There is a tendency in human beings to look back and think that those days are better than today. Its nostalgia. I have two people in my family that are like this … I get the wistful forwards and reminiscing of kinder, gentler times. It implies that today is a degeneration of society – bad TV, bad kids, and a world of terrorism, global warming, and economic downturn.

Well, I think that’s a bunch of BS.

I got my undergraduate degree in History. Since I didn’t want to be a high school football coach, I went into graduate school. And since I didn’t want to be poor, I chose a different major. But having a cursory study of history, it gives me a unique and more informed opinion on the past than the average schmo.

Here’s my hypothesis: right now, 2008, and every day after today is the best time to be alive in the entire course of human history. Of course, there are places in the world that were hell holes, are hell holes, and will continue to be hell holes. My hypothesis generally applies to industrialized nations – what we’d generally consider to be first world, but without the condescension of economic/cultural snobbery.

I believe that the main reason that most people look back and think times were simply is that its normally during the period of their childhood. The best example is Steven King. By the way, I wonder if anyone calls him Steve. Hello, Steve King. So strange sounding. A lot of his books have flashbacks or foreshadowing in the 1950s, when he grew up. Of course, us children of the 80s can’t really do that, its well documented how much they sucked (see Wallstreet, Iran Contra, cocaine).

When people look back and think, “gee, those were the days” – what about the scientific and technological advancement, such as the Internet. The world is smaller and information is priceless. It’s long been proven that for dictatorships and totalitarianism to work, information must be controlled. That is why the Internet and the press are so rigidly controlled in places like North Korea. The Internet not only brings “afro ninja” youtube clips, but new ideas of political expression, criticism, and organization.

How about medical advances? Since 1960, the following advances: the artificial heart, ultrasound, CAT scan, MRI, heart transplant, AIDS triple cocktail, and on and on and on. A woman in France had a face transplant after she was horribly disfigured. Conjoined twins are separated successfully so that they can live normal lives. Mark McGuire is able to hit a baseball 500 feet. All miracles of modern medical chemistry. We are living longer, healthier lives due to the hard work of these medical breakthroughs, which is often taken for granted … until its one of ours that’s in the OR.

How about something dear to my own heart – entertainment. Digital, HD TV broadcast around the world with 500 channels. Amateurs picking up hand-cams and creating their own artistic vision for pennies and shared with the world through the Internet. Video games that are so real that I can smell the gun smoke as I mow down cybernetic Nazi zombies. Leisure time is really something that is fairly new to the history of man. For so long it was endless toil in the fields, all day, every day. Now even the poorest among us have time to enjoy life, develop hobbies and interests, and spend their hard earned money on Lotto tickets.

Let’s just take a look at the late 1950s/early 1960s, which is most often the target of disgruntled nostalgics. Happy Days. American Graffiti. Buddy Holly (which is unsettling to watch, considering how psychotic Gary Busey is nowadays).

After World War II, America had ascended jointly as one of the two reigning super powers. We had mobilized our entire country into a manufacturing super economy and that as much as any troop movement or military strategy was the undoing of the German wehrmacht. Ex-soldiers returned from their tour of duty and went back to work, of course sending their wives right back into the kitchen to have babies. Lots of babies. It was the realization of the American dream – a house for every family, a huge car with fins, TV, refrigerators, and more. I have to agree – the American dream, or at least this American’s dream, coincides with baby-making. Or practicing. Moving on.

But the 1950s were hard times. Dare I say, shitty times?

People were living in constant fear of the Cold War. We were the first (and only) country in the world to unleash an atomic weapon on an actual target. We had seen first hand the destructive power of the new age of weaponry. Albert Einstein was quoted as saying that the Fourth World War will be fought with stones. I’m pretty good at reading into symbolism and stuff, and I think Albert meant that the WW4 would be the advent of rock-paper-fission, which are hand held explosive stones for throwing. Kinda like the mega-damage grenades you’d find in Rifts.

The other super power was the U.S.S.R. They had nukes. They had a massive army. They had vodka. Who knew what those crazy bastards would do. Nikita Khrushchev ominously said to his capitalist competitors, “We will bury you”. That’s an Undertaker like threat. One that our Stone Cold Steve Austin country didn’t take kindly too. In fact, it tightened our collective sphincters from Capital Hill to Golden State.

In this environment, McCarthyism took hold. It was a witch hunt, one founded without a single shred of evidence. I’ve a personal beef with McCarthyism. Because of it Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible, which used the Salem witch hunts to parallel the political culture of the time. And as the course of all great literary masterpieces, it was made into a terrible TV movie. I had to watch this PBS PoS in 11th grade English class with the wailing and overacting.

The biggest thing about the 1950s in the nostalgic thinking is that it was the decade of white men. Things were just peachy for the Caucasians hiding in the suburbs. African Americans, in particular, were still struggling under institutionalized discrimination, lynch mobs, and the growth of urban poverty. Look up Emmett Till, killed in 1955. One of my friend’s grandmothers knew the boy’s family. Emmett’s mother bravely decided to allow Ebony magazine to photograph her deceased son – after being lynched and thrown in a river – to show the rest of the world the brutality of the South.

One of the biggest points that I hear is the state of our youth. Columbine. Virginia Tech. There is a notion that our civilization is going into the toilet because of bad parents, no religion, no morals. I heard a statistic somewhere that in today’s information rich society, children are digesting more information before puberty than their grandparents did in their entire lifetime. Childhood is different certainly. But the role of the parent has not changed one bit. Protect, guide, teach, and love.

Did you know that Lizzy Borden was only 22 when she killed her parents in 1892 (ahem, allegedly)? Or that Elizabeth Bathory killed over 600 girls from local villages until she was caught in 1610 in such macabre circumstances as to make Dahmer seem sane? Truth is that most of the terrible crimes that happened before the media age are either forgotten or were handled with local justice. I guess its easier to assume that today’s freaks are more prevalent because of the boon of the Information Age. Wrongo! There have been derelict psycho bastards forever.

For those nostalgics that look backward, instead of forward, please realize that there have always been world problems, criminals, and hard times.

Just be glad that you weren’t born in the fourteenth century – war, plagues, genocide, religious killing, and intolerance (the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, a false pope in Avignon, extreme social upheaval in revolts, lack of basic medical science, no rights for women, and the lingering cloud of the Dark Ages).

You know that actually sounds a lot like the 20th century. Cancer, AIDS, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Rwanda, Bosnia, Rickie Lake. Hmm … maybe I’ll start being nostalgic afterall. Oh those glorious days of Middle Earth’s First Age.