Longtime Reader preussenotto writes:
Thanks for maintaining the last interesting thing on the internet.
You are probably 20 years older than I am give or take, but I have a question for you.
We hear a lot of nonsense now about “Someone born in the wrong body” but do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? That your preferences, tastes, attitudes always seem about 40 years out of step with what is happening now?
It isn’t just a “getting old” thing, I always felt it even when I was a callow yoot. I would read about Victorian England, or Coolidge America, and think… I would fit perfectly into that time, where in the hell did it go? Keep in mind I have no desire to live without electricity, or painless dentistry, but I always mentally fit better into a bygone (often imagined, I grant you) era, and it has never gone away, fifty plus years on. Dunno if there are others of my ilk out there.
Maybe its just inevitable nostalgia, or “O Tempora, O Mores”?
Let me address the primary issue up front.
When presussenotto writes: “Keep in mind I have no desire to live without electricity, or painless dentistry…”
Whenever I talk about preferring to live in another time, some smartass always comes up with “So you want to live in a time before [penicillin, automatic transmissions, antibiotics, take your pick]?” Of course I don’t, and neither does preussenotto.
When we think of earlier times, we speak of the culture of the time, the mood of the time, the manners of the time and the social constructs that were in place then, but are not now.
Using cars as an example of the technology, for instance: I like having the excellent brakes, better wiring, better suspension and such of today; what I don’t like is stupid shit like On*Star, nanny warnings about seatbelts, electronic rather than mechanical handbrakes and all those things that have supposedly improved the driving experience but have really served only to drive the price of cars upwards, for little real or lasting benefit.
What we are talking about is a time when you could leave your car unlocked in the parking lot at the supermarket, or your house unlocked during the day, or talk to people without worrying about triggering their ultra-sensitive emotional antennae, or visit decent public libraries with thousands of worthwhile books to take out.
When politicians didn’t try to “improve” or “safeguard” your life, and didn’t take over a third of your salary in taxes.
When the next generation would come along with at least a decent chance of living a better life than their parents.
When capitalism was the way to a better future, and Communism was actually illegal or at least frowned upon.
When you could work at a company for a long time, maybe for life, and wouldn’t be fired just because some accountant thought he could find someone else who could do the same job for less, with fewer benefits.
When your kid could take his air rifle or .22 to school and just leave it in his locker so he could go shooting in the woods with his buddies, unsupervised, at the end of the school day.
When raising a family was seen as the primary duty of a married couple, with the man earning the salary and the woman staying at home to look after the kids and the household — and she wasn’t forced into the workplace because even a modest house had suddenly become unaffordable on only one salary.
When a family outing was a picnic in the park, and not a trip to Disneyland that costs thousands of dollars.
When girls showed modesty in their attitude, their behavior and their clothing, and boys embraced their masculinity while understanding the duties of citizenship and responsibility.
When people could still be shocked by bad language in public.
To return to the question: “Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? That your preferences, tastes, attitudes always seem about 40 years out of step with what is happening now?”
I feel that way every single day. And it’s not just nostalgia, where your memory saves only the good parts and never the bad parts. The fact of the matter is that I do remember the bad parts, but in almost every case the good parts back then were far better than the best of times now — and the bad parts back then were not even close to the horrors of everyday life today.
I try to live my life today as close as I can to the way people lived their lives a long time ago — and at every turn I’m laughed at, patronized and dismissed as just some old fart living in the past.
Well, guess what? I want to live in the past. I don’t care which time, particularly: it could even be a mixture of some parts of the 1910s all the way to the early 1960s. I wasn’t alive back before 1954, but even without having lived back then, I feel far closer to those earlier decades than I do to the bloody shambles of our so-called “civilization” of today. The people of, say, 1960 lived lives with a philosophy far closer to the civilization of 1900 than the people of today do compared to the people of 1965.
When I say despairingly, as I often do, that I don’t want to live in this world anymore, I’m not being suicidal: I just feel so damn hopeless. because everything that was once so wonderful has disappeared completely, leaving no joy behind.
And so does Reader preussenotto, and so, I suspect, do many of my Readers.
The tempora have changed, and not for the better; and the mores have disappeared completely.
Update: Here’s what I mean:
And here’s the thing: I know that not all men today dress like the the loon on the RHS, and that some men still dress today like the one on the LHS.
However, back in 1950, not a single man dressed like the RHS twerp.
Now ask me the question again…
I wonder if we’re still cherry-picking? You mention 1900: would you like to be a chambermaid or boot-boy in 1900? (Never mind being a man in the 1910s…)
You forgot the part about antibiotics.
The point is that chambermaids still exist today — mostly, they work in hotels rather than in stately manors or in upper-middle-class homes, where they earned a pittance (like hotel chambermaids did back then). Only back then, they were provided with accommodation by their employer and didn’t have to own a car or catch a bus just to get to work.
