Here is the story of my grandfather (on my mother's side). Yes, it has a point:
My grandfather was born in 1900. He was 14 when World War I broke out and 17 when America entered the fighting. He was 18 when the Spanish flu pandemic swept the world. He was 20 when the Palmer Raids and the associated red scare broke out. He was 25 during the Scopes trial and 29 during the St. Valentines Day massacre. He was 32 when the Great Depression got into full swing and the US banking system came within days of collapsing. He was 33 when famine killed millions in Ukraine and 34 when he lost his job as an electrician for Western Union and had to spend the rest of the decade as an elevator operator. He was 39 at the start of World War II—the biggest, most destructive war in human history.
My grandfather, Arthur Holliger, is on the far right in this 1940 photo. Next to him is my grandmother, Agnes. On the left are his brother and his wife. The freckled eight-year-old child is my mother.
He was 45 when, in the Pacific, the US detonated two atomic bombs over Japan. On the other side of the world the full horror of the Holocaust became public and the Soviet Union swallowed Eastern Europe. He was 47 when the Cold War started. He was 49 when communists took over China and the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb. The country would live under the specter of nuclear annihilation forever after that.
He was 50 when McCarthyism took over the country—the second red scare of his lifetime. He was 57 when Sputnik was launched and 59 when famine killed upwards of 50 million people in China. He was 62 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 63 when a president was assassinated, 64 when Tonkin Gulf ignited the Vietnam War in earnest, and 65 when the Watts Riots broke out a few miles from his home. He was 68 when both a presidential candidate and the country's preeminent civil rights leader were assassinated. He was 74 when Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate. He was 78 when Three Mile Island melted down and 79 when hostages were taken in Iran. He was 80 when gasoline prices doubled and inflation hit 15%. He was 86 when Chernobyl melted down.
A few years later he died.
I promised you a point. Here it is: stop whining. Young adults today have lived through 9/11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a severe recession, and then Donald Trump. Currently Ukraine and Israel are at war.
Has this been a traumatic era? A time of polycrisis and the decline of democracy? Please. Today's problems are pinpricks compared to the 20th century. The Spanish Flu killed 50 million people globally—nearly 3% of the total population. During the Great Depression unemployment peaked at about 25% and wages fell by nearly half. In 1942 the world was down to nine democracies—and 80 million people had to die before democracy finally won the day. The Holocaust killed two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. The Cold War lasted 45 years and immiserated hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Sure, we have problems. But even taken altogether they're just not that big. The Great Recession peaked at 10% unemployment and stayed above 5% for seven years—compared to 11% and 27 years between 1970 and 1997. Wages for blue-collar workers went up during the Great Recession compared to a 7% decline during the Volcker Recession and a 40% decline during the Great Depression. The combination of 9/11 and both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars killed about 10,000 Americans over a decade—the toll from a single year of Vietnam or a single month of WWII. COVID was half as deadly as the Spanish Flu in the US and a thirtieth as deadly worldwide. There are ten times as many democracies in the world as there were 80 years ago—and fears to the contrary notwithstanding, they're in pretty good shape. Racism may still be our original sin, but it's plummeted compared to the days of Jim Crow, redlining, literacy tests, and Bull Connor. Our standard of living is triple what it was at the start of the postwar era. Inflation recently rose above 5% for two years, but that compares to nine consecutive years from 1973-82. The murder rate spiked to 6.8 per 100,000 a couple of years ago but is still a third less than it was three decades ago.
Now tell me again about your polycrisis and your trauma. I'm listening.
53 thoughts on “The life and times of my grandfather”
douglaseye
As a hobbyist follower of World War 2 history, I have often thought of the routine headlines of tens of thousands, if not more, killed in weekly battles and catastrophes across the front and on the seas (much less what was happening in the killing fields of the Holocaust in Germany). Thanks for this valuable perspective. Here is a list of 20 'less-known battles' in WW2 with an almost routine tens of thousands of casualties: https://historycollection.com/20-lesser-known-battles-of-world-war-ii-that-really-mattered/
drickard1967
Shorter Kevin: Get off my lawn, whippersnappers!
