I am guessing this is related to the phenomenon about how people become more conservative (politically and culturally) as they get older — in the abstract, conservatism is the desire to preserve good things about the past (and progressivism the desire to change bad things about the past), as naturally everything was better when we were younger :-).
Interestingly, this also means that “conservatism” and “progressivism” don’t have fixed policy prescriptions, and explains why say AOC and Woodrow Wilson are both called “progressives” even though they have little in common policy-wise, and why modern conservatives care much less about things like gay marriage than previous conservatives, as the society the 45 - 65 year old crowd is trying to “conserve” is the society of the ‘80s and ‘90s, not the one of the ‘40s and ‘50s that say Reagan was trying to conserve.
Absolutely. What used to be progressive in the past is conservative today. Just think of women's rights and women's ability to enter the workforce. I recently read a great book about the Weimar Republic. the culture wars back then were about women wearing top hats and tuxedo (e.g. the famous pictures of Marlene Dietrich). Today, women wearing business suits is a conservative attire.
I on the other hand, since passing 35, have continued to get worse.
Billions of people have been pulled out of poverty, there are far fewer violent deaths worldwide, less hunger, more literacy, longer lifespans in the last 25 years.
However I now struggle with steep stairs and I have to be careful not to stand up too quickly from the sofa. Thus in my microworld things are worse and this clouds my outlook.
Thanks for the excellent podast tip; I'd missed that one. "Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be!"
When you're young, you embrace change because you have nothing to lose; when you're middle-aged, you resist change because you have everything to lose; when you're old, you avoid change at all costs because you fear losing what little you have left. When you're in your 20s, change feels like a thrill; in your 40s, it becomes a challenge; by the time you reach 60, it starts to feel like a threat. At 20, we worry about what others think of us; at 40, we don't care what others think of us; at 60, we realize they weren't thinking about us at all.
"Youth is wasted on the young, and wisdom is wasted on the old. At 20, we dream of changing the world; at 40, we work to keep the world the same; at 60, we wonder if we made a difference at all." -- George Bernard Shaw
Over the past few days I've been helping my daughter re-do the plastic tiles on our paddock. She's had the local pop music station playing on a worksite radio, and it really *is* horribly repetitive and clearly all auto-tuned if not simply created by computer algorithms in the first place. I'd go walk the dogs and listen to my 1965-1995 playlist to recover!
A good bet in economics: the past wasn’t as good as you remember, the present isn’t as bad as you think, and the future will be better than you anticipate. - Morgan Housel
I had recently posted the comment below for a post about things are getting better:
I agree that “Things are getting better in almost all areas.” The below from the book Rational Optimist, which always strikes me as something we forget that some of the things we have today, even the wealthiest people in the past did not have:
“Today, of Americans officially designated as ‘poor’, 99 percent have electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television, 88 percent a telephone, 71 percent a car, and 70 percent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these. Even in 1970 only 36 percent of all Americans had air conditioning: in 2005 79 percent of poor households did.”
Another book, Factfullness, provides data supporting the idea that the world is improving. The authors analyzed trends and data to see whether our lives are improving or worsening. They showed that things are generally better, regardless of what we read in the news media or social networks or what we believe. More here: https://tinyurl.com/ytuy8sss
Great post, I really recommend the book rule nostalgia about nostalgia in the UK, very readable and eye opening about political narratives. I think the world would be better if more people read it 😅
everything of importance is much better than it used to be. Hell, the air in most cities in earlier decades was simply unbreathable (which to me is the major reason why living in cities has become so expensive: from 1920 to 2000, everybody who wanted to stay healthy moved to the suburbs, but now everybody wants in again). Healthcare, travel, entertainment, sex, equality, fresh-water swimming, automotive reliability, you name it, it's all a totally new and improved world.
When things have gotten worse it's mostly because of redundant culture (who goes to the movies to watch a Hollywood film? Actually, Jean-Pierre Melville forecasted the death of cinema for around the year 2020). Or take Jazz: yes, Hard Bop was better than anything they play nowadays, but who really cares, it's just a stagnant art form anyway. That said, pop music nowadays *really* sucks.
Very good, but there is an apples compared to crescent wrenches aspect to the music issue. The Beatles were pop and it is fair to compare them against pop of later years. Zeppelin was never pop and it makes little sense to compare Zep to current pop, while the pop of the 70s was horrible (no idea about current, haven't heard it - not a single song by Bieber, Swift, Sheeran). I have discovered some great rock produced after I passed 40. I am not saying it surpasses Zep, Rainbow, BOC but there are a few post-2000 bands that I can listen to fairly non-stop. I recognize and applaud your humor, and while on that topic, the stand up comedy of the 70s and 80s was so much better than contemporary...
You wrote: ... but that is the exception that proves the rule.
An exception to a rule does not prove a rule, it invalidates it. The problem arises from and archaic use of the word "prove." Today it means to support an idea with good evidence. It uses to mean to test and continues to have this meaning in the phrase of a "proving ground" or test track. Ed
I am guessing this is related to the phenomenon about how people become more conservative (politically and culturally) as they get older — in the abstract, conservatism is the desire to preserve good things about the past (and progressivism the desire to change bad things about the past), as naturally everything was better when we were younger :-).