And to your larger point: of course I’m cherry-picking, because I live in the comfortable middle class today and always have. From a social perspective, however, I’d far rather have lived in the comfortable middle class back then than in the precarious middle class of today.
It’s a cultural perspective I’m taking, not a socio-economic one.
There are things you can control, and things you can’t… If we are are alive in our times, then we affect our times.
.
I fucking wish.
Here’s something wonderful that was on TV last evening: Andrea Bocelli’s Family Christmas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCOuFxN7v-Y&list=RDyCOuFxN7v-Y&start_radio=1
I like it when you take to serious writing. It’s what attracted me to you many years ago.
Yes, I am definitely living in the wrong era but it didn’t used to be. I guess I’m reluctant to change, and change is mostly mandatory with each passing decade. Any previous decade seems better than the next one.
Think about multiples of your favorite past years. 1972, my HS graduation year. I had a cool car, cool job(s), a cool gurlfren, and life in general was cool but there were plenty of hardships too. Working in high rise concrete construction in southwest Florida can be murderous.
1985, I was married to a stay at home wife, our sone was almost brand new and a complete joy to be around, I was starting my own architecture business, and life in general was inspiring. 80 work weeks can be murderous, but easily survivable.
And on and on.
Now, I am 70, and every passing year seems a little worse than the previous. I approach each new year with optimism but by years end I am right back where I was at the end of the previous year – burned out without benefit.
What Ghostsniper said.
Your excellent analysis and writing on the old Nation of Riflemen attracted me those many years ago, and you’re still just as incisive. And there are many, many of us who feel this way. And those of us with grandkids are very, very worried about their future.
Born in the middle of the baby boom years, I think up until I went to college, and maybe a little bit after were fairly ideal years, but the rot at the University had set in with a vengeance. We had the nice things you mention largely without the cultural rot we see today. Although the cultural termites were hard at work then we were blissfully unaware, for the most part. A few were not unaware, though. I read a story about Robert Conquest today (look him up, fascinating person) who uncovered the horrors of the Soviet Union and was censored and ridiculed for years for it until the USSR fell, then he was vindicated. My own father bought paperback copies of Rules for Radicals by the case and handed them out at school board meetings in Chicago warning about what Bill Ayer’s and Bernadette Dorn were doing in the schools. Some people were aware.
But most were the proverbial frogs boiling. As are people today. Only now some of the frogs are waking up and becoming aware they are in the pan, but they don’t know what to do about it. They are aware of what is going on in Europe and how close behind them we are, but how do we get the Muslims out of our country? How do we combat creeping Communism when most of our kids were never taught about it and don’t know what it even is?
I was very blessed to live when I did, I was on Active Duty in the Air Force when the Berlin Wall fell. It felt so good, like we had finally “won”. A bit over 35 years later it doesn’t feel that way any more. And while Trump’s MAGA movement is heartening, the Federal Judiciary and the entire Democrat Party are anti-American. (Yes, yes, I know there are some small amount of conservative Democrat voters, but they are fools, they need to get out the whole Party has rotted beyond salvation). We are still hanging by a thread and 100% of the Democrat Party and a good portion of the Republican Party are anti-American. Can we survive?
Look at the redistricting fight in Indiana. Trump is threatening to primary Indiana Republicans over it, but is that enough? The SAVE Act is mired in the Senate. Our voter rolls are hopelessly corrupted in many states, and I don’t know that there is time to fix them given that the courts will never let that happen. I feel like I did when I joined the Air Force, that we are in danger and I wanted to do something to protect us. I feel that way now, 35 years after the fall of the USSR.
You can vote your way into Socialism, but you have to shoot your way out. Between the corruption of virtually everything under Democrat rule, and the infestation of Muslims in this country. Yes, infestation is the right word. They don’t make up much of the U.S. population, but they are a good part of it in states like Minnesota. It is estimated that 80-90% of Muslim households with children in that state are on welfare. Add in the theft in so many programs we are just becoming aware of and Muslims are an incredible drain on our tax revenue far, far in excess of their representation in the population. And they are actively trying to undermine our society and implement Sharia here in America.
I am not at all confident we will survive as a nation. My son (an Army veteran) feels as we do, but there is not the historical knowledge of our country and the sense of patriotism—the simple since of normalcy (if you have a penis you are male)—we used to have. I don’t know if we will vote our way out or have to shoot our way out at this point.
I cannot recommend Kurt Schlichter’s book American Apocalypse highly enough. Read it.
JC
I’ll jump in here to share your sentiment. Born in 1953, served my Army hitch in West Germany 1974-’77. Was glued to our TV when the Berlin Wall came down.
Lived my entire life in California, watched it slowly become Kalifornia. Wife and I escaped in 2015, following our grown kids to Texas . After my Army hitch, went back to school, graduated college in ’81. Even back then, I could see the rot starting, and had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that we had already been outflanked.