KawSunflower
My take is that Kevin Drum has good genes - his grandfather survived a pandemic that killed more of the younger people than the older generations - & with that & the persistence in looking for solutions, he has & can survive quite a lot.
Special Newb
He's god damn lucky. He got a cancer they can cure and had he got it 5 years earlier he'd be dead. And somehow he found the money to pay for it.
Doctor Jay
Kevin, you and I were raised in a particular WASP tradition - one that included "shut up and get to work" as an ethos, along with "don't talk about your feelings". And when you spend your life doing that, you might get resentful of people who are all out-there with their feelings about everything.
Those aren't really great ideas. They certainly aren't essential for success in life, since there are other traditions that embrace a much higher expressiveness. They are dying slowly, and that's probably good. It's been at my growth edge for sure for some time now.
Interestingly enough, I had similar feelings expressed to me just yesterday by a friend who is a bit older than me (and I think, Kevin).
Thing is, we've worked hard to make a better world, one where they didn't have to experience nasty stuff. We've had some success. But that means the kids have a different expectation. That's good, not bad.
Pittsburgh Mike
Kids can have whatever expectations they want, but it's a good idea to have *some* clue about how abnormally good the post WW2 world has been, and the post-Cold war era even more so.
Also, FWIW, I don't see that "shut up and get to work" is a *WASP* tradition -- anyone who was raised by immigrant parents grew up with those very words echoing in their heads.
Doctor Jay
Well, WASPs aren't the only ones with this ethos, for sure. I am a WASP so I know them, and I don't know other traditions so well.
raoul
I just read Life Sentence which is about murder and drug dealing in Sandtown, Baltimore. Let’s just say this post is pretty meaningless.
PaulDavisThe1st
It's not meaningless, it just views the world through a wider lens.
Whether that's good or bad depends on the purpose of viewing the world at all.
sethdove
While I mostly agree, I think young people take the threat of climate change more seriously than older people. Maybe precisely because of everything you mention. When you've had a lifetime of terrible things happen, maybe you don't take the existential threat of climate change as seriously as you should. My brother brushes it off with the thought that we will just engineer our way out of climate change. So he doesn't take it all that seriously. I myself do see the threat of climate change and the huge population of people making a mess of the world as The Problem, and the rest of the worries are very much second fiddle.
tango
Climate change is a potential existential crisis, you are right, but while many older folks don't take it as seriously as they might, a lot do.
But something a lot of folks forget is that during the Cold war, we faced the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation, and came distressingly close to suffering it in 1983 I think (Able Archer) and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Oh, and Kevin forgot to mention the enormous amount of economic development in the non-Western World in the past few decades, one of the greatest events in the reduction in human misery in the history of our species)
Overall I agree with the tone and tenor of what Kevin wrote. Doesn't mean we should not try to continue to improve things, but a little perspective is useful to put modern things in perspective.
Jasper_in_Boston
But something a lot of folks forget is that during the Cold war, we faced the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation
We still do. Nuclear weapons haven't been uninvented. The Russian and Chinese arsenals are easily large enough to obliterate our civilization, and there's no workable defense. The latter, in particular, appears to be growing rapidly. Also, during the Cold War, the main beligerents seemed to perceive that avoiding any shooting war at all was paramount, because of what it might lead to. That last part seems to be a lot weaker now.
tango
True, @Jasper, they have not been uninvented, but without getting into detailed discussions about how things have changed, I think it is safe to say that most experts agree that the odds of nuclear warfare have gone WAYYYYY down sine the end of the Cold War (And don't bring up the doomsday clock, because that started mixing in Climate Change so it is not a pure measure...)
roboto
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war when WAYYYY back up and almost no international relations "expert" would disagree. At the same time, the left has gone full blown chicken little with respect to climate change so that actual risks like a nuclear war get mostly crowded out in the MSM.
