Big Swifty
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 8 Nov 2011
- Messages
- 4,246
It is now the received wisdom that life has improved over the last 30,40,50 or 60 years. Not everyone might agree, though. What cannot be disputed are the following:
- Health care (e.g. cancer treatment) and life expectancy are improved
- The Clean Air Act has ended the killer smogs of the 1950s
- Racism, sexism and homophobia are now seen as unacceptable
- Pubs, restaurants, cinemas and public transport are free from tobacco fumes
- Minimum wage
- Central heating in homes is the norm, not just for the rich
- Motorways avoid drivers being held up in a succession of town centres on longer trips
- Football stadia are more comfortable, pitches are infinitely better
- A much wider choice of foodstuffs
- Hundreds of TV channels, not just two or three
- I will not pass judgment on the dreaded social media.....
However, some (generally older) folk look back on the past with some fondness.
What I wonder is - was anything better in the past, i.e. within the memory of some of the pre-millennial Bluemooners? Would you really wish to go back to your early life?
Life wasn't easy then, but we didn't know any better, and our expectations were more modest. Not that it isn't hard for some people nowadays.
For all our modern creature comforts, have we lost something we had in earlier times?
- Health care (e.g. cancer treatment) and life expectancy are improved
- The Clean Air Act has ended the killer smogs of the 1950s
- Racism, sexism and homophobia are now seen as unacceptable
- Pubs, restaurants, cinemas and public transport are free from tobacco fumes
- Minimum wage
- Central heating in homes is the norm, not just for the rich
- Motorways avoid drivers being held up in a succession of town centres on longer trips
- Football stadia are more comfortable, pitches are infinitely better
- A much wider choice of foodstuffs
- Hundreds of TV channels, not just two or three
- I will not pass judgment on the dreaded social media.....
However, some (generally older) folk look back on the past with some fondness.
What I wonder is - was anything better in the past, i.e. within the memory of some of the pre-millennial Bluemooners? Would you really wish to go back to your early life?
Life wasn't easy then, but we didn't know any better, and our expectations were more modest. Not that it isn't hard for some people nowadays.
For all our modern creature comforts, have we lost something we had in earlier times?