Comparing 2018 and 1918...Are we happier?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JamalChristophr
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There’s some major issues tracking suicides over the centuries, especially as there was a strong preference to report them as accidents.
Oh yes. “No one” committed suicide back then. Especially women.

And if you did attempt it, you were most often locked up in an asylum and not talked about.
 
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Pup7:
Hmmm…experiences, spelling, cultural references, comments.
So basically: from what they write. Of all users on this website, how many (percentage-wise) have you had exchanges with? Do you know how many users there are on this website? Did you know that I was not American before I revealed it? If yes, what gave it away?
The fact that the site is designed by and for American Catholics.
Do you understand that who designs a website has no influence on who can access it? This website is just as easily accessible to people on the other side of the world, as it is to you. They too will find this website immediately if they Google for “catholic forum”, and there is nothing in the sign-up procedure that suggests to them that it is more for American Catholics than for Catholics of the rest of the world. The word “American” does not appear during the sign-up procedure, or on the website’s front page, or in the website’s name, or in the forum rules.
Do you realize I’m not an idiot, nor is anyone else here?

Show me where I said “it’s more for Americans”. I said the people here are mostly Americans. Stop twisting what I say, please.

It was designed by and for Americans. No one said there’s an American only rule. Good grief. I would expect a British Catholic site heralded as the premier British Catholic site to be made up of primarily Brits. Several commented to that effect, yet you’re only coming after me. No reason for that.

I have a pretty good memory and I’ve also learned when people have said where they’re from as well.

And yes, by your disparaging comments on American culture, I knew right away you weren’t American. That pretty much makes it obvious. Like I said, multiple posts, over time, in context. I’ve lived in multiple countries and am not married to an American…it gets simpler over time.

I am not responding to your sidelines any more. There’s no reason for this conversation. Let’s move on and stop derailing what was otherwise an interesting thread. Good day.
 
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It;s hard to argue with statistics. Anecdotes are good but they are not the same. By any measure the happiness of current culture is pretty low. Anxiety, depression, suicide, divorce, abortion, are all symptoms of unhappiness and also the causes of it.

We should’t confuse a difficult life full of struggle with a joyless life. We are comfortable in this age, and unhappy.
 
Statistics have to compare like with like, otherwise they are useless. There’s a reason professional statistics is complicated.

Depression and anxiety weren’t even diagnosed back then. You can’t show statistics that tell you how many people from then would be diagnosed if they were evaluated by modern standards. There’s so much difference that many of the statistical comparison don’t really mean anything.
 
You have social media and mass media in your face in 2018, and that makes a big difference. And yes, you have different things going on, but I would rather be alive now - if the stories of my grandparents are indicative of anything.
Slightly off topic, but if I were allowed to pick a generation I would prefer to be a part of it would the “greatest generation”. Those born in the 1920’s. really experienced soooo much. My grandparents as mentioned above were born in the early 1900’s and I don’t think they had life all that easy.
 
The federal income tax (USA) was instituted in 1916.

So going back to 1918 wouldn’t help you.

I’m not a real fan of “simple” . Gladys Knight can have her “simpler place and time” all she wants.

Death is simple: life is complicated.

ICXC NIKA
 
This is a point. Income tax in germany lets my husband and me falling under the poverty line, so that I may need to ask for state support to have at least the same money on my bank account as first…witout the tax. One can now decide wether the costs for bureaucracy are good invested 😖
Seriously, I won´t have the past times back, but starting a business was easyer back then at least in germany.
 
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I was the first born of two first borns, so my grands were all youngish.

But people forget that there were cars and phones and a motion picture industry and a world war 100 years ago and the Jazz age was just around the corner.
 
But people forget that there were cars and phones and a motion picture industry and a world war 100 years ago and the Jazz age was just around the corner.
I think a lot of people who post on this forum are very young, and anything prior to WWII they think everybody was out in the fields threshing the grain with a scythe.
 
> But people forget that there were cars and phones and a motion picture industry and a world war 100 years ago and the Jazz age was just around the corner.