Jasper_in_Boston
the left has gone full blown chicken little with respect to climate change so that actual risks like a nuclear war get mostly crowded out in the MSM.
I think this is probably true. One of the myriad was the climate crisis is fucking is over is in obscuring the reality of an even greater existential risk.
Jasper_in_Boston
I think it is safe to say that most experts agree that the odds of nuclear warfare have gone WAYYYYY down sine the end of the Cold War
That's not remotely the case. It was perhaps the received wisdom in the 90s and early aughts—perhaps rightly so. But it's very definitely not the reality of 2023. But I guess we all have to find coping mechanisms that work for us.
'engineering our way out of climate change' --would be nationalizing the petroleum industry and eliminating it.
Displaced Canuck
Unfortunately just nationalizing the US oil industry and shutting it down would not be near enough. Every major oil producing country needs to do the same thing. This may be the most important reason not enough progress has been made yet.
cld
Yes, and if the US doesn't do it it won't happen at all.
Aleks311
We're not going to eliminate the petroleum industry. And if everyone did that at least 2/3 thirds of the world (as in, billions of people) would starve or otherwise die miserably. Arguably the result in terms of human losses would be worse than even a good sized nuclear war.
cld
Arguably I think that estimate is arguable. We'll soon be able to replace almost any engine with an electric engine, and after that it's easy to imagine a serious impetus to re-engineer every other application of petroleum.
And if we don't do it no one will because it will have to happen first in the US or everyone else will simply think well our little bit can't hurt much compared to all that.
And if we don't do it the Earth dies and the human population along with it.
Preserving the gratification of a few billionaires seems hardly worth it.
oregoncornhusker
I came here to say something similar. And while I see all Kevin's observations and generally agree, that there is no mention of climate change is interesting.
On the daily I'm worried that my two and four year old children may not have a world to live in if we tip into some vicious cycle of icesheet and/or permafrost melt that raises sea levels and sea temperatures in a way that fundamentally disrupts the gulf stream.
And, with massive population growth I'm worried my children won't be able to find wild places. And worried about the continued march of cities further and further out, pouring concrete over ever more acres. And the consistent march toward thousands of annual animal/bug/plant extinctions. And the loneliness/isolation that comes from car dependence/Youtube/HVAC/streaming/social media. And how fundamentally different it is when the worst drugs were alcohol and low potency marijuana (say 1950s) to meth and fentanyl that, with one use, and destroy/end a life.
So Kevin's right: when we measure our ills by war, disease, and material wealth, things ARE much better! But being a human is complex and there are more factors to consider.
PaulDavisThe1st
Population growtih is slowing, both as a global aggregate, and in many specific places. Human population is predicted to peak soon.
So there's that,.
Joseph Harbin
"My grandfather, Arthur Holliger, is on the far right in this 1940 photo."
So what you're saying is in 1940 the far right were sitting on the fence. That's why the country didn't ask them to pick a speaker.
Justin
My parents were born in the early 1920s and my life is as good as theirs was except for their suffering in WWII. Dad was a POW by Germany. He was traumatized. I am not.
But life was supposed to be good for more people now. There are 8 billion people in this world and it is not organized in a way that provides general prosperity and well being. It’s not whining to point this out.
But like Mr. Drum, I don’t give a flip fuck about their trauma. It’s impossible to do so and keep your sanity. Mass media inundates us with tales of suffering and evil. So I simply shrug and say, “Not my fault, not my problem.” President Biden should take note.
I do support sending the entire US military to Ukraine to kick Russian ass. It’s the only morally unambiguous conflict in the world today. The Middle East and Africa can drop dead.
Pittsburgh Mike
The world isn't organized in *any* way, period. But certainly you can't have missed the drop in the number of people living in extreme poverty in the last 50-60 years.
Justin
There are 5 billion more people now than before so I’m thinking that’s part of the problem. The poverty rate might be lower, but the actual number of people?
dspcole
Good points. Nice looking family. Where was the photo taken?
keefinmqt
Post WW2, Western culture (which I’m most certainly a part of) has pushed the narrative that “life should be comfortable and pleasant”. This is a new development in the history of mankind! My grandfather (b. 1903) and his generation certainly didn’t expect life would be a bowl of cherries. Once expectations were raised by families in late 20th century, disappointment and sadness was destined to ensue.
