The Coronavirus

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-11-2022, 01:11 AM)TatteredGenX Wrote:

(12-29-2021, 03:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have high hopes for the Homeland Generation, and the one yet to be born. 
My own generation needs to buck up and come to grips with that we aren't in the 1920's Speakeasies any longer, the fun of robbing merchants and cooking booze has come to an end and it is 1939 now.

What is (was?) this century's analogue of the 1920s Speakeasies, etc?

My father was a GI, and told a little about growing up in the 20s and 30s.  In that time alcohol was the drug of choice, consumed in gatherings of men, and kept apart from family.  There is no equivalent today.  Oh, the making and distribution are still by organized crime, the old gangsters equivalent to the modern pushers and their suppliers.  Today, both sexes participate and partake with better isolation.  

Before that, in medieval and colonial times, with drugs like henbane and witch's weed, the women had better blood absorbing genitals and the guys could not partake.  The result was hangings and witch burnings.  I am not in favor of any abuse of mind altering substances, but of the three the modern approach is to be preferred.  Some things are not cyclical, do not repeat with the S&H periods.

Dad also mentioned that in the shoe making country around Brockton, Abington and Rockland Massachusetts, the wage earner just had to live within reasonable road streetcar distance of the family.  The time was after the horse but before the car.  Without modern appliances, you still needed a full time homemaker.  The result was that a kid with a few extra dimes could wander all over the south shore.  Streetcars were everywhere.  

Also dad's father never had a bank account or took a bank loan.  If someone were sick or something came up which required cash, he would go to the guy running the local gambling house.  Today, everybody has to use a credit card.

In looking at history, I will use turnings, ages of civilization, and competition between civilizations.  All three perspectives are meaningful.  Focusing too much on one results in incompleteness.  Turnings predict cyclical repetitions.  Ages predict advancement and progress.  Civilizations suggest things happen at different times.  All this occurs together.  You have to dance between the three.