Would you, if you could?

Pompidou · Sep 23, 2010

Naturally, a community like this is home to a lot of nostalgia for the good old days. I'm just sort of curious how many of you would actually rather live back then - in the decades The Fedora Lounge caters to mostly - I'd say, the 20s to the 60s. Would you give up the advancements in science for the culture of the past? I imagine that's really what the debate would boil down to - past culture vs modern technology. Or, maybe you believe modern culture trumps past culture as well, and this is a no brainer. I'm just curious.

Me, I wouldn't be happy in the past. I love technology, for one thing. Another issue would be I don't like the woman in the kitchen, man is the master of the domain sort of ethos that reigned at the time. I'm still not content with the state of equality even in this day, but it's much better than the past. Racial issues as well. I don't think I could step back in time. Any problems with manners are problems I'm probably equally guilty of, and am accordingly used to - what with texting and the general abandonment of the old rules of courtesy. It's a different world, but I don't know that I'd be happy any other way. Now, jumping to the future - that'd be another story. If I live long enough for viable cryogenics, I aim to take advantage of it. Death's just not my thing. But, that's off topic.

Yeps · Sep 23, 2010

I am not sure. I rather like modern times, but if I could go back and study with some of the musical greats....

Mav · Sep 23, 2010

Nope. While I'm not all that enamored of technology, there's a little more room for unorthodox thought these days, and a lot of historic info. that was considered to have been accurate in the past has been re- thought in recent times, particularly as it pertains to certain aspects of ancient history and philosophy, which is a personal interest. I can always live in the past, to an extent, if I choose to, while keeping modern benefits. And, I can pretty much guarantee that if the motivation for living in some past decade is because it was some sort of "golden age," they weren't that golden, no matter how far back you go.

OTOH, if one of us retro- loons would ever invent a usable time machine, I'd visit fairly often.

shortbow · Sep 23, 2010

I would be delighted to live in the 20's/30's. Where do I sign up?

Yeps · Sep 23, 2010

I would definitely go live in the fictional world created by P.G. Wodehouse, if I could run with Wooster and his crowd.

scottyrocks · Sep 23, 2010

Im not a big fan of technology but I am also not a fan of much of the mindset-ignorance before fairly recent times.

Shangas · Sep 23, 2010

No. But I would gladly join a society hell-bent on bringing back 20s and 30s style and glamour to the 21st century.

Yeps · Sep 23, 2010

Shangas said:
No. But I would gladly join a society hell-bent on bringing back 20s and 30s style and glamour to the 21st century.

....

Wait a minute... that sounds familiar!

Kaonashi · Sep 23, 2010

Nope, nope and definitely nope... I´d like to visit, but not stay there... I think I´d rather go back to the Renaissance I think...

Vintage lover · Sep 23, 2010

Yeps said:
I am not sure. I rather like modern times, but if I could go back and study with some of the musical greats....

That would be an amazing experience. I would be the kind of person to spend a few years in the 20's-50's, start it as a vacation, than end up never coming back. But honestly, I would love to have seen the opening of Le Nozze di Figaro, or other only imaginable events. And what an honor it would be to have a conversation with Napoleon, Patton, Alexander The Great, The Founders, Victoria, I could go on for days.

HepKitty · Sep 23, 2010

Shangas said:
No. But I would gladly join a society hell-bent on bringing back 20s and 30s style and glamour to the 21st century.

sounds good to me. you can have the past, in some form or another, but you can't have the future. we can still create a little bit of the style, class, and glamor if only for ourselves, and we can have our current world. honestly this is a more enabled world, if you look at travel, education, etc, there is more that we can do now than people could do back then. and in another 80 years or so, someone will think this exact same thing about their world vs ours I'm sure

ScionPI2005 · Sep 23, 2010

Shangas said:
No. But I would gladly join a society hell-bent on bringing back 20s and 30s style and glamour to the 21st century.

That sounds like the best option to me. I know there were plenty of negative things about the Golden Era, same as there are plenty of negative things about the modern day. I wouldn't mind visiting, but I wouldn't care to deal with some of the hardships on a day to day basis (living through the Depression, WWI and WWII would have been very tough depending on who you were).

Puzzicato · Sep 23, 2010

Nope. I had badly infected insect bites on my leg a couple of weeks ago, and my husband cheerfully pointed out that 100 years ago I would have lost my leg, or died. He's right too. It was only an intensive course of antibiotics that got it under control. And if I had died, he would have been left raising the 6 children that we didn't have contraceptives to prevent. And then they would be orphaned by him being conscripted into some war.

The dresses are nice, and I like the movies and architecture, but I really, really like my dishwasher.

AntonAAK · Sep 23, 2010

Yeps said:
I would definitely go live in the fictional world created by P.G. Wodehouse, if I could run with Wooster and his crowd.

Me too. And therein lies the rub. I would gladly go back and live in the thirties if I could be one of the idle rich. But I would not want to be poor back then...

rcfko · Sep 23, 2010

Other than the time period, my other question would be where?