James B. Shearer
"Now tell me again about your polycrisis and your trauma. I'm listening."
People care more about whether things are getting better or worse than their absolute level.
Special Newb
Once again you ignore that a majority of people do not live in Democracies anymore and that number is growing.
roboto
Yes. Canada joined the non-democracy list during Covid.
Yikes
I mean, what you didn't mention was that in this Century the concept of going to war for, basically, the hell of it, is viewed far, far differently than a Century ago.
A Century ago, war was viewed as a constant. Now it is viewed correctly, as a failure. I don't know what exactly that has to do with youngsters complaining too much, but it seems to be human nature to complain, no?
painedumonde
The past does not exist. Neither does the future. The present does.
They did dress better in the non-existent past.
(｡•̀ᴗ-)
lower-case
q re your grandfather's housing situation; was it a free-standing home with a plot of land in southern california 30 minutes from the beach?
just wondering if your grandfather paid his mortgage on an elevator operator's salary?
and did that job require a bachelor's degree?
Timpie
My grandfather was a bricklayer and my grandmother never had a paying job. They moved from Los Angeles to Newport Beach in early1940s and he built a little house on Cliff Drive where they lived the rest of their long lives. It had a panoramic view of Newport Harbor, Balboa peninsula and the Pacific Ocean. In 1952 they took a vacation to Scotland, traveling by ocean liner.
D_Ohrk_E1
Granted, we all suffer from recency bias. However, scolding people by telling them how things were harder when you was growing up having to walk through two feet of snow for 5 miles to get to school is just going to result in rolled eyes.
skeptonomist
Yes, considering the history of the 20th century it is odd that so many people are talking about crises of anxiety. In view of how damaging anxiety and various "traumas" are now considered to be it's a wonder that people were able to function at all in the previous times when life was much harder than it is now. I suspect that this is function of the number of people whose business it is to diagnose psychiatric problems. There certainly were not as many psychiatric professionals in the first half of the 20th century - not to mention centuries before that.
Jasper_in_Boston
Everyone's so trim.
CAbornandbred
Before high fructose corn syrup and super sized everything.
Do you want things to get even better? Keep whining. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Leo1008
Good column, but I offer some additional perspective on this point:
“Racism may still be our original sin, but it's plummeted compared to the days of Jim Crow, redlining, literacy tests, and Bull Connor.”
This statement is more than enough to get Kevin completely drummed (pardon the pun) out of the modern left. Would his old employer, Mother Jones magazine, even agree to publish such sentiments?
Personal anecdote: I recently signed up to volunteer at a local tutoring establishment in my very Democratic city. I was told to attend a remote orientation session. And that seemed harmless enough. So I logged in (along with maybe a half dozen other attendees) at the appointed time, and the first thing we were treated to was a lengthy land acknowledgment (a reminder that our city is located on land that native Americans once inhabited). I personally think such announcements are pointless if not sanctimonious, but they’re not a complete dealbreaker.
The dealbreaker was to follow. The next step was a long lecture on Ibram Kendi-style antiracism. We were all dutifully informed that we were not supposed to engage in supposedly harmful practices like recognizing a standard form of English or even encouraging students to identify and fix problems in their writing. After all, that’s the way racists behave!
And I admit: I gave up around that time and logged off. I had already lost all interest in volunteering at that establishment and it was pointless (and honestly painful) to continue listening to that orientation.
