Who else believes there is no such thing as the good old days?

Question

I believe people only use selective memory when conjuring up memories of their childhood and growing up in the so called good old days. They pick their best memories and run with it forgetting all the problems of that time period. You can pick any decade that someone thinks as the good old days and point out all the problems then that make it no better than the present. Lets pick the fab 50's everyone is so fond of, the Klan was alive and well and black people were still being strung up on trees, much shorter life expectancy and primitave medical care by todays standards, a man could freely beat his wife and kids and it was his own buisiness, etc. etc. Teens very much got pregnant and either married young or where banished away like lepers, illegal unsafe abortions where common, Korean War, etc. etc.

Answer 1

I agree with you. I think alot of the "good ol' days" are viewed from childhood, which is much simpler. I think about the good old days when women cooked everything from scratch (most of it had to be gathered first from gardens, canned, milled, slaughtered, processed by them), washed clothes by hand and scrub boards, hung on lines (where the dogs, cattle or goats pulled them off and played with them), scrubbed wooden floors on hands and knees with a scrub brush, pulled heavy carpets outdoors once a year and beat them to get the dust out. People had to write instead of call. Men had to use scythes to cut wheat. Baling hay meant baling hay by hand. People had to wear awful, constricting clothing. And there was no such thing as "decorative style". You just stuck furniture where it fit or whatever. And then in the sixties, they had that hideous "modern" style, or the even worse "Mediterranean". There were sleeping porches for people to sleep on in hot weather (bless the person who invented refrigerated air!), one pot-bellied stove or a cast iron stove to use for cooking and providing heat, no indoor plumbing or bathrooms, outhouses................what was good?

Answer 2

You're looking at it in too broad of a scope. Let's look at the 50's again: Fathers worked and mothers stayed at home to care for the children. That's right, most families had both parents living under the same roof. Divorce was something only movie stars did, and really, not too often even then. Families were getting their first glimpse of a television and they were in awe. Everyone would gather around their one television set and watch 1 of 4 channels, and no one argued over who got to watch what. Kids could walk down to the corner ice cream store or soda shop and not worry about being shot or mugged. They could listen to 5 of their favorite songs on a jukebox for a nickel. Kids would never backtalk their parents and if they did, they would get their face smacked, and then the kid would be ashamed and apologize to the parent. And no one thought anything about it. No one cried child abuse for a parent disciplining their own child. Sometimes a parent would get carried away in disciplining, but nowadays you can't even look at your child the wrong way without someone claiming child abuse. Yes, the KKK was active and lynching should never have happened to anyone. Let's look at the 90's, shall we? Mom and Dad can't live together anymore because all they do is argue. By the way, Mom decided she's a lesbian and is moving in with her new girlfriend. But that's okay, when I told mom that I wansn't going to live with her because she was being a b**ch, she slapped me. Children's Aid removed me from my home and now I'm living with a foster family. I was playing basketball at the park when a car drove by and open fired, killing my friend's 9 year old sister, who was watching us play. See? Wasn't that much better?

Answer 3

Of course people look back and only think of the good things. It's called nostalgia. I look back at the eighties and think about how much I enjoyed myself, and loved the music. But I am also one of the few 80's wildchilds who also sees the bad things too. Like the destruction of many great industries, the rise in the level of greed, the number of strikes we had, football hooliganism etc.

I will always look back with a degree of fondness, I just hope the time never comes when I think the 80s were perfect.

Answer 4

I agree with you. These were really the bad old days. Maybe we can say that some some issues seem more complex now. But they were just as complex for the people of those times. The difference is that we have hindsight on their history that they didn't have at the time. Future generations will be just as judgemental on our own times. But like those peoples in, say the 'fab 50's' ,we will be that necessary rung in the ladder that allowed them to climb to a position where maybe they can judge us, but can they do better ?. I hope they can.

Answer 5

It's true we use selective memory and that there is good and bad times for each decade. But as time passes there all always somethings that were better in the past and somethings that were worse. As a child of the 60's there was alot of innovative progress around then as reflected in music, technology and fashion. Today things seem to be alot more settled and homogenized, borrrring.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

I wish I could answer, but since I did not live through "the good old days", I cannot answer .... I would disqualify myself from being "a reliable witness" ..... all I can say is that there is good in every era ...

Answer 8

I agree. Anyway, my good days are right now.

Answer 9

like you said,,"the good old days"

Answer 10

I very much agree with everything you said!!!!!!!!!