Would you, if you could?

[BinkieBaumont]

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[The Lonely Navigator]

I'd much rather leave the crummy stuff in the past and bring all the good stuff to the present.

I have to agree with the others regarding racism, sexism, etc. to be left behind. I'm not the type for those either and the further behind they are left, in my view, the better.

While I do think that advances in science and medicine have been very helpful in saving our lives and prolonging our health - I also think that it has become a double edged sword (anti-biotic resistant 'bugs'). I'm a 'believer' in using 'fire to fight fire' - natural therapies that have withstood the test of time (not that I feel that allopathic medicine should be totally done away with - but made to work in conjunction with natural remedies, rather than being totally dismissed - although that seems to be something more characteristic of the U.S. than countries in Europe, like Germany for example). So, I think that the more positive attitude towards these things should be brought up to the present.

On a somewhat related note - I had recently had Raw Milk and felt better after drinking it. It tastes better than the pasteurized milk (it doesn't have that awful after-taste) and was told that the pasteurization of milk started in 1920. So, in connection with my paragraph above, it would be nice to see Raw Milk made more available (thankfully in my state it is easily available). It's the only kind of milk I care to drink from now on if I were to drink milk at all (as I use Almond Milk).

 

[Mr Badger]

Britain, until the 1980s, was a dump

Damn straight there, Baron!

I'm 40 and have seen great cultural changes since I was a little kid in the 1970s. It's strange to realise that I'm probably the last generation to leave school and end up working in a factory ('What's industry, mummy?') and not get computer training as part of my education (it was for the top math class only, and the 'power supply' unit was kept in the science lab fridge!), never mind remember how difficult it was to find out about anything on those pre-internet days, unless you could physically access a book/magazine/vinyl record/film.

However, my pre-internet years, many of which I spent working in public libraries, have made me very aware that the one thing missing for the youngsters of today is context. They have no idea of what anything really means to people, in the physical world - it's just another item on a seemingly endless information highway. As someone who's as interested in why people do things as much as what, I feel that the internet and current teaching methods are contributing to a culturally disconnected society...

That said, I'd rather live in the 21st Century, thanks very much! For working class people, life's mostly been 'nasty, brutal and short' up until now...

Yes, there are a lot of things that I'd like to experience, should I be able to travel backwards in time, but these are always the artistic exception to what life was like for the majority of people.

Put simply, for culture-hounds such as ourselves, the possibilities for exploring the great artistic wealth of the 'golden era' is far greater today than it's ever been before. Luckily, most of us are of an age to be able to put our interests into social context, otherwise it'd just be 'dressing up' like we're still kids...

 

[Ada Vice]

Damn straight there, Baron!

I'm 40 and have seen great cultural changes since I was a little kid in the 1970s. It's strange to realise that I'm probably the last generation to leave school and end up working in a factory

Call centres are the modern day factories I've heard it said....

 

[Mr Badger]

Call centres are the modern day factories I've heard it said....

You got that rite, sister...

 

[Undertow]

Call centers ARE very much the modern day factory. You're underpaid as a rule with a small range of imporvement. You have a convulted hierarchy of supervisors, team leads, group leads, etc. set in place to act as a deterrent (in more ways than one). You're chances of receiving a raise are purposely marginalized due to an often arbitrary and subjetive system of quality assurance, production percentages, etc.

Although sick time and vacation time are available, they're usually one in the same and they're both often frowned on. Additionally, in order to use your paid-time-off, most call centers have further rules in place requiring prior notification and scheduling before you're granted leave. When you break the rules, you're given infractions against your record, too many of which result in sudden unemployment. Imagine, you wake up puking but you can't call in sick because you haven't given your employer at least 24 hours notice? Happens all the time around me.

Moreover, once you've worked in a call center, it's extremely hard to move parallel through the company - they don't want customer service, no matter how often they talk about the value of your training and business knowledge. Additionally, if you leave the company and going to another corporation, don't even hope for a job in another department. If they hire you, it will be for the call center only.

 

[de-stressed]

However, my pre-internet years, many of which I spent working in public libraries, have made me very aware that the one thing missing for the youngsters of today is context. They have no idea of what anything really means to people, in the physical world - it's just another item on a seemingly endless information highway. As someone who's as interested in why people do things as much as what, I feel that the internet and current teaching methods are contributing to a culturally disconnected society...

Completely agree with you! I sometimes wonder now if someone was hurt on the side of the road if people would actually help or just stop to take a picture for the net. I'm being sarcastic here, but really I wonder after watching the news in my area last week.

I would only like to go back into the past to see family and how they lived/interacted together. I would love to be a fly on the wall and just go through a day in the life of an ancestor.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Im not a big fan of technology but I am also not a fan of much of the mindset-ignorance before fairly recent times.

...and I don't much long for the days when cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses any more serious than a hangnail were automatic death sentences.

AF

 

[scottyrocks]

...and I don't much long for the days when cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses any more serious than a hangnail were automatic death sentences.

AF

Yeah, and I was gonna add that my chronic condition (diabetes) would have been in its infancy stages of treatment, insulin being invented in 1921. And given the propensity of low income folk, being one of them I might notve been able to afford it.

 

[Big Man]

Something to think about ...