My point? Leftists are very deeply invested, perhaps irrevocably, in the idea that society does not improve. The prevalence of racism does not decrease over time; indeed, it cannot. So all-pervasive is racism that we engage in it if we even so much as try to help someone improve their reading and writing. And, as far as these Leftists are concerned, Kevin needs to be sent off to some kind of reeducation camp to fix his wrongthink about racism decreasing in our society.
jdubs
Poor Leo, so wrapped up in his world of race, bitterness, unease and anger about his own easy situation. Literally everything is a trigger for this poor, bitter, sheltered guy.
tango
You are kind of proving Leo's point...
cephalopod
We seem to be in an age of pessimism. For all the disasters Americans faced from 1860-1950, we seemed to be optimistic at heart. How else could Chicago have rebuilt after fire, changed the flow of the river, AND jacked up the city above the swamp? After Katrina it seemed like half of the country was ready to abandon New Orleans. Hardly the view of an optimistic nation.
For the young this pessimism manifests in intergenerational anger and economic fatalism. For slightly older people it ends up being freakouts about the border and claims that social security will disappear.
I worry that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially for the young. If you think you will never pay off student loans, why not take out more? If you can't afford a house, why not rent the most you can afford or spend the money on travel? The stock market is a sham, so why not put a tiny amount in Bitcoin and enjoy the rest today by spending it? Climate change will kill us all, so why not get another massive haul from Shein?
Twenty years ago I thought the desires of the young for a better future would deliver it. Today it just seems like fatalism designed to keep the misery going.
jdubs
Every generation can make this argument and many people often do once they get to a certain age.
As a young child i remember the oldsters giving this message and me and my dad snickering about it. Now i see my friends and peers offering these type of stories as their own collective wisdom.
These tales are never wrong....but they always deserve a disguised eye-roll before an attempt is made to change the subject.
He endured all that, AND dressed like a movie star. Well done, sir.
sonofthereturnofaptidude
Climate change has entered the chat.
jeffreycmcmahon
This has been today's installment of "That thing you're worried about? It's not a big deal to me, Kevin Drum".
Vog46
KD-
You are factually correct but I believe your conclusions are wrong
Life in the past was no better or worse than now
What IS different is our belief in what the press tells us
Up until George W Bush we could "trust" what guys like Cronkite, Reynolds and Huntley Brinkley told us nightly
Now we need fact checkers to check the truthfulness of REPORTERS.
Its the ONLY thing that has changed
We simply use the press to validate our own opinions
How many people did THAT in WWII?
As a hobbyist follower of World War 2 history, I have often thought of the routine headlines of tens of thousands, if not more, killed in weekly battles and catastrophes across the front and on the seas (much less what was happening in the killing fields of the Holocaust in Germany). Thanks for this valuable perspective. Here is a list of 20 'less-known battles' in WW2 with an almost routine tens of thousands of casualties: https://historycollection.com/20-lesser-known-battles-of-world-war-ii-that-really-mattered/
Shorter Kevin: Get off my lawn, whippersnappers!
My take is that Kevin Drum has good genes - his grandfather survived a pandemic that killed more of the younger people than the older generations - & with that & the persistence in looking for solutions, he has & can survive quite a lot.
He's god damn lucky. He got a cancer they can cure and had he got it 5 years earlier he'd be dead. And somehow he found the money to pay for it.
Kevin, you and I were raised in a particular WASP tradition - one that included "shut up and get to work" as an ethos, along with "don't talk about your feelings". And when you spend your life doing that, you might get resentful of people who are all out-there with their feelings about everything.
Those aren't really great ideas. They certainly aren't essential for success in life, since there are other traditions that embrace a much higher expressiveness. They are dying slowly, and that's probably good. It's been at my growth edge for sure for some time now.
Interestingly enough, I had similar feelings expressed to me just yesterday by a friend who is a bit older than me (and I think, Kevin).
Thing is, we've worked hard to make a better world, one where they didn't have to experience nasty stuff. We've had some success. But that means the kids have a different expectation. That's good, not bad.
Kids can have whatever expectations they want, but it's a good idea to have *some* clue about how abnormally good the post WW2 world has been, and the post-Cold war era even more so.
Also, FWIW, I don't see that "shut up and get to work" is a *WASP* tradition -- anyone who was raised by immigrant parents grew up with those very words echoing in their heads.
