The Good Old Days

You hear people talk about the good old days, simpler times, when things were just better, but I can not seem to pinpoint when these days were. Any ideas? The more I think about it the more I realize there are additional qualifier questions: For whom were they better? Where were they better? If you think about it, there is really only one answer to these above questions: western civilized white males. For any other group of people, the thought of the old days usually entails a lack of freedom and equality. Every decade of the past has had an embarrassing violation of basic human rights -- many of which we are still trying to get through. (Also, I will not even bother getting into animal welfare -- where does your food come from?). It then seems selfish, let alone racist, sexist, and homophobic, to consider the existence of the "good old days".

A large factor of what spawned this thought was watching through the TV series Mad Men -- a show depicting the lives of ad men in the early 60's. It is a great view into the role of gender, race, and sexual orientation played during those times. We have come a long way -- a positive long way. There is obviously still much progress to be made in this world, but rest assured we are heading in the right direction. We must continue pushing forward and refuse to see any of the previous lapses in humanity as good -- or even acceptable.