An Old Itch

[Penguin]

This is something that I've wanted to post about for a long time, but putting it in a succinct, cogent, and respectful way has been a challenge (mostly due to my own views on the subject):

For those of you who say: "[INSERT GENERAL TREND HERE] has been getting worse these days" or "I'm glad that good stuff can still happen these days" I would like to know why you say "these days".  While it's true that inevitably some things will get worse and others will get better over time, why do you say "these days"?  It would seem that you are referring to a period in the past during which things were all-around better.  What I've never seen is a specific period that you believe was the paragon of human accomplishment.

Unless something truly ludicrous/insulting comes up, I will do my best to hold my tongue.  The debate is for another thread at a later time, though, inevitably, it will come.  Until then, fire away!

 

-Penguin

[jeep00]

When you physically "hold your tongue" then someone will place a date defining  "these days". Until then, we'll just have to say they are both figures of speech.

Bob

[Shifty]

A lot of times its just a figure of speech. However you're young and have no real life experiance. The day may come when you are in your 40s or 50s and suddenly life is better or worse than it was when you were in your 30s. Or the world and the values you grew up with are gone or have drastically changed.  Then the term "These Days" may actually mean something to you. Not everybody  has the luxery of thinking in terms of  "the paragon of human accomplishment". They're too damn busy just trying to get by.

[uptown]

In the words of the great Merle Haggard http://youtu.be/eFHJ41ktt3Q

He puts it in words far better then I ever could ...... "i wish coke was still cola and a joint was a bad place to be."  

[Penguin]

Ah, I thought that the term was quite literal in its meaning.  Sorry if I overdid the vocabulary, but I couldn't leave anything to chance.  I should have said pinnacle, not paragon, my bad.

-Penguin

[Rolex]

Oops.

[FLOTSOM]

its too late tonight for a reasonably meaningful answer to your inquiry, but i post here so i can keep up with the thread and will attempt to give you a reasonably thought out response tomorrow...

[Shifty]

Ah, I thought that the term was quite literal in its meaning.  Sorry if I overdid the vocabulary, but I couldn't leave anything to chance.  I should have said pinnacle, not paragon, my bad.

-Penguin

The use of pinnacle would have made no difference to my answer. The term can be literal for some people. Again most people will use the term these days to describe their own life experiances not humanity as a whole. Most people don't dwell on a Golden age of Humanity because they have never experianced one. As for me the good old days are right now. I have a decent home and a wonderful wife. My children are grown healthy and happy inspite of some very big challenges for a couple of them. You can keep the good ole days back when I was in my 20s 30s and 40s. Are there moments I look back fondly on or miss? You bet there are. However I don't want to go back and re-do it. I'll take these days over those days any day.

[Karnak]

This is something that I've wanted to post about for a long time, but putting it in a succinct, cogent, and respectful way has been a challenge (mostly due to my own views on the subject):

For those of you who say: "[INSERT GENERAL TREND HERE] has been getting worse these days" or "I'm glad that good stuff can still happen these days" I would like to know why you say "these days".  While it's true that inevitably some things will get worse and others will get better over time, why do you say "these days"?  It would seem that you are referring to a period in the past during which things were all-around better.  What I've never seen is a specific period that you believe was the paragon of human accomplishment.

Unless something truly ludicrous/insulting comes up, I will do my best to hold my tongue.  The debate is for another thread at a later time, though, inevitably, it will come.  Until then, fire away!

 

-Penguin

The "good old days" that people most often remember so fondly tend to be the days when that person was a child.  They aren't remembering the problems because they weren't aware of the problems of the day or they saw the bad stuff in a "this is just how things are" light.  I remember, looking back, a period in the '70s where we were homeless, but at the time I simply thought we were camping out on a holiday and treated it as such.  I doubt if you asked my mom or dad about that time they would have seen it as being a fun time.

[Dago]

Failed to see a point to this thread, seems to be just a nonsense post to me.

[JimmyC]

"the other day"  could be years ago
go figure

[APDrone]

I think "these days" is simply plural for 'today', which, technically, is impossible since there is only one 'today'.

It represents a string of current, or recent,  days, without having to bend the brain to discriminate to the the exact days.

For instance, you've experienced a good event that you recall happened more frequently 8 years ago.  More accurately, you most recently experienced it last Friday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.   

So, instead of saying ""I'm glad that good stuff can still happen  last Friday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday"
you just say "I'm glad that good stuff can still happen these days."

Saves an awful lot of typing and bandwidth,   IMHO.

 

[Penguin]

That makes sense.  I had a hunch that it was partly not remembering the bad stuff that happened during one's childhood, but I never saw it thought of/saw it as a way to refer to recent events.

-Penguin

[Maverick]

The "good old days" most often means that they are referring to a time when the cares were less and the tensions and anxiety were lower for that individual.

For you, these ARE the good old days. You won't recognise that fact for about another 10 to 20 years when you have an actual perspective to look back from. Being an adult, and I mean a fully functioning and successful adult as in Maslow's hierarchy of needs manner, is not as easy as being a school aged kid for the most part. Passing the age of innocence should be noticed but happens in retrospect in the majority of the time.

[saggs]

Blah, blah blah...

 

-Penguin

It's called nostalgia.  You're too young to have really experienced it.


As for a perfect time period, it doesn't exist.  In fairly recent history, I'd be tempted to say the 1950s where good because (speaking for western society as a whole) family units were much stronger, people lived within their means, there was no such thing as a credit card, about the only consumer debt was house mortgages (and a "starter" home was 1100 sq ft, not 3000)  people where much more self sufficient, took on more personal responsibilty.  On the other hand there where terrible issues with racism, sexism and homophobia and bigotry, people still did bad things it was just kept in the dark more.

In today's society we have made vast improvements with issues like racism, sexism, homophobia and bigotry in general, yet at the same time we have families falling apart, far to many people who don't know the meaning of "self sufficiency" or "personal responsibility", rampant sovereign and consumer debt and American society specifically has turned into a materialistic orgy.