Has everything always been the same?

Post Reply New Topic

In history, if you want to go back in time, and pick any time period to talk about the injustices, do you ever get the feeling that underneath everything, they was/is no better or worse time to be living in than the others?

What I am trying to say is that we have made so much "progress" in health and medicine and civil rights and in society in general, and yet there are so many cons to go along with the pros that dont even get considered, it almost would not make a difference whether we were back in the middle ages.

Does this make sense? I am just trying to look at modern life objectively. Yes people live alot longer than they used to do. But for the average American, that existence is mediocre and meaningless without a purpose just going through the motions.

In the old world even just centuries ago, alot of children died. The weak people died. And this isn't weak as in a derogatory way, its just the way things were. I might have been one of those weak people that died out. I am perfectly fine with this. I either would have adapted or died. But I think today there is less of a need to adapt since there is so much diversity, and there are cons of that.

Being a warrior in ancient Greece and dying in a bloody battle at 25, or living a boring life until your 80?

I feel like I don't know my purpose. I feel like I have no clue what to do with my life. I feel depressed and I have no direction. How many young people nowadays would agree with statements like those? So then how could anybody make an argument that is better to be alive now, then before technology when those statements probably wouldn't apply as life was harsher and you had to figure out much quicker who you were. Today I can work some crap job and never advance or have goals, and live by myself lonely and depressed for maybe 60 years until the stress heart attack arrives. Is this more meaningful than dying in a battle at a younger age? I would say they are about even. I don't consider this to be twisted, just a reality in my opinion. Death is a part of life no matter how tragic it is. Does this make sense?

I think that basically the pros and cons always balance each other out. Does anyone agree or disagree?

I think that you're right in a certain sense. Humans are "adaptive". No matter what context you put a human in, they will calibrate themselves so that the worst things that could conceivably happen to them are the worst things imaginable, and the best things that could conceivably happen to them are the best things imaginable. For example, I have been extremely stressed out in the past, about as stressed out as it is possible for a human to be. But have I ever been in mortal danger? Not really. I have a comfortable life.

I found certain parts of your post interesting, lightening020, but I think one cannot compare. The lack of knowledge of daily life in certain periods, the lack of ability to imagine what it was *actually* like to live in a certain manner, the huge differences in culture, religion, living world, and so on. How can one truly imagine what it's like to have a realistic threat of epidemies, famine, or to believe in witches. Furthermore, the whole world view and mindset are so fundamentally different I think one can never imagine how it must be to live in the Middle Ages, let alone compare.

The differences betweeen then and now are huge aswell. We created a complex society that has so many aspects to it that comparing would be an unimaginable task, I for one wouldn't know where to begin.

Advances in medicine have improved the standard of living. The option to go out in a blaze of glory has always existed, and still exists today. If you would rather die in battle during your twenties, nobody is stopping you from picking up a rifle and entering one of the many conflicts currently plaguing the world. There's a reason that most people opt not to when given the choice.

In ancient, or say Medieval times, kings would get bored with nothing much to do, so organised a war. If war ever gave a meaning to life then that idea came to a halt after the mindless slaughter of the First World War.

Hmmm I think life is better today but I do think life in the relatively recent past, I'm talking like maybe the 1950s to the '90s, seemed more meaningful because the art was better and there was more optimism for the future, people seemed a little bit less mean spirited too. At least in Western countries, life did seem a little better 10 to 65 years ago.

First of all, we have to set our frame of reference.

When we talk about "today," I assume we are talking about the present time in Western Europe, North America and the nicer bits of Asia-Pacific. We could certainly have this question about other societies, but the context would be somewhat different.

To my way of thinking the most important question becomes, "In what period could the greatest number of people most readily achieve the greatest degree of personal freedom?"

It is not enough to look through the lens of history, because history writes about the celebrities--the kings, the generals, and the (mostly) men who exercised the greatest influence in their individual societies. But we are (for the most part) not such people. We are the common people. Some of us are wealthy; some of us are poor. Some of us are well educated; others have only a basic education. Some of us are business owners; others are professionals; some are managers; and some are workers. But we are all common people--unlikely to be the subject of historians' interest.

So how do our lives compare with those of our peers in eras gone by?

Well I think the most important distinction is the degree to which mobility between social classes has been opened up during the last 65 years. Social mobility was almost non-existant until the twentieth century, and really only opened up in the latter half of the twentieth century as enlisted men returning from the War had higher education opportunties presented to them which allowed the best and the brightest to move into a social class that could not have been occupied by their parents.

So, in that sense, I think that our age is an improvement over that which has gone before--but it can (and will) be improved further. More is yet to be done to recognize the merit of those who lack the economic freedom to make the most of their merit.

I think there is a great underestimation here of the difficulties and suffering imposed by the two World Wars, at least in the places where they occurred. It seems to me that your highest chance of being killed violently probably lies within the 20th century, not before it. We have a more civil and tolerant society in general but time will tell if we aren't given to outbursts of extreme irrationality - with all the powers of destruction that technology brings, atrocities on the scale we're capable of simply weren't feasible, logistically.