Normal to prefer to have lived in the 1910s-1930s than today?

50% Normal

I really feel that the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s would've been a better time to live through than today. I know that the depression and record unemployment happened in the early 1930s, but so many other things seemed better back then. The films and music was much nicer than today's. People dressed much nicer, men almost always wore suits and ties and women almost always wore beautiful dresses. People were just more orderly, mannered, had a more structured system in how they did everything, they certainly cared more about each other, trusted each other more than today, it was safer and people could more comfortably leave their doors unlocked, they could let their kids play outside without the fear of some sicko molester lurking around, there was more of a community among neighbors and people visited with each other more without burying themselves in their I-pad or smartphone, they had more empathy towards others and listened to other people better, they cussed less and people didn't say "fuck you, shut the fuck up, fucking this, fucking that, etc." like they do today, people meant what they said more and you didn't have to wonder as much what people really thought, they were there for each other more, even though racism was worse then, superficial prejudices like looks, etc. was not as bad, more women saved sex until marriage and there were much fewer women proudly slutting around, women didn't play games with guys' heads or try to use them as much and they were usually more sweet and sincere and just wanted a trusting relationship, and people in general were just more simple, there was less complications and confusions in the world. I really feel that the world was a nicer place and that I was born way too late. I'm just too nice, caring, and simple for today's world. My thoughts normal?

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50% Normal

Based on 10 votes (5 yes)

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Comments ( 18 )

dirtybirdy

5 years ago

How do you feel about paragraphs?

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donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

5 years ago

yall should read some steinbeck novels

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Boojum

5 years ago

Yeah, it was a great period - if you weren't one of the 40 million or so who died in WWI, and you also managed to survive the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed another 80 million or so. It would have improved your enjoyment hugely if you weren't black in most areas of the USA - particularly in the South - and weren't a member of another group (Irish, Polish, Catholic, Jew, etc.) in parts of the US where they were discriminated against routinely. Being a man would have made it more fun too, since you wouldn't die in childbirth and you were highly unlikely to suffer from the domestic violence that was widely accepted as normal. And, of course, your enjoyment of this exciting period in history would have been somewhat hampered if you were suffering some life-long disability due to childhood illnesses that are never seen today. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness such as diabetes or come down with TB as an adult would have also limited your enjoyment, since doctors weren't able to do much to treat most illnesses, and they could do fuck all about many. (My maternal grandfather died of complications caused by his Type II diabetes in his late twenties in the 1930s. When's the last time you heard of that happening these days?)

So, yeah, if you were a healthy, white, Protestant American man in his prime with a decent job that didn't disappear during the Depression, life was probably pretty good and a lot less confusing and complicated than how it is today.

Anyone who looks to any period of the past and sees a Lost Golden Age doesn't know much about what life was like then for ordinary people, and that attitude also suggests they're profoundly unappreciative of all the good things about life today. There were some things about life in the first thirty years of the twentieth century that were socially positive and beneficial to the physical and emotional health of individuals; there were also a lot of truly shitty things about life back then. There are things about life today that create stress, confusion, anger and disappointment, but that doesn't mean we're living in a man-made hell.

I won't bother to go into every one of the spurious points you make about how wonderful life was in the Good Old Days, but I will pick up on one thing: you say that women back then were more honest and didn't try to use men. Look up the origins of the term "gold digger". You'll discover that it originated right in the middle of the period you think was so wonderfully honest and non-exploitative.

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- Anonymous Post Author
  
  5 years ago
  
  You've got some points there. Yes, there were a great many deaths during WW1 and during the great flu epidemic in the 1910s, people still got polio and smallpox back then and they don't anymore, and medicine was less advanced. But, some illnesses like cancer and heart disease are worse now since people back then ate food that was more pure and less processed than food today. Other diseases like meningitis have still claimed many lives in more recent times. And hiv/aids didn't even exist until the 1970s. Obesity has also gotten worse over the decades.
  
