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Were this the ‘good ole times’ they always talk about?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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I've been around since 1959, and back then people were up in arms about the partisan divide in this country and the Vietnam conflict and the oppression of black and other races. Back then, domestic abuse was sort of commonplace, no man could be sent to jail for beating up his kids or his wife. Alcoholism was rampant back then, and drug abuse shot up dramatically. Since then, I've seen so much of the same play out over and over. Things have changed somewhat for the better in some ways, but to be honest - there never was a 'good old time' when everyone felt happy and equal and safe and protected.
In my experience people who talk about the good old days are white and male.
It was a time when they got their way 100% and everyone else could get fucked.
More likely it was when they were kids and without adult responsibilities, or narrow/whitewashed views of the past(as from stories and shows from before their birth)
I look back at my childhood as the 'good ole days' mostly because of the no responsibilities thing. The more I learn about what stuff was really going on in the 90's/2000s, the more I see there was no good ole days, just times when I was insulated from the harsh realities of the world.
I hold similar views(obviously), but I find something comforting in it. Like, rather than living in a ruined paradise lost by us or our parents, we live in a complicated world where we share the work of trying to make something better with our ancestors.
(Of course, we also have to figure out how to do that, and, in a complicated world, that can be challenging and lead to conflict)
There's definitely points where things get worse.
9/11 is one of them.
My childhood in the 60s and 70s was idyllic, I have to admit - growing up on a private reserve with mountains all around and having woods around to play and get lost in. I loved it all - but even then I knew about the conflicts going on and how unhappy most adults seemed.