Well, WASPs aren't the only ones with this ethos, for sure. I am a WASP so I know them, and I don't know other traditions so well.
I just read Life Sentence which is about murder and drug dealing in Sandtown, Baltimore. Let’s just say this post is pretty meaningless.
It's not meaningless, it just views the world through a wider lens.
Whether that's good or bad depends on the purpose of viewing the world at all.
While I mostly agree, I think young people take the threat of climate change more seriously than older people. Maybe precisely because of everything you mention. When you've had a lifetime of terrible things happen, maybe you don't take the existential threat of climate change as seriously as you should. My brother brushes it off with the thought that we will just engineer our way out of climate change. So he doesn't take it all that seriously. I myself do see the threat of climate change and the huge population of people making a mess of the world as The Problem, and the rest of the worries are very much second fiddle.
Climate change is a potential existential crisis, you are right, but while many older folks don't take it as seriously as they might, a lot do.
But something a lot of folks forget is that during the Cold war, we faced the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation, and came distressingly close to suffering it in 1983 I think (Able Archer) and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Oh, and Kevin forgot to mention the enormous amount of economic development in the non-Western World in the past few decades, one of the greatest events in the reduction in human misery in the history of our species)
Overall I agree with the tone and tenor of what Kevin wrote. Doesn't mean we should not try to continue to improve things, but a little perspective is useful to put modern things in perspective.
But something a lot of folks forget is that during the Cold war, we faced the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation
We still do. Nuclear weapons haven't been uninvented. The Russian and Chinese arsenals are easily large enough to obliterate our civilization, and there's no workable defense. The latter, in particular, appears to be growing rapidly. Also, during the Cold War, the main beligerents seemed to perceive that avoiding any shooting war at all was paramount, because of what it might lead to. That last part seems to be a lot weaker now.
True, @Jasper, they have not been uninvented, but without getting into detailed discussions about how things have changed, I think it is safe to say that most experts agree that the odds of nuclear warfare have gone WAYYYYY down sine the end of the Cold War (And don't bring up the doomsday clock, because that started mixing in Climate Change so it is not a pure measure...)
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war when WAYYYY back up and almost no international relations "expert" would disagree. At the same time, the left has gone full blown chicken little with respect to climate change so that actual risks like a nuclear war get mostly crowded out in the MSM.
the left has gone full blown chicken little with respect to climate change so that actual risks like a nuclear war get mostly crowded out in the MSM.
I think this is probably true. One of the myriad was the climate crisis is fucking is over is in obscuring the reality of an even greater existential risk.
I think it is safe to say that most experts agree that the odds of nuclear warfare have gone WAYYYYY down sine the end of the Cold War
That's not remotely the case. It was perhaps the received wisdom in the 90s and early aughts—perhaps rightly so. But it's very definitely not the reality of 2023. But I guess we all have to find coping mechanisms that work for us.
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15250.doc.htm
'engineering our way out of climate change' --would be nationalizing the petroleum industry and eliminating it.
Unfortunately just nationalizing the US oil industry and shutting it down would not be near enough. Every major oil producing country needs to do the same thing. This may be the most important reason not enough progress has been made yet.
Yes, and if the US doesn't do it it won't happen at all.
We're not going to eliminate the petroleum industry. And if everyone did that at least 2/3 thirds of the world (as in, billions of people) would starve or otherwise die miserably. Arguably the result in terms of human losses would be worse than even a good sized nuclear war.
Arguably I think that estimate is arguable. We'll soon be able to replace almost any engine with an electric engine, and after that it's easy to imagine a serious impetus to re-engineer every other application of petroleum.
And if we don't do it no one will because it will have to happen first in the US or everyone else will simply think well our little bit can't hurt much compared to all that.
And if we don't do it the Earth dies and the human population along with it.
Preserving the gratification of a few billionaires seems hardly worth it.
I came here to say something similar. And while I see all Kevin's observations and generally agree, that there is no mention of climate change is interesting.