As a person originally from Hong Kong, I'd have to say no way. As glamourous as movies and stories made our recent past, there are too many problems to consider. Lack of medical knowledge, racial prejudice and misconception (some of which is still around), depressions and wars, thanks but no thanks.

If I were in Asia, I'd have to deal with the Japanese occupation; America, depression and racial intolerance (would you like me to press your shirt? or would you prefer some chicken flie lice?); Europe, well, let's not forget the two great war!

As nice as we think the pass is, it's really not that great. Although I would love to visit, just to experience the era, great cars; fashion; proper manner; tommy gun. Just a thought.

Baron Kurtz · Sep 23, 2010

The old days were crap.

It would be great, wouldn't it? Leave school at 14 independent of brain power, get some crappy job for crappy pay, terrible diet, dreadful working conditions, absolutely no concept of safety at work, doffing ones hat deferentially to "betters", the ever present danger of infection in the days of essentially medieval medicine (doctors weren't paid very much because they were basically useless; might as well get a priest if all either can do is hold your hand), total lack of social mobility (as if it's great now) and putting up with the ceaseless, mindless grind of a life with no prospects for advancement.

Thankfully, the generation of my parents is the last generation of the British working class that willingly put up with such garbage. Britain, until the 1980s, was a dump, fettered by pretentious class divisions and faux-manners, designed to ensure that the status quo was firmly retained. Good riddance to bad rubbish; hello GenX/Y/Z. Social mobility if you want it and if you're good enough at your chosen specialism. (And finally, at last, good riddance to the notion prevalent in British society that to achieve more than your peers/parents is somehow a betrayal of ones roots. This one single attitude held Britain back more than any other, in my view, and i'm glad to see it appears to be in its death throes, the daily mail the last bastion of the death rattle of this peculiarly Anglo disease.)

bk

Amy Jeanne · Sep 23, 2010

NO WAY. If I could "vacation" in the past I would, but only to be able to come back and brings today's money with me.

I rather like tampons, birth control, my college education, my black friends, my iPod so i can listen to OTR anywhere, and I wouldn't want to toil in a factory my whole life (7 years was ENOUGH!)

I think I've already said this about 9 times before, though [huh]

Feraud · Sep 23, 2010

Baron Kurtz said:
(And finally, at last, good riddance to the notion prevalent in British society that to achieve more than your peers/parents is somehow a betrayal of ones roots. This one single attitude held Britain back more than any other, in my view, and i'm glad to see it appears to be in its death throes, the daily mail the last bastion of the death rattle of this peculiarly Anglo disease.)

bk

Unfortunately there is still a good segment of the American population that suffers from that social malady.

Ada Vice · Sep 23, 2010

No way!

I go back just a little in time to my Mum growing up in the early 50's and her telling me about the physical problems a lot of growing children faced because rationing went on for some time after the war here. My Grandmother moved from Bermuda where there was no rationing while pregnant and came here to be told no cheese, hardly any butter etc etc

It's very easy to romanticise it all, but I would hazard a guess that most of the forum would not be living the life of aristocrats, work was HARD, working days were LONG, diet was POOR, healthcare was a mixture of dangerous remedies and total quackery, almost EVERYONE smoked, and probably stunk too, one weekly bath! lol

While I love the fashions, the architecture, the design, and perhaps some of the comaradery that people seemed to have yesteryear, I don't view it with rose tintend glasses. I'm glad I live in the now with all of the medical and technological advancements we have, the human rights we are now given, and mainly being free from discrimination in this part of the world.

Up until the 30's my dad's family is listed as living in London slums, (Mainly pulled down after WW2, but one house is still there, if you wanted to buy it now you'd be looking at £1.5m!!) so I expect their life was much worse than the middle class Bermudan existence my maternal Grandparents had.

benstephens · Sep 23, 2010

I have to agree with others on this thread. I think I have said this a few times before as well!

For most of us it would be a huge shock to live in the past. Unless you were wealthy, life was hard. We had little equality, working conditions even for those in higher paid jobs were not good.

We would not have time or the income to persue hobbies such as dressing in old clothes, few of us would actually have had a car.
the time we live in now has it's problems, but I am quite assured that these problems are a lot less than they were back in the 'golden age'. Remember, there would have been parts of London which were no go areas due to crime, and, when the bomb fell on the Cafe de Paris during the war, I believe it was looters who were the first on the scene!

However, I do enjoy occasionally stepping back to my romantic view of the past. This is not so much an escape from modern day as it is escape from work and stress, however, it is purely just that.

This is why I get so annoyed with certain newspapers and a nostalgia magazine peddling that somehow life was better back then. I suppose for many, especially the readers of the aforementioned, certain aspect appeal to them. Not to me though!

Ben

Would you, if you could?

One Too Many

Call Me a Cab

A-List Customer

Practically Family

Call Me a Cab

I'll Lock Up

I'll Lock Up

Call Me a Cab

Familiar Face

A-List Customer

One Too Many

Call Me a Cab

One Too Many

Practically Family

Familiar Face

I'll Lock Up

Call Me a Cab

One of the Regulars

Practically Family

Similar threads

Log in

Forum statistics