Before I could save a copy of this magnificent piece on my hard drive or print a copy on my printer, I would have gotten my scissors and carefully snipped the piece, letting it stick out from some hard cover book that I was reading so that I could encounter it often. Thanks so much, Roger. This piece brings some tears to my eyes.
3
Ah, Mr. Cohen, you are showing your age. Welcome to that time in life when we reminisce on the past and selectively chose the good times over the bad. Sure people lived without the modern conveniences of scientific development, and some could do so even now. There would however be so many fewer who survive beyond 50. Death in childbirth, perinatal mortality, childhood succumbing to infectious disease, and death by trauma, and cardiovascular and neoplasticism diseases. Yes we could do without TV and read paper books,but could we travel more than a few miles beyond our city?
As I see it, many of the good things we enjoyed were the sense of community, and of family. Personal communication face to face. The chance radio gave us to develop our imaginations. The sense of social conduct that mattered. Can that come back. Sadly I think not. In the guise of political correctness and relativism, and the distorted notion of equality and the holy grail of diversity, we have lost an essential aspect of humanity ie respect for our fellow travelers on this planet.
Like you, I really enjoyed those times, but you and I are survivors.
As I see it, many of the good things we enjoyed were the sense of community, and of family. Personal communication face to face. The chance radio gave us to develop our imaginations. The sense of social conduct that mattered. Can that come back. Sadly I think not. In the guise of political correctness and relativism, and the distorted notion of equality and the holy grail of diversity, we have lost an essential aspect of humanity ie respect for our fellow travelers on this planet.
Like you, I really enjoyed those times, but you and I are survivors.
2
Perhaps Mr Cohen's New Year Resolution might be to curb his tendency to romanticize the Old Years. Before Christmas he made the same points after a visit to a dusty old hotel in Berlin.
It is the human condition expressed by the cliche that progress has a price , but progress has its advantages.
Yes, we managed, got by, survived.
Is Mr Cohen's real question; " at what point is it enough? and how do we decide?"
Maybe we'll see some progress in his next column.
It is the human condition expressed by the cliche that progress has a price , but progress has its advantages.
Yes, we managed, got by, survived.
Is Mr Cohen's real question; " at what point is it enough? and how do we decide?"
Maybe we'll see some progress in his next column.
1
Thank you for your Reflections on Things Past. As someone said (not me) "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be." (Casey Stengel? Google would have the answer). Your musings remind me of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem The World Is A Beautiful Place, and the great running lists of Walt Whitman. It's a rare treat to run across an extended poem in the Opinion Pages of the NYT and it's nice to take time out for quiet reflection and to Search for Lost Time, to take the time to think about "a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces." Thank you again.
3
I admire your erudite reflections, bar none. We are at changing times, although it is more subtle. Many of us are distracted, and I'm not sure we have the luxury of introspection and reflection, or discretionary time. Like Dr. Zhivago in a fast moving train going away from the Russian Revolution and WWI-torn Moscow, it feels very claustrophobic, despite globalization and free-flowing information. I yearn to get off the train, to a vast emptiness of the Siberian winter, to soak, to see, to smell. Yes, Roger, Boris Pasternak has reminded us so well that many things shall never change. Doctor Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago realized that after waking up from a long night of sleep in the country side. It probably had snowed heavily the night before. As he opened the cabin windows, letting the morning sun rays shine through, the snow-covered white backdrop outside the dark cabin casted an angelic glow. It reminded him that there is Heaven, which won't change. As he looked upon Lara, his beautiful blond in love, he reflected on another feeling that can overcome and erase all - Love. That did not change. Despite all that they had been through, he did not loose that. It's true that a beautiful woman can remind man in his place under Heaven.
I'm glad I fell in love when I did, for the train we called life is a faster moving one, and sometimes it feels like life is no longer a complete circle. Things may not change, and we will get through, but the past may never be again retraced.
I'm glad I fell in love when I did, for the train we called life is a faster moving one, and sometimes it feels like life is no longer a complete circle. Things may not change, and we will get through, but the past may never be again retraced.