On the daily I'm worried that my two and four year old children may not have a world to live in if we tip into some vicious cycle of icesheet and/or permafrost melt that raises sea levels and sea temperatures in a way that fundamentally disrupts the gulf stream.
And, with massive population growth I'm worried my children won't be able to find wild places. And worried about the continued march of cities further and further out, pouring concrete over ever more acres. And the consistent march toward thousands of annual animal/bug/plant extinctions. And the loneliness/isolation that comes from car dependence/Youtube/HVAC/streaming/social media. And how fundamentally different it is when the worst drugs were alcohol and low potency marijuana (say 1950s) to meth and fentanyl that, with one use, and destroy/end a life.
So Kevin's right: when we measure our ills by war, disease, and material wealth, things ARE much better! But being a human is complex and there are more factors to consider.
Population growtih is slowing, both as a global aggregate, and in many specific places. Human population is predicted to peak soon.
So there's that,.
"My grandfather, Arthur Holliger, is on the far right in this 1940 photo."
So what you're saying is in 1940 the far right were sitting on the fence. That's why the country didn't ask them to pick a speaker.
My parents were born in the early 1920s and my life is as good as theirs was except for their suffering in WWII. Dad was a POW by Germany. He was traumatized. I am not.
But life was supposed to be good for more people now. There are 8 billion people in this world and it is not organized in a way that provides general prosperity and well being. It’s not whining to point this out.
But like Mr. Drum, I don’t give a flip fuck about their trauma. It’s impossible to do so and keep your sanity. Mass media inundates us with tales of suffering and evil. So I simply shrug and say, “Not my fault, not my problem.” President Biden should take note.
I do support sending the entire US military to Ukraine to kick Russian ass. It’s the only morally unambiguous conflict in the world today. The Middle East and Africa can drop dead.
The world isn't organized in *any* way, period. But certainly you can't have missed the drop in the number of people living in extreme poverty in the last 50-60 years.
There are 5 billion more people now than before so I’m thinking that’s part of the problem. The poverty rate might be lower, but the actual number of people?
Good points. Nice looking family. Where was the photo taken?
Post WW2, Western culture (which I’m most certainly a part of) has pushed the narrative that “life should be comfortable and pleasant”. This is a new development in the history of mankind! My grandfather (b. 1903) and his generation certainly didn’t expect life would be a bowl of cherries. Once expectations were raised by families in late 20th century, disappointment and sadness was destined to ensue.
"Now tell me again about your polycrisis and your trauma. I'm listening."
People care more about whether things are getting better or worse than their absolute level.
Once again you ignore that a majority of people do not live in Democracies anymore and that number is growing.
Yes. Canada joined the non-democracy list during Covid.
I mean, what you didn't mention was that in this Century the concept of going to war for, basically, the hell of it, is viewed far, far differently than a Century ago.
A Century ago, war was viewed as a constant. Now it is viewed correctly, as a failure. I don't know what exactly that has to do with youngsters complaining too much, but it seems to be human nature to complain, no?
The past does not exist. Neither does the future. The present does.
They did dress better in the non-existent past.
(｡•̀ᴗ-)
q re your grandfather's housing situation; was it a free-standing home with a plot of land in southern california 30 minutes from the beach?
just wondering if your grandfather paid his mortgage on an elevator operator's salary?
and did that job require a bachelor's degree?
My grandfather was a bricklayer and my grandmother never had a paying job. They moved from Los Angeles to Newport Beach in early1940s and he built a little house on Cliff Drive where they lived the rest of their long lives. It had a panoramic view of Newport Harbor, Balboa peninsula and the Pacific Ocean. In 1952 they took a vacation to Scotland, traveling by ocean liner.
Granted, we all suffer from recency bias. However, scolding people by telling them how things were harder when you was growing up having to walk through two feet of snow for 5 miles to get to school is just going to result in rolled eyes.
Yes, considering the history of the 20th century it is odd that so many people are talking about crises of anxiety. In view of how damaging anxiety and various "traumas" are now considered to be it's a wonder that people were able to function at all in the previous times when life was much harder than it is now. I suspect that this is function of the number of people whose business it is to diagnose psychiatric problems. There certainly were not as many psychiatric professionals in the first half of the 20th century - not to mention centuries before that.