I think a lot of people who post on this forum are very young, and anything prior to WWII they think everybody was out in the fields threshing the grain with a scythe.
Maybe they think after “our little farm” there was not much change in society. But even in the series there was a phone at the merchant´s store 😃
 
Young and haven’t studied history. I may only be 30, but I know better. In the U.S., you had widespread industrialization in the north by the civil war - that was a major factor in the war. WWI was so striking in part because with the advances in science and industry we were learning new and exciting ways to maim and kill each other (and sometimes ourselves). All those tanks and shells came out of factories, after all. But at least you can still get a drink.

It is also distinctly possible that I’m just a nerd.
 
Most people by 1918 weren’t farming.
It was post ww1
Many countries had to be rebuilt. The world changed a lot.
People worked long hours, hard labour,
Even in agriculture, it was harder and slower and more dangerous then today.

Think of the industry going on to rebuild after ww1.
People coming home from war. All those lost = a greatly reduced workforce ,
All those permanently disabled.
 
I said “people on average” and by that I meant people the world over. You all comment by giving examples from the USA 100 years ago. Yes, the industrial revolution happened early in the USA, and it made life tough . But the population of the USA constitutes only 4% of the world population. (Yes, really. 300 million out of 7.6 billion. Do the math.)
1918 , much of the world was rebuilding from two wars. It was not an American centric experience,

And rebuilding with a greatly reduced young workforce.
 
How can you tell from a post that the poster is American? Everyone posts in English here, so that doesn’t mean anything. And I haven’t seen many posters disclose their nationality or location.
It’s pretty obvious.

And as to your farming comment about getting 8 or 9 months off,

I truly believe you to have no concept of farming. Tell that to a dairy farmer for instance
 
Do you think it is possible to say that we are actually better off in 2018 compared to 1918?

Do we really live happier lives than they did? Or vice versa?
Being happy does not necessarily mean being better. If I have to eat spinach to make my health better. Well, I am not happy eating those greens, no doubt. So they are not synonymous to each other.

First, taking the question: Are we happier? Well, is this society here now happier than the society then? I do not really know. It’s honestly a silly question. Happiness isn’t silly. But the question on the comparative is. Why? Because, to speak on the collective and on the whole, people are different. Society is different. Because they are not the same.

But let me not leave your question as a fruitless attempt of getting or finding somewhere to be.

Were people in 1918 expressively happier than we are in our time? I do not know. But, I’d say that there are many outcomes quite different. First, looking at family. The family did fair better than families do now. Not in the way of quality of life, but in relation. Families stayed together. Not to the descending trend of breaking apart, as they do more so now. Would that necessarily equate being those people then were happier than we are now? I’d say so. That, most people in that era were happier with the simpler things. The same daunting things were over their head as we have now. The same worries, angst, pain, and turmoil: Rumors of war and talk of war; famine; disaster. Jesus said, do not be disturbed. For these things must come to pass.

Then to your second question. Are we better than the people then (i.e. 1918)? I’d say in many ways, quality of living in the Western World. Yes, we are. But in the family makeup, I’d have to say, overall, we are not. But, as Pope Francis has pointed out, we’re trying to get there.

Perhaps the answer is still inconclusive to how you would like to illustrate and see it based on your question. But, in truth, since we’re all still trying to get there. I’d say it is still inconclusive. Give it sometime. For the question might be asked, oh say 100 years down the road (i.e. 2118.): “Comparing 2118 to 1918” Are we (those people at that time) happier? Well, they would be best to answer the question then, and there. As were are not their yet.
 
Roguish:
It is also a country in which women still don’t court men their fathers disapprove of, and where women still don’t go out and live on their own. And you know what? It seems that our women are kinda happy that way
@DarkLight brought it up:
Decent women simply did not court men their fathers disapproved of, or go out and live on their own.
See my message to @Tis_Bearself of half an hour ago, who also thought, apparently, that I was pulling this topic out of nowhere, and who flagged me for it. Did you not see DarkLight’s post?
 
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