The inability to imagine.

[BelleBlackburn]

This was an interesting article about how people of former times were us, just without technology. It is easy to think of them as so different, just dour grainy images whose lives must have been lived the same way. I think there is more understanding of that on this board than other places.

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/20...curse-of-ignorance-and-the-curse-of-knowledge

 

[huskerblitz]

Interesting that this was writtenby a psychology professor. Don't think we see too many of those types of articles posted on this site!

 

[John Winn]

That was interesting. Thanks for posting the link.

While I agree I'd also have to say that it wasn't only technology that was missing; there were also many social, scientific, religious, legal, and philosophical ideas that just didn't exist then that we simply accept (well, pretty much). So while those in the past were certainly as human in their emotions and passions as we are, they weren't the same as us except for wont of technology. Thus, I think it's a mistake to see persons of different eras as the same as us because they weren't even if they were fundamentally as human as us. They had very different views of the world and different values and we need to keep that in mind when we read what they said and about what they did.

 

[DR_Hanna]

I was waiting for the author to cite some concrete examples of how we might feel differently about people from the 19th century, but his observations were general.

They had very different views of the world and different values

Some of the ways they were different...

Attitudes towards women - could not even own property in many cases. They were expected to be completely under the control of a man - and to direct their energies to supporting the man and the family. (Ok, things haven't changed everywhere... but a lot has changed.)

People's attitudes towards government and its role have changed... It wasn't expected in the 19th century that the government would perform disaster relief in cases of floods, fire or hurricanes. Churches and other charitable organizations were the safety net for the disadvantage - if they had any at all.

People's view of their place in the universe - when they looked up, what did they see? Almost all of what we know of the Universe was discovered later, and it effects the way many people look at things.

It is my impression that people were more religious in the day - at least outwardly. I think it was unusual to not belong to a church ( or mosque or temple) in those days.

Others?

P.S. It also occurs to me that different segments of our society have changed at different rates than others, and that any given attitude or point of view can still be found here and there today.

 

[48th Miss.]

I was waiting for the author to cite some concrete examples of how we might feel differently about people from the 19th century, but his observations were general.


Some of the ways they were different...

Attitudes towards women - could not even own property in many cases. They were expected to be completely under the control of a man - and to direct their energies to supporting the man and the family. (Ok, things haven't changed everywhere... but a lot has changed.)

People's attitudes towards government and its role have changed... It wasn't expected in the 19th century that the government would perform disaster relief in cases of floods, fire or hurricanes. Churches and other charitable organizations were the safety net for the disadvantage - if they had any at all.

People's view of their place in the universe - when they looked up, what did they see? Almost all of what we know of the Universe was discovered later, and it effects the way many people look at things.

It is my impression that people were more religious in the day - at least outwardly. I think it was unusual to not belong to a church ( or mosque or temple) in those days.

Others?

P.S. It also occurs to me that different segments of our society have changed at different rates than others, and that any given attitude or point of view can still be found here and there today.

Something of note but not being argumentative as i have only read one book that mentions this but in the paragraph about government stepping in for hurricans and such i would note examples where the opposite was true and a better result. I read a book called "7 things that made America". One chapter is on disaster releif. They mentioned several but the one that comes to mind now at work is the dam that broke up North and flooded the down stream towns. Sorry cant even recall the town as we speak but it had a Carnegie connection. The city and locals and neighbors did it all except at one time Government was used for security. There were several others one in the Northwest where a business owner did all the coordination. These may be anecdotal but they were great examples of how things work when we were all Neighbors.

The book title is 7 Events that made America America. The flood was thw Johnstown flood in Pa. The other was the Miami Valley flood in Ohio.

 

[MajGenl.Meade]

I suspect we may be missing the point. It's not that people in the past (and she means the entirety of the past) thought the same as us or had the same social organizations and sensibilities as do we.

The author appears to be saying that it's us who are blinded by our own technology into thinking that people in the past were horribly handicapped by "not having" various labor saving devices. Their lives were awful because they lacked......

But the fact is that our own lives (those of us born around, oh say, 1950) were not at all disadvantaged as far as we were aware at the time by not having cell phones. We had a phone in the house attached to the wall - and some didn't even have that but had to toddle up to the phone booth along the road if they wanted to call someone. We did not feel deprived because that was our "normal".

Similarly, my house didn't have a refrigerator until I was about 11 years old. Didn't make me feel disadvantaged because that was the way life was, back then. The milkman came every morning with our pint (or 2) and we had to finish it within a day or two or it would go bad - but it was lovely, full cream milk with a thick band of cream at the neck which brought the blue tits to our very door to peck open the silver foil caps.

We didn't have special wheelie bins to put our garbage out by the roadside to get picked up by a steel-armed specialty truck. Instead, the dustman walked to the back of our house, picked up the bin, carried it out to the lorry, dumped it and brought it back to the rear of the house and made sure the lid was carefully set on it.