2
Society is what we make of it. Some people have much more control than others. Why do you think we no longer have the time, or in many cases the financial means, to slow down and enjoy life? Rising productivity was supposed to be a boon to all of us, but instead has been siphoned off to drive wealth inequality. There is much less quality of life available for the masses in an age of unrestricted labor arbitrage.
1
A beautiful, poignant essay. A testament to what we have lost in our headlong rush toward efficiency, "progress," etc. Another sad thing about living in this age of information-overload, is that important pieces like this get lost in the flood that we are bombarded with every day. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
2
Roger, hold on to your seat belts. The human race is taking off. From instant communication to very soon telepathic communication. Where words and thoughts and maybe feelings and emotions will be instantly felt by those sitting in another continent! We read of sages, seers and yogis who lived thousands of years ago, in the Himalayas, who could, through their powers or siddhis or meditation, without gadgets and gizmos and instruments, "know" that the world is round (sanskrit word for geography is bhoogoal or earthround), that the solar system revolves around the sun, that planets and constellations play a role in our human lives and that there is much else beyond our galaxy. The seers could see the past, the future. They could communicate through telepathy. They could materialize before others just by sheer mental powers. Sounds like star trek, but perhaps we are heading back there?
2
...and before talent, when only employees were hired.....
1
In the 'before' we were bulging with the gestation of 'now', begetting in the fullness of time our deepest inclinations---the eclipse of the troublesome ambiguity of the earthbound self.
Great Journalism. I click it off to post WW 2. The Boomer generation was some 70 million strong and anyone either side of that massive movement ended up with zero influence. Nothing moved as fast as Gates Jobs, and the Google boys, while corruption got its stride. As one from the very small silent generation I made a pile of money and shut off the TV , read a lot of books, and stay in touch with friends and family. There is little if anything I can do about Muslims, Putin, or Europe going down the tubes of their own making.
Technological progress is nothing to lament.
We shouldn't mistake the inability of humans to evolve with the same staggering velocity as an indication that we would be better off without that progress.
At least now, we all get to watch hi def color tv, and there is something to be said for that, as well as the nostalgia for black and white.
We shouldn't mistake the inability of humans to evolve with the same staggering velocity as an indication that we would be better off without that progress.
At least now, we all get to watch hi def color tv, and there is something to be said for that, as well as the nostalgia for black and white.
1
Very nice. Things really did change a lot in a short time!
2
It is understandable to view Cohen’s remembrances as anticipatory nostalgic sentimentalism if what he’s conveying only resonates as such.
For those of us fortunate enough to have been raised in a time and/or culture where conditions allowed unmediated consciousness and connections to manifest as inseparable to our biopsychosocial functioning, Cohen’s reflections are spoken in our native language.
In our culture today where the human experience is heavily mediated through layers of neutralizing and disassociating technology, there is a tangible and visceral loss of this language and consciousness. Ironically, those who don’t speak or recognize this language, are those who most loudly proclaim that our Uber-wired-game-changing-data-driven technocracy signifies the beginning of consciousness.
I view Cohen’s remembrances as an ongoing eulogy for the continuing loss of a language of connection and consciousness that only those who speak can truly understand the worrisome implications of losing.
For those of us fortunate enough to have been raised in a time and/or culture where conditions allowed unmediated consciousness and connections to manifest as inseparable to our biopsychosocial functioning, Cohen’s reflections are spoken in our native language.
In our culture today where the human experience is heavily mediated through layers of neutralizing and disassociating technology, there is a tangible and visceral loss of this language and consciousness. Ironically, those who don’t speak or recognize this language, are those who most loudly proclaim that our Uber-wired-game-changing-data-driven technocracy signifies the beginning of consciousness.
I view Cohen’s remembrances as an ongoing eulogy for the continuing loss of a language of connection and consciousness that only those who speak can truly understand the worrisome implications of losing.
2
Yes, are communications controlling us, or are we controlling the communications? Cohen raises the question in the best way possible.
I remember, many years ago now, writing letters by hand, used typing only for police reports.
Then came along the Selectronic typewriter and it had memory and one could recall letters, reports, etc. And then along came the PC and everything!