I think this video makes a good point–
https://appalachianrenegade.com/2025/12/11/this-2/
I am also reminded of the character Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore) in the movie “Shawshank Redemption”. When he was released from prison, he might as well have been drop kicked of the deep end of the pier onto another planet. That he took his own life was heartbreaking, but not a surprise.
served my Army hitch in West Germany 1974-’77
============
Me too, exact same years.
Wildflecken, Germany
54th Engr Bn
Good food, good brews, good smoke, cold winters. Did the Oktoberfest in 1977.
Pinder Barracks, Zirndorf.
156 Maint. Co. MOS 45B Small Arms Repair.
Did the Oktoberfest in 1976.
Good times. I’m sure it wasn’t until later in life that any of us realized just how good we had it.
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During WWII, Pinder Barracks was flak/searchlight kaserne. Likely they were shooting at my dad on his mission over Nürnberg.
I agree about it all. As to the cars in the day, with their bad wiring, shitty brakes and all, they at least provided a way for the home garage mechanics to make an honest buck. Many of them actually found ways to improve on the original weaknesses. Around marques such as MG, entire support ecosystems sprang up because the cars were loved. I had a friend in Minnesota in the 80’s who took his MG TF out of his garage in spring, drove it all summer and put it away again in favour of an old beater truck, as soon as as the snow started to sprinkle. A backyard mechanic took care of whatever maintenance was needed. Today’s cars are monstrosities lacking in character, burdened by pointless regulation and impossible to repair without expensive diagnostic equipment, all of which encourages sharp practices in the repair industry. I had an engine fault light show up on my Fiat Bravo. All that was wrong was a single fouled spark plug. But the diagnostic machine specified a new spark plug AND a new fuel injector, Why? because they come as a unit and the repair shop won’t guarantee the repair otherwise. Oh, and the parts are buried so deep in the motor’s architecture, that getting at them is more like taking the engine off the parts than the other way round. Cost, 100 for parts and 450 for labour. GRRRR.
I would vote for a full scale revival of the renaissance era. I know, it was brutal too, but oh so beautiful a time. If we can manage classic cars with not-shitty aftermarket brakes in a backyard workshop, why can’t modern with all its resources foster real art, honest science, literature that will stand the test of time instead of narcissist doing podcasts, health care that delivers care instead of side effects, governance that serves instead of exploits; after all, the world is ripe for some brains to baffle the bullshit for a change.
Ditto I’d write more but I think everyone else covered it.
Kim absolutely nailed it. I have felt the same since I was old enough to understand. My Dad passed in 1995 and HE felt the same the last couple of decades of his life.
My dad passed in 1998. A few years earlier, he matter-of-factly remarked that he could see where the world was headed, and he was glad he wouldn’t be around to see it. At the time, I chalked it up to him being tired. Now? I get it.
He was a B-17 pilot in WWII with the 8th Air Force, and flew 35 combat missions over Europe.
To see what Western Europe has become and all of Western Civilization, check this out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YTayqvw9TE
A 100 year old WW2 veteran says that it wasn’t worth it. Sadly when you look at how bad England and much of Europe has become he’s right. You can’t say I love bacon near an arab who doesn’t eat pork because that’s considered intolerant by the English police. We’ve traded free speech for freedom from being offended which oppresses everyone else’s free speech. We have given up coping mechanisms for participation trophies. Perpetual victimhood is celebrated while self sacrifice and hardwork are looked at with envy, jealousy and worse, disdain.
The single income family with an intact parental structure, kids encouraged to do their best in school and sports has been denigrated and replaced.
I’ll endorse almost all that has been said before. 84 now, SoCal born and bred, and sitting here in the outback of NV since ’18 just trying to get by and not cause any trouble – but fully capable of giving account of myself if trouble rides this way. Dropped out of college in ’61 to go and protect the world, and went back after a single hitch in the USAF, flying a desk with our Eight-Eyes Partners, and could already see the changes in the college culture. Dropped out as a senior and never looked back.
Played with sports cars, racing cars, and guns – and that keeps me going here where everyone who’s serious has multiple guns. Don’t know if I’ll be around to see “the worm turn” but I’m hopeful now that it will.
We’re close enough of an age to remember the same things. We know the world changed when Kennedy was shot and America fell off the cliff late 80s. I suspect those of us born before 1955 (20 in 1975) recall “America”; those considered “boomers” born in 1964 (20 in 1984) only experienced the last fringes. We pre-55 (give or take a few) are the last generation to have experienced life with minimal TV and even fewer computers. Remember when college football scores were manually flipped over by hand? We lived through the peak of America … long gone now, never to come back. Just to pick one: Going to Sears with a Craftsman tool that somehow broke (hard to do) and getting a high-quality replacement, no questions asked.
I blame mass commercial aviation and computers.
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If I had to pick a time other than my own, I suspect the years from 1876 to WWI may have been an alternate “peak” of America. We still suffer from Wilson’s presidency … and that’s probably Teddy Roosevelt’s fault.