The 1950s are definitely not the 2010s - society was a lot different then. But we were not dumb because we didn't have today's technology - we were not "deprived" by being Prius-less (took us 13 years to get a car at all) - we were "us" just as we are "us" now. And it holds true through all of history - people thought what they were doing and how they lived was normal - just as we do. And it was.

 

[Yankeedave]

Do you miss something if you have never had. Todays kids would die without social media. We played outside. I wonder who is missing what.

 

[huskerblitz]

Do you miss something if you have never had. Todays kids would die without social media. We played outside. I wonder who is missing what.

I miss the days of playing outside and not 'adulting' every day.

 

[Yankeedave]

Couldn't tell you how many times we (neighbor kids and I) reenacted what ever battle we saw in our elementary school history books.

 

[DR_Hanna]

Similarly, my house didn't have a refrigerator until I was about 11 years old. Didn't make me feel disadvantaged because that was the way life was, back then

Another view would be that, in any given time people in the past were living in the most advanced times that had ever been. They didn't feel backward or disadvantaged at all. Railroads, Steamboats, Telegraphs and Cotton Gins transformed their worlds just as the technology we employ is transforming ours.

 

[MajGenl.Meade]

Another view would be that, in any given time people in the past were living in the most advanced times that had ever been. They didn't feel backward or disadvantaged at all. Railroads, Steamboats, Telegraphs and Cotton Gins transformed their worlds just as the technology we employ is transforming ours.

Exactly - while we can't accurately predict the future, we can compare to our own past (let alone more distant times) and feel that we are indeed in the most advanced times yet. And that's exactly what people thought when Bleriot crossed the Channel or when Morse demonstrated his code or when Stevensons' steam engine frightened staid old ladies. It's probably what men thought when first confronted by domesticated horses. Or when fire was invented.

I'm reminded that my grandparents and parents were astounded by the moon landings but I considered it a mere natural outgrowth of my "advanced" times compared to theirs.

 

[StephenColbert27]

Do you miss something if you have never had. Todays kids would die without social media. We played outside. I wonder who is missing what.

Pretty sure we would make it just fine. I would also note that this forum counts as a form of social media, and that it is composed of people who I would not consider "kids". Increasingly, social media is not something just for young people like myself.

 

[Yankeedave]

I still wonder who is missing what.

 

[DR_Hanna]

Or when fire was invented.

Or beer!

 

[LoyaltyOfDogs]

Do you miss something if you have never had. Todays kids would die without social media. We played outside. I wonder who is missing what.

If you have never read it, Yankeedave, you may enjoy a book called "Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing," about the kind of childhood you enjoyed.

 

[Waterloo50]

It was an interesting article but it needed to go into more depth, it posed a question without considering all the variables. Do I think that we are more sophisticated than our ancestors, well, that all depends on which period of history we are asked to compare ourselves to. I'm old enough to remember living in a house without a phone or a television, I spent years never having seen a computer and I also remember using a map to navigate my way around the country. Am I more sophisticated because I now have these things at my disposal, not really. I'm the same person I have always been, I don't know how many people are aware of Maslow's 'Hierarchy of needs' but they are fundamental human needs, they have never changed and never will change, in that respect we are exactly the same as our ancestors.
Maslow's Theory, you start at the bottom of the pyramid and work your way up, these are your needs for survival in prioritised order. Every single human regardless of the time period that they lived in will need the basics, even today people don't always make it to the top of the pyramid, the truth is, people struggle to make it past the first step, perhaps some of our ancestors never made it past the first two steps and that is the one advantage we have that they didn't, maybe our ability to reach the top of the pyramid makes us slightly more sophisticated. IMHO technology doesn't makes us sophisticated, its our ability to meet our needs that advances us.

 

[Eagle eye]

Do you miss something if you have never had. Todays kids would die without social media. We played outside. I wonder who is missing what.

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I don't think kids or anyone can miss a "thing" like text messaging if it didn't exist… but if it's taken away from them then they would die craving it.

 

[BillO]

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I don't think kids or anyone can miss a "thing" like text messaging if it didn't exist… but if it's taken away from them then they would die craving it.

Probably for a week or two then they would fall back on a much older but more satisfying technology called conversation.

 

[Eagle eye]

Probably for a week or two then they would fall back on a much older but more satisfying technology called conversation.

--------------------
Sad thing is they won't be writing letters since cursive isn't taught in school anymore ( maybe because of electronic communication so maybe they would use "snail mail" )
I'm confusing myself now… better listen to some music on my iPod.

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

Pretty sure we would make it just fine. I would also note that this forum counts as a form of social media, and that it is composed of people who I would not consider "kids". Increasingly, social media is not something just for young people like myself.

Oh come on. You couldn't drag most kids these days away from their smart phone or tablet