Everyone's so trim.
Before high fructose corn syrup and super sized everything.
No
https://www.slowboring.com/p/americans-have-been-gaining-weight
Do you want things to get even better? Keep whining. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Good column, but I offer some additional perspective on this point:
“Racism may still be our original sin, but it's plummeted compared to the days of Jim Crow, redlining, literacy tests, and Bull Connor.”
This statement is more than enough to get Kevin completely drummed (pardon the pun) out of the modern left. Would his old employer, Mother Jones magazine, even agree to publish such sentiments?
Personal anecdote: I recently signed up to volunteer at a local tutoring establishment in my very Democratic city. I was told to attend a remote orientation session. And that seemed harmless enough. So I logged in (along with maybe a half dozen other attendees) at the appointed time, and the first thing we were treated to was a lengthy land acknowledgment (a reminder that our city is located on land that native Americans once inhabited). I personally think such announcements are pointless if not sanctimonious, but they’re not a complete dealbreaker.
The dealbreaker was to follow. The next step was a long lecture on Ibram Kendi-style antiracism. We were all dutifully informed that we were not supposed to engage in supposedly harmful practices like recognizing a standard form of English or even encouraging students to identify and fix problems in their writing. After all, that’s the way racists behave!
And I admit: I gave up around that time and logged off. I had already lost all interest in volunteering at that establishment and it was pointless (and honestly painful) to continue listening to that orientation.
My point? Leftists are very deeply invested, perhaps irrevocably, in the idea that society does not improve. The prevalence of racism does not decrease over time; indeed, it cannot. So all-pervasive is racism that we engage in it if we even so much as try to help someone improve their reading and writing. And, as far as these Leftists are concerned, Kevin needs to be sent off to some kind of reeducation camp to fix his wrongthink about racism decreasing in our society.
Poor Leo, so wrapped up in his world of race, bitterness, unease and anger about his own easy situation. Literally everything is a trigger for this poor, bitter, sheltered guy.
You are kind of proving Leo's point...
We seem to be in an age of pessimism. For all the disasters Americans faced from 1860-1950, we seemed to be optimistic at heart. How else could Chicago have rebuilt after fire, changed the flow of the river, AND jacked up the city above the swamp? After Katrina it seemed like half of the country was ready to abandon New Orleans. Hardly the view of an optimistic nation.
For the young this pessimism manifests in intergenerational anger and economic fatalism. For slightly older people it ends up being freakouts about the border and claims that social security will disappear.
I worry that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially for the young. If you think you will never pay off student loans, why not take out more? If you can't afford a house, why not rent the most you can afford or spend the money on travel? The stock market is a sham, so why not put a tiny amount in Bitcoin and enjoy the rest today by spending it? Climate change will kill us all, so why not get another massive haul from Shein?
Twenty years ago I thought the desires of the young for a better future would deliver it. Today it just seems like fatalism designed to keep the misery going.
Every generation can make this argument and many people often do once they get to a certain age.
As a young child i remember the oldsters giving this message and me and my dad snickering about it. Now i see my friends and peers offering these type of stories as their own collective wisdom.
These tales are never wrong....but they always deserve a disguised eye-roll before an attempt is made to change the subject.
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OK, Boomer. Your grandfather sounds awesome.
He endured all that, AND dressed like a movie star. Well done, sir.
Climate change has entered the chat.
This has been today's installment of "That thing you're worried about? It's not a big deal to me, Kevin Drum".
KD-
You are factually correct but I believe your conclusions are wrong
Life in the past was no better or worse than now
What IS different is our belief in what the press tells us
Up until George W Bush we could "trust" what guys like Cronkite, Reynolds and Huntley Brinkley told us nightly
Now we need fact checkers to check the truthfulness of REPORTERS.
Its the ONLY thing that has changed
We simply use the press to validate our own opinions
How many people did THAT in WWII?