Now almost anyone I used to write to, now email, answers from an IPhone, and because hunting and pecking is back (like when folks first started typing, not being steno's) they respond from their smart phones, as though tweeting, rarely more than 140 characters, and that's all you get!
Rarely personal, short and sweet, if that!
I emailed a friend and her family happy Thanksgiving before the big day, and she replied "busy, happy Thanksgiving, will write or call later"! Same for Christmas, ditto New Years, and I doubt that she will ever write or call back at all.
And that's fine.
That's life, after all!
Then came along the Selectronic typewriter and it had memory and one could recall letters, reports, etc. And then along came the PC and everything!
Now almost anyone I used to write to, now email, answers from an IPhone, and because hunting and pecking is back (like when folks first started typing, not being steno's) they respond from their smart phones, as though tweeting, rarely more than 140 characters, and that's all you get!
Rarely personal, short and sweet, if that!
I emailed a friend and her family happy Thanksgiving before the big day, and she replied "busy, happy Thanksgiving, will write or call later"! Same for Christmas, ditto New Years, and I doubt that she will ever write or call back at all.
And that's fine.
That's life, after all!
2
Classic essay, destined for many an anthology.
No, sadly, we couldn't have gotten by all the same. It would have been ... unacceptable. It would have remained a world that Roger and I, the same age, would have cherished forever, instead of one that offered other generations THEIR moment of comfort only to pass as yet younger generations impatiently pushed forward and demanded what THEY eventually would wish to remember.
And the process isn't even sensibly selective: we can't accept smartphones but keep an ability to remain unstolen. It comes to us chaotically, in a manner utterly beyond our control. No, it wasn't an illusion: it was merely what we grew up with and too soon had to put aside to remain engaged and relevant; and not TOO amusing to the very young.
And soon enough it could get TRULY transforming. Science Times reports that NASA's Kepler is cataloguing potentially Earth-like worlds right and left. What happens when we say Hi! to one and ... it says Hi! back?
We'll survive the endless creative destruction, so long as we change enough as we age to remain acceptably relevant to the younger among us. We can even put aside a small part of each day and still just listen to the tides. Just don't get caught doing it.
And the process isn't even sensibly selective: we can't accept smartphones but keep an ability to remain unstolen. It comes to us chaotically, in a manner utterly beyond our control. No, it wasn't an illusion: it was merely what we grew up with and too soon had to put aside to remain engaged and relevant; and not TOO amusing to the very young.
And soon enough it could get TRULY transforming. Science Times reports that NASA's Kepler is cataloguing potentially Earth-like worlds right and left. What happens when we say Hi! to one and ... it says Hi! back?
We'll survive the endless creative destruction, so long as we change enough as we age to remain acceptably relevant to the younger among us. We can even put aside a small part of each day and still just listen to the tides. Just don't get caught doing it.
1
Ever since technology became the opiate of the people, newer became a value system. Gone is planned obsolescence--nostalgia being oh-so yesterday.
Memories are now stored externally. Ironically in a cloud.
Memories are now stored externally. Ironically in a cloud.
2
The poetry, in the form of a NYTimes column, is what enchants me most about this wonderful piece by Roger Cohen. I may not agree with the conclusion, but I take great pleasure in the process of getting there. Yes, before Facebook there were faces, but before civil rights there was slavery. It is not so much a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, but to take in the meaning. Whether it is read on my iPhone or by the smudgy ink of the grey lady -- that much has not changed.
2
OMG, how did you do this? So many ideas: Liquid lunches, straight shower curtain rods, fruit had seasons, socialism......and of course we got by. We're always 'getting by' even with Made in China, and eco-tourism instead of just plain tourism. People will always get by, but we are able do it so much better with your words as company, Mr. Cohen!
2
I think so too, but it is a rare man who can write like this. Maybe there can be no more, precisely because this essay is true, true, true.
Before reaching customer service, when, after selecting and pressing several numbers, one is placed on hold and a human never comes online, or if he does, offers no solution to your problem.
