th post! I think I'll celebrate by watching Casablanca this evening (as if I really need an excuse).

I don't agree that Rue and a few others here are deluding themselves at all. I for one am old enough to have parents who were born in the early 20's and grandparents who were born in the very late 1800's. I know what life was like for them in the 30's and 40's because they talked a lot about it, fondly. I know this is a source of debate around here but at least in my family I always heard that those years were "better" for whatever reasons they were thinking. If you've talked to enough people who lived through those years and have educated yourself to the differences in life now vs. then I think you very well could make a statement like Rue has and be dead on right. If she longs for a life that is simpler, clearer, and doesn't live for technology then I'm sure she would be happier living in those days. I sure as hell know I would.

 

[R.G. White]

I think whatever time, place, etc. you live in, it's up to you and nobody else to make it how you want it to be. If you don't like cellphones, don't use cellphones, if you don't like wearing jeans, don't wear jeans. People have complained and whined about their lives since the beginning of time, without realizing that they themselves need to find and make their own happiness. You don't have to be anyone you don't want to be.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

You may have been able to buy a full load of groceries for $10, but didn't the average person make about $30 a week? If so, that's not much different from a modern income/grocery bill.

As for the era....I love it. I love knowing the good AND the bad! I like knowing obscure little things and I also like to know how ALL people lived (race, class, gender, location, etc.) I don't think it was simpler than today, but as someone pointed out -- the lack of immediate information may have made it simpler.

Hell, when I think back to the 80s and 90s now I sometimes sit and think "What a simpler time!" lol

Also $10 in the 1940s, for example, is equivalent to $150-160 in today's money. Though nowadays it seems, when I say that money doesn't go as far as it used to, I'm often thinking about last year or couple years ago in comparison, not 20 or 30!

If she (Rue) longs for a life that is simpler, clearer, and doesn't live for technology then I'm sure she would be happier living in those days. I sure as hell know I would.

I've said this many times before but back then technology was something new and exciting. Today it's overwhelming.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've said this many times before but back then technology was something new and exciting. Today it's overwhelming.

It was much less omnipresent before the '90s. You had a television set, but it sat in the corner of your living room, and you had to go to it and watch it. You had a telephone, but it sat on a table or it hung on a wall, and if it rang and you weren't home, too bad. These were, I think, *good* limitations -- a way of keeping technology in its place, and I prefer to maintain those limitations in my own life for exactly that reason. Technology is the servant. It is not the master -- unless we buy into the propaganda from the people who sell it to us.

We hear a lot today about "being connected," and how technology helps us accomplish that. But, really, how "connected" are we? If you're in touch with a hundred people on Facebook or whatever, how much do you really know about them, and their lives? Is "being connected" the same as really knowing someone, talking with them, and spending time with them? Or is it simply a substitute for those things, an imitation of actual connection -- like sending an e-card to someone instead of an actual paper birthday card or handwritten note you have to sign and mail?

As far as the money issue goes, you could live a pleasant life in 1940 on $3000 a year -- that's about $60 a week, about what the average white-collar clerk or blue-collar factory hand made. But you didn't have as many trinkets and doodads to spend your money on, you didn't have so many demands on your bank account as you do now. That, I think, is the big difference.

 

[Hercule]

So, when older people wax nostalgically for the better times that were, why do you suppose they think that way? Were earlier times truely better for them or, is their view [opinion really] influenced by their feelings about modern times and the intervening years? Is it even possible to tell? Being objective, is there any context or motivation behind viewing earlier times as better?

I must say that I really enjoyed the PBS and/or BBC experiments with time travel that were the 1900s house, '40s house etc. Some seem to have been more successfull than others. I think the biggest failure was the American Colonial house and also so some degree Frontier house. With Colonial house I think they succumbed to the lowest common denominator and selected people based on personality and on how "out of water" they would be in the context of the project. It made for good TV of course, participants bucking the system and all. It would have been real interesting to have see what would have come of enlisting people who actually had a keen interest in making a go at it and getting into the experience. But that wouldn't necessarily have made for entertaining TV.

 

[KayEn78]

I agree wholeheartedly, LizzieMarie. Excellent post!

