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Maxwell03
Guest
Are we? (now i’m going to be awake until 3 am because of this question)
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alice24
Guest
Are you kidding me?
You started to compare 1918 and 2018 regarding porn and crime to prove that 1918 was better because there was less porn and sex crimes and never gave stats. I gave advice and answered the question, not with the result you like, and now you say it´s off topic. This is not a proper discussion culture.
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goout
Guest
You are not reading what I am writing.goout:
Are you kidding me?
You started to compare 1918 and 2018 regarding porn and crime to prove that 1918 was better because there was less porn and sex crimes and never gave stats. I gave advice and answered the question, not with the result you like, and now you say it´s off topic. This is not a proper discussion culture.
That’s your choice, but a one sided diatribe is not a conversation, it’s an agenda.
I never claimed 1918 was “better than” 2018.
I am simply pointing the various things that might be barometers of true happiness.
And they do not add up to true happiness.
Prosperity? Sure you have a case there.
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alice24
Guest
Yes, you mentioned porn use and availability as well as sex crimes and abortions as a mark for unhapiness, and that this issues were less grave in 1918. I said it wasn´t. I never said money or health is the only measure of happiness, I say that 1918 is worse in almost every way you could measure happiness.
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DarkLight
Guest
That’s going to affect a lot of the perception of sex trafficking as well - a lot of women who were dismissed as just prostitutes would now be considered trafficking victims.
We’re also right on the cusp of modern age of consent laws. For a long time any girl past puberty was considered to be fully able to consent. Nowadays we’d regard a 14 year old prostitute as a victim no matter what.
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Xantippe
Guest
Another thing–1918 (along with all of WWI) caused a lot of breakdown in faith in various traditional institutions. People were disillusioned by the authorities who had presided over the slaughter of a generation of young men, and also often disillusioned by traditional values that they blamed for the war.
See, for example Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est:
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
www.poetryfoundation.org
Wilfred Owen died at 25, just a week before the end of WWI. He wrote the poem between 1917 and 1918.
Also, the fact that a lot of young men meant that a lot of young women a) were never able to marry b) needed to pursue careers to support themselves and c) “experimented” during the 1920s.
So, 1918 is a really, really, bad date to choose for “the good old days.”
See, for example Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est:
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen | Poetry Foundation
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
www.poetryfoundation.org
Wilfred Owen died at 25, just a week before the end of WWI. He wrote the poem between 1917 and 1918.
Also, the fact that a lot of young men meant that a lot of young women a) were never able to marry b) needed to pursue careers to support themselves and c) “experimented” during the 1920s.
So, 1918 is a really, really, bad date to choose for “the good old days.”
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goout
Guest
well considered thoughts thanks
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Xantippe
Guest
Another point–Russia’s involvement in WWI led fairly directly to the rise of the Bolsheviks and to the near destruction of Russian Orthodox life in Russia. (A lot of Orthodox monasteries were turned into prisons during the Soviet years.)
I’m not Vladimir Putin’s biggest fan, but if you’re in Russia, 2018 is definitely a better year than 1918, which was during the Russian Civil War.
I’m not Vladimir Putin’s biggest fan, but if you’re in Russia, 2018 is definitely a better year than 1918, which was during the Russian Civil War.
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alice24
Guest
Oh yes…this is something rarely noticed among this discussions. Since I life in a former socialist region and attend a mainly russian parish, I got sensibilized more than before for this huge crush of respect and love for the christian culture.
0
0Scarlett_nidiyilii
Guest
But were they drinking a lot to ease the tensions and pain of their lives, or was it a hail-fellow-well-met cultural thing, or was it because beer was cleaner and safer than water?
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Augustinian
Guest
Not just in the United States, Vin Mariani was a cocaine based patent medicine that was used by folks in Europe including Popes Leo XIII and Pius X.
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Pup7
Guest
No, actually, the reason there are few statistics is it wasn’t tracked. They had no reason to track it.
And abortion was indeed as prevalent. It had nothing to do with illegality. It had to do with the status of women.
I can’t Google all this, for certain. A lot of it is in research texts. But you can do the digging yourself. Tons of books have been published on these subjects, as have sociological research papers.
You seem to have a romantic view of one hundred years ago. People are alike all over - and all through history. We really haven’t invented anything.
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Pup7
Guest
There’s a reason Coca-Cola has its name.
It’s amazing how it’s not acknowledged that you could buy opiates and actual drug paraphernalia in the Sears and Roebuck catalogs of that era. The first Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act wasn’t passed until 1938!
There are even old History Channel documentaries on everything we’ve talked about here.
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Pup7
Guest
It was likely due to all of that, and a lack of availability of actual psychotropics in many cases as well.
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MonteRCMS
Guest
that … and tastier.
M
MonteRCMS
Guest
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DarkLight
Guest
Right. You’re not going to see them in the illegal drugs statistics because you could go buy these things perfectly legally.
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Xantippe
Guest
As I’ve been keeping my ears open lately, it’s been striking how much hard drug use there used to be. I believe I mentioned Louisa May Alcott, but Elizabeth Barrett Browning (!) also came up as an opium user.
The reason Marx talked about religion as the “opiate of the masses” was that prosperous Europeans were using a lot of opiates.
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Xantippe
Guest
To this day, we talk about people “self-medicating” with alcohol, tobacco and drugs for psychological problems.
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Xantippe
Guest
Sherlock Holmes (late 19th century/early 20th century) was supposed to be a regular cocaine and occasional morphine user.
Hard drug use used to have a much more upmarket reputation than it does now.
Hard drug use used to have a much more upmarket reputation than it does now.