It's a lovely prose poem, with not much point at all. There is nothing forcing you to live the schizy, speedy, un-centered consciousness suggested by these metaphors; no Bit Police coercing us to dive in the e-feed and never resurface.
1
Timely one to think and debate. Memory is not fading but let by us to fade due to our own comfort zone and lesser value attached to human brain compared to IT gadgets around us. Today everyone's room is spread with lots of wires, cables, iphones, It units instead of radio or books or drawings. I remember my grandfather giving dictation, testing our antonyms and synonyms by questioning, asking to write short hand strokes etc. Today children/youth replies as: No need to have mental maths as calculator is there; no need to remember English spelling as computer spell check is there; no need to remember phone numbers as cell phone is there; no need to worry as another cell phone can find where it is; no need to cheer or clap in the comedy show as there is background music; no need to social network as there are IT networks around us and many more!! As Ogburn & Nimkoff quotes we are caught in this cultural lag of materialistic and non materialistic one and the gap is widening every second. It will be nice to test the youth with list of apps and techs entering into one's life to see what is their memory power. may be they will have different skill such this.
Come on, Roger, Karl was a confused, drunken, German philosopher whose alcohol fuel musings were mistaken for economics. But Marx was economically illiterate.
Marx mistook the progress that you describe as the decay of capitalism, instead of the byproducts of capitalism.
The outcomes? Over a hundred million people died as Stalin, Mao, & Hitler experimented with what they thought Marx was saying.
Marx mistook the progress that you describe as the decay of capitalism, instead of the byproducts of capitalism.
The outcomes? Over a hundred million people died as Stalin, Mao, & Hitler experimented with what they thought Marx was saying.
I love the look and feel of old homes. That said, many old homes were drafty with single pane windows, no insulation, lead paint, kerosene lamps, and with creaky floors. I don't think most wan to go back to the old appliances either, like when an "icebox" was aptly named and many household chores were mostly drudgery.
We have many more choices today. We can have the look & feel of an old home but with solid insulation, double pane windows, 25 year light bulbs, lifetime siding, and generally less maintenance while being more energy efficient. Many of the choices Roger is referring to are non-essentials (Facebook, YouTube, iPhones, Google Maps, eBooks, etc...) and we can live much simpler if we choose. I love many of the things (not lumpy gravy though) Rogers refers to in our not too distant past such as paper books, hand written letters, maps, land lines, as well as one not mentioned, manual transmissions in autos. The wonderful thing about the time in which we live
in is we can control much of the past we want to bring with us into the present. However, we can't control what others do which is how it should be.
Just ask the Amish.
We have many more choices today. We can have the look & feel of an old home but with solid insulation, double pane windows, 25 year light bulbs, lifetime siding, and generally less maintenance while being more energy efficient. Many of the choices Roger is referring to are non-essentials (Facebook, YouTube, iPhones, Google Maps, eBooks, etc...) and we can live much simpler if we choose. I love many of the things (not lumpy gravy though) Rogers refers to in our not too distant past such as paper books, hand written letters, maps, land lines, as well as one not mentioned, manual transmissions in autos. The wonderful thing about the time in which we live
in is we can control much of the past we want to bring with us into the present. However, we can't control what others do which is how it should be.
Just ask the Amish.
Before online news, when we read newspapers.
One of the things that was better about the "good old days" is that we were young then, and now we are no longer. If we had a chance to return, I suspect tht we would want to take a lot of things along with us. Brings to mind a country song from my youth, lamenting the then bygone days and idyllic rural life even farther back: "It's fun to think about it, maybe even visit, but I wonder, could I live there anymore?"
1
Too many of the Commenters, instead of seeing the forest of which Cohen speaks, are tripping on the dead trees populating much of the forest.
Cohen would, I expect, in no way deny the particular improvements of which many Commenters write. What he is saying, I believe, is that while celebrating what has been gained, we should also not kid ourselves about what has been lost.
Unintended and unanticipated consequences are just that: unintended and unanticipated. But, they are also consequences, and sometimes a little Monday morning quarterbacking can help a team prepare better for the unanticipated consequences of the next game's offense and defense. There is a difference between romanticizing and wallowing in the past and trying to view it honestly, trying to draw what lessons one can for the future.
