I saw a Tweet the other day that made me sad for a number of reasons. It went something like “the current generation believes that nothing good is ever going to happen again.” I hear my own kids express similar sentiments sometimes.
On one hand, I get it. Authoritarianism is on the rise, climate change is here, and we appear to be just a hair’s breadth away from the apocalypse. Certainly, for a number of minority groups, the apocalypse is not a distant fear, but a daily reality.
But historical perspective is important.
Think back through history. Consider, if you will, the life of Mr. Argh E. Ugh, Caveman-At-Large. A wonderful, idyllic life in the fresh air? Not hardly. A swatch of dirty fur was usually the only thing preventing derriere freeze-off, and meal times were fun-filled experiments with (possibly poisonous) plants and various bugs. Really good food containing proteins had to be obtained by force — always a treat when the protein in question is a huge woolly mammoth with a mean streak. Many a caveman life must have ended with a soft squishing sound followed by a mammoth snickering. On the flip side, they never had to deal with a call centre.
Fast forward: life in the Roman era. There were cities and plumbing, government, and domestication of animals. If you were Roman male, had a little money and land, things were good! But if you weren’t, then your choice of careers included conquered slave, gladiator, or lion feed. You see, criminals and other trouble makers were a great source of entertainment because Romans sent them into the arena for up close and personal meetings with Really Big Cats. Can you say Meow Mix?
So, how about the simple life of the peasant in the Middle Ages? Just you, the open sky, and the land . . . and sharing your one-room hovel with the sheep, having the local baron tromp through your fields on a hunt and take most of your produce as taxes. Even kings and lords had it tougher than we think — the reason for all those royal looking fur-trimmed robes and expensive tapestries was because castles were darn cold places to live. Since many didn’t have glass in the windows, and insulation was unheard of, those grand old keeps were nothing more than windbreaks. Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘blue bloods,’ doesn’t it?
Of course, diseases were a fact of life no matter what your status, and advanced medical techniques of the day included bleeding, cupping, and applying leeches in great quantity. Something’s infected? Cut it off and hope for the best. And in an era when no one had figured out the connection between keeping clean and the spread of germs, how frightening must the bubonic plague have been? A mysterious ailment that swept through city after city, country after country, taking some but sparing others?
Fast forward again: the 1700’s weren’t a big improvement, because if the French weren’t revolting, then the Americans were. Countries were being colonized and stripped of their people and their resources. Moving on to the 1800’s, we have the industrial revolution, child labour, slavery and the civil war, and the great potato famine. Fun, fun, fun!
In our grandparents time? We started off the century with a World War, then had a severe economic Depression, and followed it up with another World War. Good lineup, that.
So really, there wasn’t any golden era in the past were things were wonderful. Not even the sixties, because there were major political assassinations, riots, and the Cold War. Followed up by the very real threat of nuclear disaster. And again, if you were a minority, life was definitely not great. Anywhere.
I don’t think there’s ever been a truly golden era. The past might seem better to some of us because it’s the devil we know, whereas the future is the devil we don’t know. And the past also contains our childhood, which, for some people, was a time where you had fewer responsibilities and little awareness of the woes of the world. Things might have seemed better when you were a kid because the highlight of your day was milk and cookies, and stress was wondering whether Teddy would make it out of the wash without looking squashed. For other people in that same time period, life might have been about hiding from the bill collectors, trying to stay away from an abusive parent, or hiding your true identity because your very existence wasn’t ‘socially acceptable.’ In fact, our memories of the past are a lot like the picture I chose for this post. Seems idyllic at first glance, but upon closer examination there’s… a lot wrong here.
The point is that every era has its good things and its bad things at the geopolitical level, and pockets of good and bad at the personal level.
If you can keep that bit of historical perspective about you, you might be able to see the good things that do exist right now. And the good things that are happening right now. And if you can see those good things, you’re much more likely to be able to keep fighting to create more of those things.