We all talk about how nice it would be to go back, but without the "bad" of then and take the "good" of today. However, for the sake of discussion, how bad were the "bad" things of the past viewed by people of the past in the past?

Ok, that may be a bit of a complicated question. I guess what I'm trying to say is we tend to view the "bad" of the past relative to the standards, improvements, technology, and conveniences of today. Will people 80 or so years into the future look back on our present time and say, "things were sure bad in 2010"?

How much of past "bad" is relevant to the "good" of the present, and will some of what we see as "good" now be viewed as "bad" in the future?

 

[Atticus Finch]

Yeah, and I was gonna add that my chronic condition (diabetes) would have been in its infancy stages of treatment, insulin being invented in 1921. And given the propensity of low income folk, being one of them I might notve been able to afford it.

...also, Fender Telecasters, fiberglass offshore fishing boats, Jeeps, composite fly rods and affordable air conditioners were all invented after the 'thirties. Nah, I think I'll stay in this century, thanks.

AF

 

[Puzzicato]

Call centres are the modern day factories I've heard it said....

Except that a great many callcentre workers have a university education.

 

[Puzzicato]

However, for the sake of discussion, how bad were the "bad" things of the past viewed by people of the past in the past?

I think the answer to that is "it depends"! Of course it is hard to see the water you are swimming in. If you sicken with something people always die from, people must have thought it was sad but almost inevitable (I base this on Little Women...) Certainly not as shocking as a death that is sad but preventable. There was a report in the papers a couple of months ago of a man in the UK who died from an infected cavity in his teeth - which I found absolutely appalling. But you can't tell me that people who saw their babies die didn't grieve and didn't think "this isn't fair" or "if only there was something I could do". And we know that there were philanthropists and scientists and idealists who could see that there were better ways of treating people and living, so there must have been some people who could stand aside from their society and say objectively "this is bad".

 

[benstephens]

I think the answer to that is "it depends"! Of course it is hard to see the water you are swimming in. If you sicken with something people always die from, people must have thought it was sad but almost inevitable (I base this on Little Women...) Certainly not as shocking as a death that is sad but preventable. There was a report in the papers a couple of months ago of a man in the UK who died from an infected cavity in his teeth - which I found absolutely appalling. But you can't tell me that people who saw their babies die didn't grieve and didn't think "this isn't fair" or "if only there was something I could do". And we know that there were philanthropists and scientists and idealists who could see that there were better ways of treating people and living, so there must have been some people who could stand aside from their society and say objectively "this is bad".

I think George Orwell managed to look objectively at society and realise the extent of poverty and deprivation that existed across the country. It becomes apparent that when reading books like Road to Wigan Pier that people were aware that life was actually not that good, but tended to except their lot, perhaps knowing no better. Very little had really changed for some, the lives they were leading would not have been much different to their Grandfathers would have known. AS Baron said, it is really only recent times that standards of living have really improved.

Ben

 

[JimWagner]

I think most people who want to live in the past want to live in a movie set in an idealized past, not the actual past.

 

[scottyrocks]

We all talk about how nice it would be to go back, but without the "bad" of then and take the "good" of today. However, for the sake of discussion, how bad were the "bad" things of the past viewed by people of the past in the past?

Ok, that may be a bit of a complicated question. I guess what I'm trying to say is we tend to view the "bad" of the past relative to the standards, improvements, technology, and conveniences of today. Will people 80 or so years into the future look back on our present time and say, "things were sure bad in 2010"?

How much of past "bad" is relevant to the "good" of the present, and will some of what we see as "good" now be viewed as "bad" in the future?

And this is the crux of the challenge of studying history. It is virtually impossible for a modern person to fully understand life, or have empathy for someone who lived before they were born because the modern person is a 'victim' of the time s/he lives in. It is extraordinarily difficult to strip away everything one knows and place themselves in the mind of someone, even if it was themselves, in the past.

We know of our modern conveniences. If we were the same person, molecule for molecule, that we are today, and lived before we were born instead of today, we would not be the same person in both times.

 

[Puzzicato]

I think most people who want to live in the past want to live in a movie set in an idealized past, not the actual past.

I saw a documentary a while ago on the building of the Palace of Versailles. I much prefer the idealized past of glitter and grandeur to the (apparent) reality of no plumbing and going to the toilet in random corners of the ballroom.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

I think most people who want to live in the past want to live in a movie set in an idealized past, not the actual past.

Like Woody Allen?

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[Chas]

On one hand, I could go and listen (and play) on 52nd Street. But that wouldn't last forever, because I would be compelled to join the freedom riders, and would probably end up like Jim Zwerg.

Or worse- could end up like Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney. I respectfully decline.

 

[ScionPI2005]

How much of past "bad" is relevant to the "good" of the present, and will some of what we see as "good" now be viewed as "bad" in the future?

Perhaps part of our general consensus of deciding we'd rather not live in the past is due to Our knowledge of both the past, and our present day.

It's like the saying "hindsight is 20/20". If we lived in the Golden Era, we wouldn't know how much better (or worse) things would be in the future. We would just end up making due, and accepting what we could personally change, and dealing with what we could not change.

I think if a time machine existed, the user would have a very hard time deciding what time to live in. They would find something in each era a setback or a disappointment, and attempt to remedy that problem in another time, only to find a new issue.