Cohen would, I expect, in no way deny the particular improvements of which many Commenters write. What he is saying, I believe, is that while celebrating what has been gained, we should also not kid ourselves about what has been lost.
Unintended and unanticipated consequences are just that: unintended and unanticipated. But, they are also consequences, and sometimes a little Monday morning quarterbacking can help a team prepare better for the unanticipated consequences of the next game's offense and defense. There is a difference between romanticizing and wallowing in the past and trying to view it honestly, trying to draw what lessons one can for the future.
3
Reason or its proxy, algorithms hold sway as we enter the 21st century. Emotions, ideology and even passion is tempered. However the tension of universalism versus relativism continues to be the key debate for humankind; that remains unchanged. Nostalgia helps one to draw upon a version to support our own present belief.
Aspiration, excitement, love and other manifestations of human spirit do not seem different when expressed or observed by the three generations who have come after me!
Cheers to that.
Aspiration, excitement, love and other manifestations of human spirit do not seem different when expressed or observed by the three generations who have come after me!
Cheers to that.
Roger, I enjoyed your nostalgia trip but am not joining you. When I entered my “10th Life” I declared that "I do not do nostalgia" but am committed to the present and future.
The NYT comment system makes that possible as exemplified by real discussion between me and American blacks at two places yesterday as concerns the infinite variety of the American group called “black” and the even greater variety in the group called “Sub-Saharan Africans”.
@
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/business/media/the-wizard-of-watts-mir...
were Chutney (black female) and Earl Horton (lives in Harlem) writing what never gets written even by Charles Blow. My reward was Earl Horton’s closing line: “Your point is well taken...Great of you to follow up; understanding is vital...”
And over @ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-americ...
I praised Boniface Mwangi for his "African's Message for America" and my reward was soulmate blackmamba's masterful presentation of the diversity of the black people of Africa and America.
Thanks NYT, Roger, Earl, Chutney, and blackmamba.
The NYT comment system makes that possible as exemplified by real discussion between me and American blacks at two places yesterday as concerns the infinite variety of the American group called “black” and the even greater variety in the group called “Sub-Saharan Africans”.
@
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/business/media/the-wizard-of-watts-mir...
were Chutney (black female) and Earl Horton (lives in Harlem) writing what never gets written even by Charles Blow. My reward was Earl Horton’s closing line: “Your point is well taken...Great of you to follow up; understanding is vital...”
And over @ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-americ...
I praised Boniface Mwangi for his "African's Message for America" and my reward was soulmate blackmamba's masterful presentation of the diversity of the black people of Africa and America.
Thanks NYT, Roger, Earl, Chutney, and blackmamba.
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for an astoundingly profound and touching piece.
2
Things change that's what improves our brains and our ability to be sentimental and nostalgic. What a beautifully written piece.
1
Before restaurants had Wi-Fi people actually talked to each other over a meal.
Before we just tried to make money we actually made things.
Before we had 7,104 friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter we had friends who could help you move, play a game of whatever with or share with you some of your greatest moments like a wedding, the birth of a child or a graduation as well your saddest times like the loss of a loved one, illness or a breakup as they happened.
Before we had lives. Now we just have an existence as defined by your digital presence, your carbon footprint and your level of income.
Give me music to enjoy, a sunset to behold followed by a night sky to contemplate and a fine wine shared with friends. You can keep the rest.
Before we just tried to make money we actually made things.
Before we had 7,104 friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter we had friends who could help you move, play a game of whatever with or share with you some of your greatest moments like a wedding, the birth of a child or a graduation as well your saddest times like the loss of a loved one, illness or a breakup as they happened.
Before we had lives. Now we just have an existence as defined by your digital presence, your carbon footprint and your level of income.
Give me music to enjoy, a sunset to behold followed by a night sky to contemplate and a fine wine shared with friends. You can keep the rest.
