Why "The Good Old Days" Are Never The Good Old Days

[rhinefire]

Looking back has it's place but the list of what was the norm in previous years is most often something to shake one's head and ask what were we thinking?
I am not in favor of passing laws to cover every mode of behavior but think back say to the 50s or 60s and take in what was OK back then.
Segregation for one. I'll never forget going through the south from Illinois to Florida with my family on vacation and seeing the "For Whites Only" signs. Also there was litter everywhere and polluted creeks and streams. Bribing a police officer was much more prominent then. In 1966 I gave a Cicero, Il. cop to let me off a moving violation. That was the first and only bribe for me.
Domestic violence was usually shoved aside by police if they were even called for it.
Animals had no rights back then.
Children had very few rights back then as well.

 

[ecofarm]

You glorify the past when the future dries up.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

It is human nature to remember the good things about the past and forget the bad whether it is in your personal life or on a larger scale as the OP eludes to. If only we could have kept the good things about the 50s and thrown out the bad but somehow it just didn't work that way.

 

[ecofarm]

If only we could have kept the good things about the 50s and thrown out the bad but somehow it just didn't work that way.

What was good about the '50s?

 

[KevinKohler]

What was good about the '50s?

The economy?

 

[ecofarm]

The economy?

You want another Marshall Plan?

 

[KevinKohler]

You want another Marshall Plan?

Hey, you asked a question, and I (sort of) tried to answer...

 

[sawyerloggingon]

What was good about the '50s?

Kids out trick or treating without fear of being abducted. A booming economy. Not locking your doors at night. Route 66. Things Made in America. The 57 Chevy. Girls that said no. 30 cents per gallon for gas and a free plate with every fill up. The Texaco man............................

 

[brothern]

Looking back has it's place but the list of what was the norm in previous years is most often something to shake one's head and ask what were we thinking?

Like sawyerlogging said, I think it's human nature to remember the Good rather than the Bad. It's also my theory that people have a hard time thinking about any before their birth. Logically, I know the 70s and 80s existed. Emotionally, I don't have any connection to the 70s and 80s. So as wide-eyed kid, the 90s to me were the best, but since I don't connect emotionally with the 70s and 80s, its easy for me (or anyone) to assume that they must have been just as good as the 90s!

Nostalgia kinda bugs me. Then again, I'm only 23. Maybe my views will change.

 

[Stewart]

You want another Marshall Plan?

Wasn't that aid to the European States for post-war recovery?

 

[libertyMoney]

Looking back has it's place but the list of what was the norm in previous years is most often something to shake one's head and ask what were we thinking?

I agree with every point you make but this comment feels a little bit harsh.
I feel like judging them for their idiotic treatment of other people is like judging a doctor for not using Penicillin before 1928. People just didn't know.

In fact, you could look at what was happening 100 years before that and say, "these people were really making some positive changes for history. Imagine, there was slavery not that much earlier."

Now imagine you're 100 years in the future: People are going to look back at us like we're absolutely insane for some of the things we do and don't think twice about.
(I would get specific but that would go into serious speculation and bs'ing.)

Life has certainly improved since then.
Life is going to improve from now.
You're certainly right about the good ol' days.
(Perhaps the good ol' days is always back when we were children and didn't have to work for a living?)

 

[Dittohead not!]

It is human nature to remember the good things about the past and forget the bad whether it is in your personal life or on a larger scale as the OP eludes to. If only we could have kept the good things about the 50s and thrown out the bad but somehow it just didn't work that way.

I agree with that. The problem is, when we remember the good things about the past and forget the bad, then that makes the present look worse by comparison, and leads us to think that the future is pretty dim.

Maybe the present is pretty good after all.

 

[Dittohead not!]

Like sawyerlogging said, I think it's human nature to remember the Good rather than the Bad. It's also my theory that people have a hard time thinking about any before their birth. Logically, I know the 70s and 80s existed. Emotionally, I don't have any connection to the 70s and 80s. So as wide-eyed kid, the 90s to me were the best, but since I don't connect emotionally with the 70s and 80s, its easy for me (or anyone) to assume that they must have been just as good as the 90s!

Nostalgia kinda bugs me. Then again, I'm only 23. Maybe my views will change.

