Good things in1973: Music, Being a man (yeh, life really was as easy as your Pop says)
Bad things in 1973: Being a woman. Everybody smelled awful. Getting sick.
Differences between now and 1973 are massive. If you ignore the ever shrinking sizes of everything that's good to eat and the terrible pressure wreaked on the young by the one really bad thing about 'Now' - social media, it's mostly positive: You can be who you want to be with way less prejudice; you can talk to a mate on the other side of the world whenever you like, for free; less and less illnesses are a matter of life and death; it doesn't matter that music in the media is so poor because great stuff is still being made and it's all out there at the end of a button press; despite the gradual erosion of unions, the workplace is a safer, more rewarding place to be. I could go on, but you get my drift..
Yep, overall the world keeps getting better. Still plenty to be concerned about (as a parent, I get very worried about stuff going on with young people, but that's normal) but yeah, I wouldn't trade then for now. I mean, maybe some of the clothes...
"Patriotic (Mis)-Education" means ethnocide,i.e.,refusal to expose youngsters to the TRUE history of American POC ( my great-grandparents were Maryland slaves ;my mother,who passed away Oct.9,2003 at age 86,met her 84-year-old ex-slave grandfather [my great-grandfather,Sanford Turner,Sr.] in 1927 at age ten) as well as distorting or eliminating the history of LGBTQAI+ people,immigrants,workers and others deemed marginal,in the name of "protecting" children,while simply brainwashing them to accept the swindling of the 99.999999% by the overlords,thus assuring another generation of sheep that accept economic,racial and other injustice while the polluters and other billionaire grifters bring Earth closer to climate change-caused extinction.
In 1965,when I was 12,Pres.Lyndon B. Johnson said of that era's Karens who were harrassing blacks,"Tell the worst white people they're better than the best black people,they'll (white folk) will let you pick their pocket. H**l,give them a scapegoat,they'll throw their wallet on the ground." I'm 70 today,and after at least a half-century of stagnant at best blue-collar wages (today's second-tier auto worker makes LESS in real dollars in a NINETEEN FOURTEEN one,1914 being the year after my father's birth.) Yet,in the first 2024 Presidential Campaign ad I heard a couple of hours ago,45th (hopefully NOT 47th) U.S. President Donald Trump told striking auto workers about the policies he pursued to sane American manufacturing jobs,plus some working-class tax cut he enacted convenientlyforgetting the TRILLION-dollar tax break he gave his country club buddies which could have (but thankfully didn't) sunk the American economy.Trump,assuming he isn't in prison where he belongs,hopes the words "tax cuts" will get the working class to again support him because they'll fall in line because of the words "tax cuts" like Pavlov's dogs.
Hmmmm.I don't know about MEN a half-century ago,but in 1966,I began high school here in Windsor,Ont.,Can. at 13. I was five-three and 100-105 pounds and a year younger than most others in my class.(Canadians,at least those of my time and province,started high school in Grade Nine,not Grade Ten ala the USA,so most first-year high schoolers were [are?] fourteen,not fifteen.) I also had a 160 IQ and was still very much a little boy.I don't know if the today's 13-year-old lads are any more,if not adult,then more teenage-like than I was. ( I'm pretty sure they're MUCH larger; today,at 70,I'm a muscular,beefy 5'9",214 lb.) I was and remain cover boy handsome,so I'm perhaps an outlier amongst dudes of ANY age past 13.
Hey Erik, thoughtful rumination here. What’s that line about progress for the sake of progress? Then there’s the one about doing something just because that’s the way it’s always been done.
Seems we need pretty robust cultural tension to move responsibly into the future. It’s when the pendulum swings too far in one direction that we get hippie murder, cancel culture, youth sterilization, etc. Perhaps we always find center again, however fleeting, and it’s always an incredibly painful process.
Yes, great post, and no matter how much you hurl these ideas at men and women who don't get it, most of them will dully protest and look at you like you just don't get it either. But we keep trying and can get through to some of them.
Freely admit that I would lose a dick measuring contest.
But immensely satisfying to call someone a "girlyman".