  Yes, the depression during the early 1930s did bring in record unemployment, but it got better after around 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt introduced the New Deal. And employment was at record highs during the roaring twenties and many people really enjoyed life.
  
  Read my response to little sparrow below where I'm explaining how crime and racism is not necessarily worse today.
  
  Yes, there were definitely difficult times in the 1900-1940s time period, but there were many things that were better than today. I still strongly believe that there is accuracy to the points I've made in my post up top on how things were better then. I don't understand how anyone cannot see how messed up, superficial, hostile, corrupt, and distrusting today's world is.
  
  Also, about the golddiggers back in the early 1900s, that was just one type of woman. I own the film Golddiggers 33 with Joan Blondell and Dick Powell and I'm aware of the golddigger type of the time. And it's also mentioned how mainly the big cities and in particular New York is where the golddiggers were. There were many other cities, towns, and rural places which definitely had a more decent society than most places today do.
  
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JellyBeanBandit

5 years ago

Well how do you know that people really were nicer back then? If it's from movies then of course they're only going to show a disproportionate amount of positive aspects. If it's from old people talking nostalgically then obviously they're going to be biased and only mention the nice things.

Plus I never understood people who wish they could go back to a certain time for the films and music. You can get all their films and music nowadays on the internet. In fact you can probably get access to much more of their films and music than they could get themselves.

And then there were so many terrible things back then: illness, racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual repression, religious oppression, a less open-minded more conservative attitude in general, less access to different viewpoints and cultures, school corporal punishment, less education, much less access to electricity, poorer insulation and heating, less entertainment, practically no communication with family who have emigrated, harder manual labour due to less machinery, etc.

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TerriAngel

5 years ago

Only if I could go to Germany and convince them to stop the war.

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- Anonymous Post Author
  
  5 years ago
  
  Oh, it was horrible in Germany during that era, and even more than horrible there during WW2. My post is about America during the early 1900s. But another problem about that time period was having to be drafted to war during WW1 and WW2 and going to jail if you dodged the draft.
  
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  - TerriAngel
    
    5 years ago
    
    I get what you're saying.
    But, if Germany didn't enter the war.
    The U S would only ever have had Japan to deal with.
    Italy wasn't shit.
    The U.S.S.R. Germany would have kept in check.
    Do it right.
    No communist china.
    No Korean war.
    No Cuban missile thing.
    No vietnam.
    No afganistan.
    No iran/contra.
    No Kim jung.
    No putin.
    Etc.
    
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  - Mark92
    
    5 years ago
    
    Since you talk of the US, the 1900s was a great time during the Teddy Roosevelt Era, the US was booming during the period, a great time when we valued masculinity and did not have all these liberal craps that exist today (lgbt considered a mental disease like it should be, the women suffrage movement was not nearly as bad as later movements). 1930s was horrible due to the great depression, people were dying of poverty and the suicide rate was ever rising, I think thats the worst decade in the US (and most of the world tbh) in the 20th Century. You said one thing wrong though, small pox and similar diseases which were incurable at that time were terrible disease and I rather die of heat attack or cancer than that dreadful disease, not only it caused intense suffering to the victims and gave painful deaths (see pics of small pox victims, the rashes alone would be bad enough but there are other horrible effects), the diseases were highly stigmatized, people faced isolation, shaming, etc before dying. 500 million people alone died in the first half of the 20th Century of small pox before the disease was finally eradicated in the 1970s. It was also used for biological warfare (there are reports in the world wars, even back in the 16th Century 90% Native American population are said to have been killed by the small pox when Europeans invaded them and used the disease as weapon against them, a particular case is in the spanish conquest of America. It's only speculation but they gave blankets infected with smallpox to the local population, 25 millions died between 1519-1632 which is astounding given the lower world population of less around only 600 million then compared to over 1 billion by the 1900s, and the rapid advancement of medicine and decline in wars after WW2 caused human population to reach 7 billion by 2000s.) There are also report that armies would trap and shoot infected people during war times to prevent them from spreading the disease, as the small pox virus was very contagious and could easily spread. I rather die of getting blasted by modern day technology than ever catching something as dreadful as that. The main thing I am glad about being born now is the advancement in medicine, eradication of some deadly diseases and cure for others. Cardiovascular diseases and obesity and most of deadly diseases as such are avoidable with a proper lifestyle and strict diet, life expectancy is nearly 90 now when it was barely over 40 in the 1930s. Cancer for all its faults is non contagious, and so no where near the stigma they face as people with diseases like Small Pox, leprosy and TB faced. The advancement of medicine is unquestionable and that is a reason I prefer the modern time, other than that the 1900-1929 were a good time before the wall street crash, and 1930s was a terrible time in the US, worst since the civil war.
    