Interestingly, this also means that “conservatism” and “progressivism” don’t have fixed policy prescriptions, and explains why say AOC and Woodrow Wilson are both called “progressives” even though they have little in common policy-wise, and why modern conservatives care much less about things like gay marriage than previous conservatives, as the society the 45 - 65 year old crowd is trying to “conserve” is the society of the ‘80s and ‘90s, not the one of the ‘40s and ‘50s that say Reagan was trying to conserve.
Absolutely. What used to be progressive in the past is conservative today. Just think of women's rights and women's ability to enter the workforce. I recently read a great book about the Weimar Republic. the culture wars back then were about women wearing top hats and tuxedo (e.g. the famous pictures of Marlene Dietrich). Today, women wearing business suits is a conservative attire.
The world has continued to get better.
I on the other hand, since passing 35, have continued to get worse.
Billions of people have been pulled out of poverty, there are far fewer violent deaths worldwide, less hunger, more literacy, longer lifespans in the last 25 years.
However I now struggle with steep stairs and I have to be careful not to stand up too quickly from the sofa. Thus in my microworld things are worse and this clouds my outlook.
Deep. Love it
Thanks for the excellent podast tip; I'd missed that one. "Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be!"
When you're young, you embrace change because you have nothing to lose; when you're middle-aged, you resist change because you have everything to lose; when you're old, you avoid change at all costs because you fear losing what little you have left. When you're in your 20s, change feels like a thrill; in your 40s, it becomes a challenge; by the time you reach 60, it starts to feel like a threat. At 20, we worry about what others think of us; at 40, we don't care what others think of us; at 60, we realize they weren't thinking about us at all.
"Youth is wasted on the young, and wisdom is wasted on the old. At 20, we dream of changing the world; at 40, we work to keep the world the same; at 60, we wonder if we made a difference at all." -- George Bernard Shaw
I think you'd also like to take a look at Strauss-Howe Generational theory, which shows that there are long-cycle age cohort characteristics which repeat every 90 or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–Howe_generational_theory .
Over the past few days I've been helping my daughter re-do the plastic tiles on our paddock. She's had the local pop music station playing on a worksite radio, and it really *is* horribly repetitive and clearly all auto-tuned if not simply created by computer algorithms in the first place. I'd go walk the dogs and listen to my 1965-1995 playlist to recover!
To add to your quote selection...
Douglas Adams once developed a set of rules that he thought describe our reaction to technology:
Anything that is in the world when you are born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that is invented between when you are fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you are thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
A good bet in economics: the past wasn’t as good as you remember, the present isn’t as bad as you think, and the future will be better than you anticipate. - Morgan Housel
I had recently posted the comment below for a post about things are getting better:
I agree that “Things are getting better in almost all areas.” The below from the book Rational Optimist, which always strikes me as something we forget that some of the things we have today, even the wealthiest people in the past did not have:
“Today, of Americans officially designated as ‘poor’, 99 percent have electricity, running water, flush toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television, 88 percent a telephone, 71 percent a car, and 70 percent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these. Even in 1970 only 36 percent of all Americans had air conditioning: in 2005 79 percent of poor households did.”
Another book, Factfullness, provides data supporting the idea that the world is improving. The authors analyzed trends and data to see whether our lives are improving or worsening. They showed that things are generally better, regardless of what we read in the news media or social networks or what we believe. More here: https://tinyurl.com/ytuy8sss
Great post, I really recommend the book rule nostalgia about nostalgia in the UK, very readable and eye opening about political narratives. I think the world would be better if more people read it 😅
everything of importance is much better than it used to be. Hell, the air in most cities in earlier decades was simply unbreathable (which to me is the major reason why living in cities has become so expensive: from 1920 to 2000, everybody who wanted to stay healthy moved to the suburbs, but now everybody wants in again). Healthcare, travel, entertainment, sex, equality, fresh-water swimming, automotive reliability, you name it, it's all a totally new and improved world.
When things have gotten worse it's mostly because of redundant culture (who goes to the movies to watch a Hollywood film? Actually, Jean-Pierre Melville forecasted the death of cinema for around the year 2020). Or take Jazz: yes, Hard Bop was better than anything they play nowadays, but who really cares, it's just a stagnant art form anyway. That said, pop music nowadays *really* sucks.
Very good, but there is an apples compared to crescent wrenches aspect to the music issue. The Beatles were pop and it is fair to compare them against pop of later years. Zeppelin was never pop and it makes little sense to compare Zep to current pop, while the pop of the 70s was horrible (no idea about current, haven't heard it - not a single song by Bieber, Swift, Sheeran). I have discovered some great rock produced after I passed 40. I am not saying it surpasses Zep, Rainbow, BOC but there are a few post-2000 bands that I can listen to fairly non-stop. I recognize and applaud your humor, and while on that topic, the stand up comedy of the 70s and 80s was so much better than contemporary...
You wrote: ... but that is the exception that proves the rule.
An exception to a rule does not prove a rule, it invalidates it. The problem arises from and archaic use of the word "prove." Today it means to support an idea with good evidence. It uses to mean to test and continues to have this meaning in the phrase of a "proving ground" or test track. Ed