2
There has been a fundamental shift. We have changed. The relationship between our new technology augmented/driven/total immersed selves and our previous selves (as well described by Mr. Cohen) is like Columbus coming to the New World. Farming/agriculture based societies could not exist alongside hunter-gatherers. One has goals, the other just is and it’s only goal is to be. As there was no going back when these met, there’s no going back now. When we broke the earth and started farming we created civilization. We lost and gained then. On balance, I’m not sure we became better, just different. We’ll lose and gain now, but we’ll never be the same, and I’m not sure we’ll be better. The farther we get from just being, the less human we become.
4
Reflections of one’s past is amazing till the memory starts to fade away and we only remember what we want to remember. Sometimes these are make belief memories of bygone eras which we feel were romantic and passionate. Of course they were and we were much younger then too. We did things then and now we mostly enjoy watching.
The only constant in life is change. It would come whether we like it or not. Mostly for better.
There are times when we reminisce about the good old days, but then we see our children and their lives in present and we jump in with them with every little bit of technology that we could muster being afraid of being left behind and miss their (our) very important/precious moments to cherish as we move forward to the ultimate and the other constant. It is amazing that as we keep progressing towards we keep looking back at our history and rarely truly understand where we are headed.
Enjoy the present we have, and thanks for the memories Roger.
The only constant in life is change. It would come whether we like it or not. Mostly for better.
There are times when we reminisce about the good old days, but then we see our children and their lives in present and we jump in with them with every little bit of technology that we could muster being afraid of being left behind and miss their (our) very important/precious moments to cherish as we move forward to the ultimate and the other constant. It is amazing that as we keep progressing towards we keep looking back at our history and rarely truly understand where we are headed.
Enjoy the present we have, and thanks for the memories Roger.
5
Call it selective memory if you will and enjoyed reading, Wizarat, what you had to relay. When it comes to romance and love in days long ago, a small book mysteriously came to me now, and it is uncanny because the feelings expressed by the man for the woman he loves, and her behavior towards him, eerily remind and clarify to this person, the union between my late spouse and myself in personality and other ways.
In praise of progress, a childhood friend and I were to find each other after 48 years through the web - 'find her', her mother was to ask and we did, which makes a story in itself - my friend's memory is astonishingly accurate of when we were both at school in France, and for some reason, I remember little of the joys, the joys at the time.
In 1967 a family tragedy took place in Paris and there are two pivotal weekends where my memory seems to have shut down, and I am counting blessings that I no longer kept a diary of a lonely adolescent. But I remember the presence of the person I loved the most and this will never change.
On a more general note, if there are few original stories, the weather and climate change are no longer considered the conversation of the dull, but have become increasingly a heated political issue among Americans and the world at large.
In praise of progress, a childhood friend and I were to find each other after 48 years through the web - 'find her', her mother was to ask and we did, which makes a story in itself - my friend's memory is astonishingly accurate of when we were both at school in France, and for some reason, I remember little of the joys, the joys at the time.
In 1967 a family tragedy took place in Paris and there are two pivotal weekends where my memory seems to have shut down, and I am counting blessings that I no longer kept a diary of a lonely adolescent. But I remember the presence of the person I loved the most and this will never change.
On a more general note, if there are few original stories, the weather and climate change are no longer considered the conversation of the dull, but have become increasingly a heated political issue among Americans and the world at large.
1
Thank you for sharing, very profound and to the larger point of this discussion by Roger.
2
Good article but I try hard to keep up! I don't want to become obsolete.
1
“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.”
That was Karl Marx in the 19th century.
A timely thought for today.
That was Karl Marx in the 19th century.
A timely thought for today.
1
And let us not forget the political views of Charles Dickens, one of our greatest British authors remembered. Orwell writes about this in his fine essays and it is fascinating how Dickens went about trying to bring change to the poorest.
A wise parent once said to me, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should". I find it a useful reminder when everyone is losing their heads over the next big thing...or self-consciously denying themselves of the benefits of progress.
Just because I can resolve a debate in a bar with my buddy in two seconds with my phone (" who scored the winning run in the 85 World Series?", say) doesn't mean I should. We go back and forth, have some beers, go off on long tangents, get talking to other folks... and our ignorance makes for a great night.