-Kristi

 

[rue]

I'm no expert, as I'm a modern person who knows what he knows from the Lounge, Reading, and from what people who were there say. I think the latter example is the best report, as they're local folks and I'm saying that as 21 year old me, living in the same place, doing the same job, and in no other way changing my life, besides the era, I'd be much happier. My wages as a Union Factory worker would go much farther than they do and I would fit in better culturally. I wouldn't be the odd duck for wearing the clothes I wear, or listening to the music I listen to, or doing much of what I do in my life.

I'm not saying the era was perfect and I'm not saying that my life would be perfect. I just feel that I'd be a lot better off. I wouldn't be such an oddity, which gets incredibly old. I'd likely be married, possibly own a house.

My Grandfather married in 1951 and built a house in Suburban Milwaukee, with the help of his father. He worked as a Union Lather and my grandmother never worked a day in her life. They raised five kids, and even built a summer home in 1958. Almost every person in their neighborhood had summer cabins, new cars, and nice homes. They didn't have fancy jobs that made a fortune, their next door neighbor worked at Schlitz, another at Allis-Chalmers, my Dad's first job was at Briggs and Stratton, they said that was a 'lifetime job' back then.

All of that's changed. Briggs and Stratton doesn't hardly have any jobs in Milwaukee anymore. Schlitz and Allis-Chalmers are long gone, too. The only big Milwaukee manufacturers still doing big in Milwaukee that come to mind are Master Lock and Harley-Davidson.

Now, I'm much like my grandfather, and I find it very hard to believe that my life would have varied much from his, were I living in the same generation. He did nothing spectacular, he went to a public school, got a job, got married, had a family, built a home, and just did the same as every other Suburban Milwaukee resident. That'd be more than enough for me to be much happier than I am now. So, how can you possibly tell me I wouldn't be happier then rather than now?

Just a thought.

Well said Tommy

 

[rue]

I don't agree that Rue and a few others here are deluding themselves at all. I for one am old enough to have parents who were born in the early 20's and grandparents who were born in the very late 1800's. I know what life was like for them in the 30's and 40's because they talked a lot about it, fondly. I know this is a source of debate around here but at least in my family I always heard that those years were "better" for whatever reasons they were thinking. If you've talked to enough people who lived through those years and have educated yourself to the differences in life now vs. then I think you very well could make a statement like Rue has and be dead on right. If she longs for a life that is simpler, clearer, and doesn't live for technology then I'm sure she would be happier living in those days. I sure as hell know I would.

Yup

 

[LizzieMaine]

So, when older people wax nostalgically for the better times that were, why do you suppose they think that way? Were earlier times truely better for them or, is their view [opinion really] influenced by their feelings about modern times and the intervening years? Is it even possible to tell? Being objective, is there any context or motivation behind viewing earlier times as better?

I think it's very simple, actually. Some people just naturally gravitate to the culture in which they were raised -- and everything else they will ever experience in their lives will use that native-born culture as a benchmark. It's like first-generation immigrants sticking to the ways of the Old Country while the second generation readily absorbs the ways of the New Country. "This is the way I was raised, this is the way I'm going to continue to live, and what business of it is yours?"

I don't mean that this is a conscious thing all the time, either. Try this: say the word "Telephone," and picture a telephone in your mind. If the image that comes to your mind is the telephone you grew up with, you're illustrating my point. For some of us, no matter how sophisticated the technology may be in the present day, the word "telephone" will first, automatically bring to mind the default image of a heavy, black metal thing that sits on a table. Those are the people I'm talking about.

 

[rue]

You know... the thing is that I don't think it would really be simpler as much as I would be with people like me and that understand me and the way I am. I could walk outside of my house and not feel like some sort of an alien from a vintage planet.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Exactly. Wouldn't it be nice to walk around town and your style was the style? Oh, you like Glenn Miller? So do most of the other folks in town. That new car, new radio, new hat, new clothes, new shoes, all the stuff that is new and popular is right up your alley. Sounds like a place I'd want to be.

You know... the thing is that I don't think it would really be simpler as much as I would be with people like me and that understand me and the way I am. I could walk outside of my house and not feel like some sort of an alien from a vintage planet.

 

[rue]

Exactly. Wouldn't it be nice to walk around town and your style was the style? Oh, you like Glenn Miller? So do most of the other folks in town. That new car, new radio, new hat, new clothes, new shoes, all the stuff that is new and popular is right up your alley. Sounds like a place I'd want to be.

That along with not being looked at funny because you're a homemaker with no desire for a career, like to dry your clothes on a line, don't have a dishwasher and don't want one, etc....

