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The Forum > Article Comments > Will only hitting the bottom stop the slide downwards? > Comments

Will only hitting the bottom stop the slide downwards? : Comments

By Brian Holden, published 24/2/2011

For over 48 years it has been obvious that 'progress' has been 'regress' - when will we notice?

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There is a short and rather brutal answer to this article.In 1944 the male life expectancy was 66 years and now it is 79 years.Without the progress that Brian seems to deplore,he would in all probability now be dead.
Posted by sabena, Thursday, 24 February 2011 8:12:29 AM
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1944 - what a year. I'm feeling a bit of Polio coming on. Oh no - looks like TB, diptheria, thyphoid, cholera. I wish I was living in 2011 when our main whinge is the inaccuracy of the GDP methodology and whether or not kitchen TV programs are a metaphor for lie.

1944 - a good year for women too - chained to the kitchen.

Remember what Wittgenstein said Brian - if you live in the now, you live in eternity.
Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 24 February 2011 8:31:12 AM
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How sad it must be to be old.

Not in years, necessarily, but in attitude.

This article has "I'm old" written all over it in big (so that we can read them without squinting) but crumbling-at-the-edges letters.

And it makes me sad, to think that someone who said, not so long ago, that "retirement can be the best time of your life" has finally come to the conclusion that 1944 is in fact the place to be.

In 1944, my father was on a corvette in the Indian Ocean, wondering whether the convoy they were escorting was being shadowed by U-Boats, and suffering constant seasickness. (His description of how a corvette moves through the water was enough to turn the strongest stomach, even on dry land). My mother was at a radar station, ruining her eyesight and listening for the popping sound of the next doodlebug.

Ah yes, halcyon days indeed.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 24 February 2011 9:17:58 AM
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What is it about ageing misery-gutses, that they continually whine about the 'good old days', and how 'too much of a good thing will lead to trouble, you mark my words'?

As Matt Ridley observes, they've been saying the same thing for the last few hundreds years, and, like arch-Jeremiah Lester Brown, they've always been wrong.

So, stop whingeing, and celebrate the fact that you're one of the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated and best entertained human beings ever to walk the Earth.

The 'good old days'? They never were. It's like people who whinge about modern music and how it's not like the days of 'classic rock', in the 60s or 70s. Well, go back and have a look at the charts from, say, 1969. The way the movies and ageing hippies would have it, songs like 'Gimme Shelter', 'Fortunate Son' and Hendrix's 'All Along The Watchtower' were the soundtrack of the times.

Bullsh!t.

Of those three, only 'Fortunate Son' went above 20 in the charts (peaking at 14), while 'Gimme Shelter' was never released as a single at all. Most of Hendrix's singles barely charted at all.

The number 1 song for 1969: the Archies' 'Sugar, Sugar'.

The 'good old days' only seem that way because we choose to selectively forget the cr@p.
Posted by Clownfish, Thursday, 24 February 2011 9:19:57 AM
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Come on Brian!

In 1944 my mother & I were living in a one room flattet in Ipswich, to be near to dad in Amberly, where he was training with his unit to go overseas.

So to be fair to you we'll try 1954. Then she walked over a mile & a half, towing a little canvas trolley, on little wheels too small for our gravel road, just to buy our food. No freezers, so she did this 3 times a week. I don't know if we could have afforded a car just then, but it did not matter. You still had to know someone in the right place to get one of those.

One of my jobs each afternoon was to boil a kerosene tin [4 gallons] of water from the well, for drinking & cooking. We'd been waiting over a year for a rain water tank, which was only 1000 gallons when we did finally get one. Our clothes, washed in well water, were never really clean.

But Cheryl, in 44 she was not chained to a kitchen, we didn't have one. By 1954 she walked that same 1.5 miles to town to play tennis on Tuesday, bowls on Thursday, & played cards in town on Wednesday, before towing the shopping home.

You know, I never saw a chain anywhere, & even with the shortages from the war, it was a better life than today's women with work full time, child care & full time rush.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 24 February 2011 9:23:02 AM
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In defence of Brian (and to bring some balance back into the discussion) not all of the changes since the 1940's have been that great. I think it is healthy to look critically at Australian society in 2011 (as Brian has), in addition to counting our blessings.

While there have been demonstrable improvements in health, wealth, life expectancy, civil liberties etc since the 1940s there is little doubt that we as a society are "less connected" than our forbears. If you want objective evidence to support this look at youth suicide rates, child abuse statistics and marriage breakdown stats for a starting point. the buidling block of our stable society - the family - is under stress!

And then there are the lifestyle related diseases - obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease ... we are so wealthy it is killing us!

Am I saying we should go back to the 1940’s ! No way – (and I don’t think Brian is saying that either). However it seems clear that in our headlong pursuit of profit, success and wealth there are a few values we have sacrificed as a society along the way. Many of these values will do much more to help us live the elusive “fulfilling life” than an 120cm Hi-Def TV or another 50% increase in BHPB half year profits!
Posted by Matt 548, Thursday, 24 February 2011 9:43:55 AM
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