Balance and self-discipline, always recognizing, different strokes for different folks.
Just because I can resolve a debate in a bar with my buddy in two seconds with my phone (" who scored the winning run in the 85 World Series?", say) doesn't mean I should. We go back and forth, have some beers, go off on long tangents, get talking to other folks... and our ignorance makes for a great night.
Balance and self-discipline, always recognizing, different strokes for different folks.
1
I hang on to the past by not using the smart phone. I will check my email when I get to a computer. I will take your call but not on the road, in a meeting , or even while shopping. We will stay connected because we want, not because we can.
2
I find anti-technology articles insulting. I’m an active agent in my own life, not an infant attracted to shiny objects. Mobile devices, social media, the sharing economy, etc. add tremendous value to my life. But, I also know when enough is enough. I shutdown my laptop, turn off my smartphone and dive into a good book, go hiking with friends, share a bottle of wine with my wife, take a long lunch with my mom, etc. I make the choice to slow down and connect with the people I love. If your smartphone is making you a sad human, it’s not technology that’s the problem. Well written article, though. All of us on NYT like a good Marxist rant.
2
For me, the "good old days" began the month FDR became president for the first time. The GOD's were, in the deep South, the days of segregation and cruelty and prison chaingangs with prisoners literally wearing leg irons in some cases, and the idea that anyone not white was not right.
I grew up on a backwater farm where food was plentiful and money not so much, and as a vfery young child where electricity and running water and indoor bathrooms and central heat were something the mill workers and city folk had and we didn't.
I'm almost in the old-old age category now, so my memories encompass more time than I can tell about. But today, I use a computer, read all my many books from an Nook, and would never leave my home without my cell phone. I marvel at the light switch and the flushing toilet and the hot water for my shower. As old as I am, I never forget when I didn't have them.
And family. With all the wonderful things we have today - some useful, some good, many neither - it is still the family and the memories of family that matter most.
I grew up on a backwater farm where food was plentiful and money not so much, and as a vfery young child where electricity and running water and indoor bathrooms and central heat were something the mill workers and city folk had and we didn't.
I'm almost in the old-old age category now, so my memories encompass more time than I can tell about. But today, I use a computer, read all my many books from an Nook, and would never leave my home without my cell phone. I marvel at the light switch and the flushing toilet and the hot water for my shower. As old as I am, I never forget when I didn't have them.
And family. With all the wonderful things we have today - some useful, some good, many neither - it is still the family and the memories of family that matter most.
2
Thanks Roger,
Your fine article makes me remember the days when we rode on subways and buses reading newspaper or books. Having dinners at home or in restaurants when all members of our family or group talked with each other. These days, it's rare to go anywhere without a strong percentage of those present (particularly those under say 23 years old) peering or typing into their electronic instruments rather than interacting with anyone they're with...
Your fine article makes me remember the days when we rode on subways and buses reading newspaper or books. Having dinners at home or in restaurants when all members of our family or group talked with each other. These days, it's rare to go anywhere without a strong percentage of those present (particularly those under say 23 years old) peering or typing into their electronic instruments rather than interacting with anyone they're with...
1
I liked it till the part about 'follow me on Twitter or Facebook'...
2
Beautiful.
Compelling.
Before toss-away razors needed 5 separate blades, when dialing a phone produced clicks that you could count and phone exchanges denoted neighborhoods. We did get by.
Compelling.
Before toss-away razors needed 5 separate blades, when dialing a phone produced clicks that you could count and phone exchanges denoted neighborhoods. We did get by.
1
Funny how Karl Marx keeps getting killed off, and becomes quaint and a joke, and then gets reborn again for a new generation. "All that is solid melts into thin air, all that is sacred is profaned."
2
before teen-age rants and Drudge Reports and Rodman in Korea, there was Roger Cohen. And there still is...