Haha well yeah, naturally.
Good things in1973: Music, Being a man (yeh, life really was as easy as your Pop says)
Bad things in 1973: Being a woman. Everybody smelled awful. Getting sick.
Differences between now and 1973 are massive. If you ignore the ever shrinking sizes of everything that's good to eat and the terrible pressure wreaked on the young by the one really bad thing about 'Now' - social media, it's mostly positive: You can be who you want to be with way less prejudice; you can talk to a mate on the other side of the world whenever you like, for free; less and less illnesses are a matter of life and death; it doesn't matter that music in the media is so poor because great stuff is still being made and it's all out there at the end of a button press; despite the gradual erosion of unions, the workplace is a safer, more rewarding place to be. I could go on, but you get my drift..
Yep, overall the world keeps getting better. Still plenty to be concerned about (as a parent, I get very worried about stuff going on with young people, but that's normal) but yeah, I wouldn't trade then for now. I mean, maybe some of the clothes...
"Patriotic (Mis)-Education" means ethnocide,i.e.,refusal to expose youngsters to the TRUE history of American POC ( my great-grandparents were Maryland slaves ;my mother,who passed away Oct.9,2003 at age 86,met her 84-year-old ex-slave grandfather [my great-grandfather,Sanford Turner,Sr.] in 1927 at age ten) as well as distorting or eliminating the history of LGBTQAI+ people,immigrants,workers and others deemed marginal,in the name of "protecting" children,while simply brainwashing them to accept the swindling of the 99.999999% by the overlords,thus assuring another generation of sheep that accept economic,racial and other injustice while the polluters and other billionaire grifters bring Earth closer to climate change-caused extinction.
Here's a music comparison of 1973 v 2023 :-) https://youtu.be/TdLZdepfIUg
In 1965,when I was 12,Pres.Lyndon B. Johnson said of that era's Karens who were harrassing blacks,"Tell the worst white people they're better than the best black people,they'll (white folk) will let you pick their pocket. H**l,give them a scapegoat,they'll throw their wallet on the ground." I'm 70 today,and after at least a half-century of stagnant at best blue-collar wages (today's second-tier auto worker makes LESS in real dollars in a NINETEEN FOURTEEN one,1914 being the year after my father's birth.) Yet,in the first 2024 Presidential Campaign ad I heard a couple of hours ago,45th (hopefully NOT 47th) U.S. President Donald Trump told striking auto workers about the policies he pursued to sane American manufacturing jobs,plus some working-class tax cut he enacted convenientlyforgetting the TRILLION-dollar tax break he gave his country club buddies which could have (but thankfully didn't) sunk the American economy.Trump,assuming he isn't in prison where he belongs,hopes the words "tax cuts" will get the working class to again support him because they'll fall in line because of the words "tax cuts" like Pavlov's dogs.
Hmmmm.I don't know about MEN a half-century ago,but in 1966,I began high school here in Windsor,Ont.,Can. at 13. I was five-three and 100-105 pounds and a year younger than most others in my class.(Canadians,at least those of my time and province,started high school in Grade Nine,not Grade Ten ala the USA,so most first-year high schoolers were [are?] fourteen,not fifteen.) I also had a 160 IQ and was still very much a little boy.I don't know if the today's 13-year-old lads are any more,if not adult,then more teenage-like than I was. ( I'm pretty sure they're MUCH larger; today,at 70,I'm a muscular,beefy 5'9",214 lb.) I was and remain cover boy handsome,so I'm perhaps an outlier amongst dudes of ANY age past 13.
Hey Erik, thoughtful rumination here. What’s that line about progress for the sake of progress? Then there’s the one about doing something just because that’s the way it’s always been done.
Seems we need pretty robust cultural tension to move responsibly into the future. It’s when the pendulum swings too far in one direction that we get hippie murder, cancel culture, youth sterilization, etc. Perhaps we always find center again, however fleeting, and it’s always an incredibly painful process.
Yes, great post, and no matter how much you hurl these ideas at men and women who don't get it, most of them will dully protest and look at you like you just don't get it either. But we keep trying and can get through to some of them.