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IrishPotato

5 years ago

Health was low, racism was all around and people got killed way more often.

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- Anonymous Post Author
  
  5 years ago
  
  Crime is worse today when talking about general communities, and in residential and family neighborhoods. Crime was bad during prohibition with the bootleggers, gangsters, and the speakeasies, but that was within one particular circle and the general population had the choice to not get involved into it. Today, it's just less safe everywhere and people back in the day did leave their doors unlocked more without having to worry about endangerment. And kids were safer from creeps, molesters, etc. than they are today.
  
  Racism was worse, at least out in the open, but it still exists today, just more undercover, and in a way that's worse because you won't always see it coming. Look at more recent racist shootings like Michael Brown.
  
  Medicine is definitely more advanced today, and diseases like polio and smallpox are now gone, but weren't then. Other illnesses are worse today, cancer was less common 100 years ago, and people actually have worse heart problems, cancer, etc. today due to so much heavily processed food in modern people's diets. Food was more natural and pure back then, and fruits and vegetables were eaten a lot more back then vs. all the junk food consumed today. A typical dinner was meat, potatoes, and usually two portions of vegetables. And more people snacked on fruit between meals vs. snacks of today of processed snack cakes, candy, and potato chips. People did have desserts with dinner back then though, the housewife usually would bake a pie or a cake for the family, freshly baked and not processed.
  
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  - IrishPotato
    
    5 years ago
    
    People also ate rotten food a lot.
    
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    - Anonymous Post Author
      
      5 years ago
      
      Many people had ice boxes by the turn of the 20th century which helped keep the meat and food fresh. Many rural folks hunted rabbits, etc. on a daily basis and then cooked and ate it freshly caught. There were some poorer people back then who couldn't afford ice boxes and they would just have to boil the meat until as much bacteria was killed as possible, but many of those poor people also often couldn't afford meat anyway since meat cost more and people had to ration food during the depression.
      
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pizzabrowniesushi

5 years ago

Nah. No pizza ,tv or internet or Dunkin' donuts or surfing and then I mighta got killed during ww2 if I lived in the wrong country.

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paramore93

5 years ago

I definitely see where you're coming from but it's not entirely accurate. Poverty and crime were rife, limited healthcare, WWI and everything that came with that. For me its 8000BC.

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- Anonymous Post Author
  
  5 years ago
  
  Even though there was crime within organized gangs and bootlegging during prohibition, outside of that circle within regular communities, everyday citizens, and family neighborhoods had much safer and friendlier atmospheres than today does. Yes, poverty was bad during the depression, but many of the other things which I've mentioned in my post has accuracy to it.
  
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  - paramore93
    
    5 years ago
    
    I get you. Anemoia is a made up word for this.
    
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    - Anonymous Post Author
      
      5 years ago
      
      I know that I wasn't around back in the 1930s and before then, but I've done a lot of reading on the time period, known older people who were around then, and I watch many films from the era.
      
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Normal to prefer to have lived in the 1910s-1930s than today?