You haven't lived long enough to be nostalgic yet. Give yourself another 40 or 50 years. They'll pass a lot quicker than you think they will.

 

[specklebang]

What was good about the '50s?

The unlocked doors on most homes. The Sir and Mam used by young ones. Ducks ass haircuts (not really). Children with a parent at home instead of day care.

 

[Fruityfact]

You haven't lived long enough to be nostalgic yet. Give yourself another 40 or 50 years. They'll pass a lot quicker than you think they will.

I don't recall from where, but some from some online source I learned that the years seem to accelerate because the only perception of time you have is events from your past. Thus the more events you have to be nostalgic over, the longer that time period seems to be. Ex. Childhood seems so long because each and every experience is brand new thus mentally as you look back there is more "there"

 

[Ray410]

As your bellwether of how good the past was in America, compare the astronomical number of young people that commit suicide today, kids without hope that only wish to die, to the negative number of suicidal kids in the Fifties, when teen suicide was virtually unheard of.

That is your gauge as to the destruction wrought upon the goodness that was America by sixty years of childlike Liberal shrieking and raging about their "issues."

 

[sedan]

What was good about the '50s?

It was a great time to be a kid.

Seriously -- during the baby boom there were kids everywhere.

Even in the sixties you couldn't drive down a suburban street without seeing dozens of kids out playing.

Now you drive down those very same streets and you won't see a soul outside of a vehicle.

It's like being on a different planet.

 

[Hard Truth]

Looking back has it's place but the list of what was the norm in previous years is most often something to shake one's head and ask what were we thinking?
I am not in favor of passing laws to cover every mode of behavior but think back say to the 50s or 60s and take in what was OK back then.
Segregation for one. I'll never forget going through the south from Illinois to Florida with my family on vacation and seeing the "For Whites Only" signs. Also there was litter everywhere and polluted creeks and streams. Bribing a police officer was much more prominent then. In 1966 I gave a Cicero, Il. cop to let me off a moving violation. That was the first and only bribe for me.
Domestic violence was usually shoved aside by police if they were even called for it.
Animals had no rights back then.
Children had very few rights back then as well.

Much of the conservative nostalgia for the past and the related desire to oppose most social and political change is from those who most benefitted from the old ways and lost some of their power and privilege since then. White Christian men lost their housewives doing domestic and child rearing chores, their access to cheap labor, including domestic servants, thanks to legal discrimination against blacks and other minorities, and their assigned status of superiority and privilege, both socially and legally.

 

[Ray410]

Much of the conservative nostalgia for the past and the related desire to oppose most social and political change is from those who most benefitted from the old ways and lost some of their power and privilege since then. White Christian men lost their housewives doing domestic and child rearing chores, their access to cheap labor, including domestic servants, thanks to legal discrimination against blacks and other minorities, and their assigned status of superiority and privilege, both socially and legally.

That post is absolute nonsense.

 

[Hard Truth]

That post is absolute nonsense.

Older southern white men are the most conservative people in the USA. They are the ones who lost the most since the "good old days" of the 1950s and they are the ones who fought hardest against equal rights for blacks, women, gays and non-Christians.

 

[Dittohead not!]

I don't recall from where, but some from some online source I learned that the years seem to accelerate because the only perception of time you have is events from your past. Thus the more events you have to be nostalgic over, the longer that time period seems to be. Ex. Childhood seems so long because each and every experience is brand new thus mentally as you look back there is more "there"

That sounds about right. I can tell you from experience that time does indeed seem to pass faster and faster the longer you live.

 

[Dittohead not!]

It was a great time to be a kid.

Seriously -- during the baby boom there were kids everywhere.

Even in the sixties you couldn't drive down a suburban street without seeing dozens of kids out playing.

Now you drive down those very same streets and you won't see a soul outside of a vehicle.

It's like being on a different planet.

There are still kids. They're inside, playing video games and getting fatter and fatter.

 

[Hard Truth]

There are still kids. They're inside, playing video games and getting fatter and fatter.

I partially blame the excessive media hype around stranger abduction and sexual exploitation of kids (i.e news reports, the anti-sex trafficking fad and shows like Law and Order SVU etc) which scares many parents into thinking that those problems are much more widespread than they actually are. Many parents are keeping their children at home more and reducing kid's opportunities to socialize and actively play outside as a result.