 

[sheeplady]

So, when older people wax nostalgically for the better times that were, why do you suppose they think that way? Were earlier times truely better for them or, is their view [opinion really] influenced by their feelings about modern times and the intervening years? Is it even possible to tell? Being objective, is there any context or motivation behind viewing earlier times as better?

We live in an increasingly "youth centered" society- something that I think really started to gain momentum in the 50s. There was ageism before that, but the focus on youth wasn't nearly as bad as it is today. Our products are built for the young, designed for the young, and used by the young. People are supposed to dress like the young. An entire market of products and procedures exist to keep us young. Employers prefer hiring younger workers over older workers. "Youth" is a desired quality; "Age" isn't just only undesirable, it's to be avoided *at all costs.* The plain fact is that our society isn't very nice to older people.

Based upon the older people I've spoken to, they could see this transition to more focus on youth throughout their lives. It's no wonder they would like to go back to a time when being over 40 (or even 30) wasn't considered such a liability.

 

[KayEn78]

Excellent points, everyone. I agree with a lot of what's been said here.

-Kristi

 

[Hercule]

We live in an increasingly "youth centered" society- something that I think really started to gain momentum in the 50s. There was ageism before that, but the focus on youth wasn't nearly as bad as it is today. Our products are built for the young, designed for the young, and used by the young. People are supposed to dress like the young. An entire market of products and procedures exist to keep us young. Employers prefer hiring younger workers over older workers. "Youth" is a desired quality; "Age" isn't just only undesirable, it's to be avoided *at all costs.* The plain fact is that our society isn't very nice to older people.

Based upon the older people I've spoken to, they could see this transition to more focus on youth throughout their lives. It's no wonder they would like to go back to a time when being over 40 (or even 30) wasn't considered such a liability.

Interesting indeed, as well as what Lizzie said about harkening back to what is more comfortable. I think that as we age be become more and more disengaged with the world around us and in the process we begin to feel alienated and out of place as our inability to cope (to varying degrees) with progress developes. The ongoing social, cultural, technicalogical evolution of the world around us that is the progression time increasingly threatens our established sense of who we are and what values and characterisicts we are made of (. Thus we fondly look back to those times in which we came of age and were at our best - those times of which we are a product.

But what about yearning for times you've never known (which seems to be the point of this thread)? Isn't it all just supposition based on perceptions built up from second and third hand knowledge. You yearn for YOUR IMPRESSION 1940's (distinctly different from MY IMPRESSION by the way) which are not, and cannot be THE 1940s. [Oh my, I just realized that this is actually a discussion of Aritotelian vs Platonic aesthetics - good God! I never thought I'd go there again since grad school decades ago] In actuallity, I submit, many of those aspects which we may take as more attractive by comparason - 3 bags of groceries for $10 et al - were just as onerous then as they are today, it's all relative. What should be said is that I'd like to trade today's problems for yesterdays. But then again we know how it all turned out so we have no risk, therefore those were simpler and better times weren't they.

Enough pontificating for now, I need to get to the store to get fixins for supper - Chicken Parm, spag and asparagas! Company will bring wine and desert and 6 year old [virtuoso] violinist will provide entertainment.

See ya Monday.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But what about yearning for times you've never known (which seems to be the point of this thread)? Isn't it all just supposition based on perceptions built up from second and third hand knowledge.

I think you're confusing calendars with culture. Many, even most of us in this thread aren't fixated on a year, or a span of years. We're holding onto an environment and a culture which we did know first hand -- when many of us talk about living in a neighborhood where we didn't have to lock our doors at night, and people sat on their porches on summer nights listening to the ballgame on the radio, and everybody knew and looked after everybody else, and people made good union money at the shoe factory or the pants factory or the sardine plant, and went to bean suppers at the Methodist church hall on Saturdays, and bought fresh mackerel off a red wagon pulled up the street by some kid, those aren't "impressions", they're things we actually remember. I actually sat on those porches, ate those bean suppers, and helped fry those mackerel.

That's the culture many of us knew firsthand -- it has nothing to do with the year, and everything to do with the zeitgeist. That's what we want back -- and we find modern culture, for all of its "connections" and its shiny gewgaws a poor substitute. Imagine a group of people sitting on a porch each coupled into their own little world thru their own little ipod ear thingies, each oblivious to every other person, and you'll understand why we feel that way. It's a pretty lame substitute for community.

 

[rue]

As always... you said it better than anyone else Lizzie.