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Books about the past being worse than the present
JebusUD
Adventure!Candy IslandRegistered User regular
Adventure!Candy IslandRegistered User regular
I've been hearing people bemoan the present lately, and how much better things were back in ____ time. So, i'd like to read books, or even webpages, that explore the other side of the past and how terrible it was. Higher poverty, worse conditions, inequity, illness. There must be a book that covers it all.
Particularly information on school violence before the 1960's would be useful. Surely there was violence in schools then. One particular thing I have been hearing is that schools were safer and better before then.
Thanks for your recommendations!
Particularly information on school violence before the 1960's would be useful. Surely there was violence in schools then. One particular thing I have been hearing is that schools were safer and better before then.
Thanks for your recommendations!
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
but they're listening to every word I say
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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Generally thought of as the reason we have food safety standards nowadays.
Also there was a Sandman story with a character (Hob Gadling) who had been alive for hundreds of years, describing how bad things used to be. Things like people walking around with horrible tumors on their faces, and the sheer amount of fecal matter in any given public area.
Also, if you are being told that schools were safer and better prior to the 1960's, ask that person why they think that is.
Dollars to doughnuts they'll bring up prayer in schools and/or corporal punishment.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
38 children and 6 adults dead, at least 58 injured due to a bombing by a disgruntled former school board member.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I will say that you don't need to look much further than the color of a person's skin to show how different (read: awful) times were "way back when". It's still awful now, in terms of racial disparity, but at least the awareness of the issues surrounding equality is greater than it ever was before worldwide. "Why We Can't Wait" is Martin Luther King's depressing look at just how bad things were for a black man in the 60s, and it's even more depressing to think on how much hasn't changed since then.
Also he was allowed to rape her, even if they were separated (except for in Scotland). I'm sure a lot of states in the US have equally depressing results for wife beatings and domestic rape. Google results on this is endless.
In most western countries it was also legal to beat your workers and servants well into the 1900s. This one is a bit hard to find source info on because it was considered a common law (how things have always been done), usually not written down anywhere. Google mostly produces info about indentured servants (slaves), a much larger and different topic. But unions fighting for workers rights in the early 1900s is probably something you can look into. Also how the line between law enforcement and private thugs for hire who could arrest or kill you (Pinkertons etc) were very blurry. ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Pinker's immediately who I thought of on seeing the title - Jebus might want to take a look at his The Better Angels of our Nature.
Generally though people who tell you things were better way back when, are also the people who tell you that high school was the best years of their lives. And to paraphrase our beloved PA patriarchs. If high school was the best years of your life, I feal sorry for you, things get so much better than that.
However it is simply the same mentality.
Yeah, I was just going to say anything about the actual trials of the Civil Rights Movement, the "Redemption" of the South and it's impact on African Americans, the rise of the KKK and resurgence of lynchings in the early 1900s. I don't know of a single book, but if you look into the treatment of African Americans in LA and the San Francisco Bay Area during WWII there's lots of systematic discrimination and violence. Then there is American Babylon about post-war CA and the continual racial segregation of housing that persists today and that's effects are still prevalent.
Out of This Furnace, while a novel, was written by a man who grew up working in industrial steel mills as a first generation American and second gen steel worker, which will cover access to education, living conditions, working conditions, and medical care availability and quality.
You could also look at the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. Political speech by students was banned on campus and there were massive protests against the rule, arrests, beatings, etc. all because of "en parentis locus" (sp? my Latin is rusty).
If this is an older person, it's usually because they grew up at that time and didn't experience any of these things directly. Also there were many things that just weren't talked about. Most people won't know about the Stonewall riots where it was illegal to serve an LGBT person a drink in NY because it just wasn't talked about.
Edit: Also, any data you can find on average life expectancy, health care methods, quality of life, average wages, access to education, literacy, etc. will firmly put the present on better footing. Also, we eradicated small pox, so we definitely beat every century that came before on that alone.
It isn't anyone in particular. Just generally people on Facebook lamenting modern times and wishing for the good old days. Usually not people that lived then, but people born just after. Like boomers claiming the 50s that they were born in were the greatest.
Personally I know that life was shit then in many ways, like the various examples above show, but a book that sort of aggregates it all would be best to show it.
but they're listening to every word I say
This book doesn't cover the time period you're looking for, but The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible! at least has the same spirit of what you're trying to find. It covers the latter half of the 1800s.
"Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." (Ecclesiastes 7:10, written 200-400BC
If you need a longer argument than 2 sentences, Burnage's rec "The better angels of our nature" is perfect
http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/1455883115
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wilson_(handyman)
James "Jimmy" E. Wilson, born in 1903 or 1904,[1] was an illiterate African-American handyman who was convicted of the crime of "burglary at night" and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in a Marion, Alabama court in 1958 for stealing $1.95 from an 82 year old white widow, Estelle Barker.[2] Mrs Barker also accused Wilson in court of attempted rape, although he was only charged for robbery as this carried a harsher potential sentence.[3]
In general though, the past sucked pretty hard. People always look at the past fondly - it's a selection bias. But we live in the best time in history for the most people and that trend doesn't show many signs of changing.
But let's discuss the 1950's, eh? Blatant racism and sexism were still codified in the law, but lots of the people who talk about the 'good old days' are awful people who consider that part of the 'good'. Homosexuality was flat out illegal, but again...awful people.
There was no OSHA or EPA, so very little would stop an employer from having you work in a factory filled with carcinogens until you got a brain tumor from inhaling hydrocarbons or lung cancer from asbestos. The Social Security age was only slightly younger than it is today - ~66, but life expectancy at birth was roughly a decade less than it is today. So, basically you could expect to work until you were decrepit and then die.
There was no such thing as ergonomics and things we would consider chronic and debilitating injuries today would be things people just had to suck up. Mental health care was abysmal. There was no NHTSA, so car accidents were far more dangerous. No ADA either, so if you were disabled, good luck getting around or caring for yourself at all. Travel wasn't really something normal people did, so you lived where you were at and maybe went somewhere interesting on your honeymoon.
Throughout the 50's and 60's, there were race riots, and the 'white flight' had already started from a number of American cities. Modern policing was also mostly non-existent, so if you were a victim of a crime there was a pretty good chance the criminal would walk (or it would get pinned on a random black guy or something).
Corporal punishment was still a thing, so if you were in school and talked back, used your left hand, fidgeted, or the teacher decided they wanted to you could get paddled or beaten, and most likely would end up getting paddled or beaten at home too. What Social Services? Same thing with your boss at work...leaders yell and degrade, right?
Oh yeah, can't forget that there was a reasonable chance a nuclear war with the Soviet Union would break out at any time.
And this was an increase in living standards due to decreased crime after the lifting of prohibition.
A lot of the past is very ugly. Plus, i mean, think about all of the basic amenities that just weren't around even 20-30 years ago. Communities tend to get very insular, and very aggressive towards perceived outsiders, when communication isn't so simple.
Long story short: Guy with barely any medical background made millions in the 30s sewing goat testicals in to people and selling blue water at a 2000% markup.
Excerpts can be found here.
There was also some literal warfare in the class warfare. When mines went on strike, they didn't picket the road to the mine, they blockaded the town and waited for shooting to start. There's some parts of the US where you can wander through the woods and still find caches of guns and explosives that had been hidden in preparation for these things.
A lot of books have been written on the Great Anthracite Coal Strike 1902 and the Illinois Coal Wars, and I think the United Mine Workers have a suggested reading list on their early history which is pretty much all talking about the massacres and actually shooting wars between miners and police, national guard, and sometimes privately funded armies.