3
I enjoy a lot of the new stuff. Living in Mexico, facebook keeps us in touch. I never was a prompt or frequent letter-writer. Sometimes I feel as if the mysterious place we live has been exposed harshly by google maps, On the other hand, we can explore farther than we could before. I confess to a smartphone still sitting uselessly as I daily promise to learn its functions. But I wouldn't change the research possibilities of the internet for the days I spent in the Columbia library rummaging through the index card files and then sitting with an overwhelming stack of books to begin a paper. What hasn't happened, though, is our human nature has not improved as far as I can tell. And technology has meant more potent weaponry which is used much faster and to much deadlier effect.
1
This year last, I went through volumes of correspondence between family, friends and strangers today, beginning all the way back to the 50s. As to be expected, there were surprises, a few mysteries, some smiles and the length of the exchanges was quite astonishing. Placing some aside, I sat looking at a massive heap of correspondence to be sent to the heavens of lost memory, while musing if we had in fact lost some of our humanity - there seems to be in pen more depth of expression, and now about to try out a cartridge ink pen that a thoughtful friend just sent me - in praise of progress, no more ink-wells with large blots on the paper.
This year last, I went through volumes of correspondence between family, friends and strangers today, beginning all the way back to the 50s. As to be expected, there were surprises, a few mysteries, some smiles and the length of the exchanges was quite astonishing. Placing some aside, I sat looking at a massive heap of correspondence to be sent to the heavens of lost memory, while musing if we had in fact lost some of our humanity - there seems to be in pen more depth of expression, and now about to try out a cartridge ink pen that a thoughtful friend just sent me - in praise of progress, no more ink-wells with large blots on the paper.
Nice Mr. Cohen. Despite some wax nostalgic sentiment, your piece develops an appealing rythmic cadence of thoughts to raise substantive questions: is the idea of progress still alive?
If so, what is our definition of progress in the 21st century? Is it the same concept adopted by the founders of the Republic? Or are there competing visions of progress now? And if so, who decides, which is another way of asking, who wins and who looses, when "all family ties among [peoples] are torn asunder, ..."
Inasmuch as change is inevitable, so is the alienation it causes, always.
Here is to your health and a prolific 2015!
If so, what is our definition of progress in the 21st century? Is it the same concept adopted by the founders of the Republic? Or are there competing visions of progress now? And if so, who decides, which is another way of asking, who wins and who looses, when "all family ties among [peoples] are torn asunder, ..."
Inasmuch as change is inevitable, so is the alienation it causes, always.
Here is to your health and a prolific 2015!
3
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
2
Nostalgia for bygone times is something many can't afford to luxuriate in. Roger Cohen has on numerous occasions waxed nostalgia about a pre-globalization world order, where one could lead a "settled" life in the picturesque Scottish villages of his forefathers, where one could envision a Palestine-free Middle-East, a credit-card free economy, a Cold War nation-state dominated geo- politics, and the list is endless. The refrain, and yet we managed, is redundant, because we have to, with or without the superstructures of changing times. As long as we firmly anchor ourselves in the substructure which is life itself.
1
So beautifully written! Such dazzle! It's like a poem. Happy new year, Mr. Cohen.
4
I miss my Canada of the 1980s so much.
2
I loved you piece in the Times to day. It is pure poetry. People no longer personally communicate one to one. Now, they do not even sign their E Mails with their names, much less address the person with a name. Do we really know each other anymore. However, m y Mother used to say things were better in the past. Maybe each older generation feels that way.
Your column was beautifully written.
Your column was beautifully written.
3
It was beautifully written, Ms. Spatt, and in praise of increased technology, this fine article has now reached the shores of Great Britain and South America to be read at leisure, with the recipients at leisure, to have their own views on the above.
In the meantime, taking this opportunity to wish you and yours the happiest of New Years, and thanks to Mr. Cohen's column, perhaps we are off to a good start as we go forth in 2015.
In the meantime, taking this opportunity to wish you and yours the happiest of New Years, and thanks to Mr. Cohen's column, perhaps we are off to a good start as we go forth in 2015.
The class struggle is still here, in a new guise. Millions of workers slave at fast food joints, at Amazon, at Walmart and elsewhere, for below subsistence wages. Millions of others are flotsam on the surface of a disappeared middle class, living a third-world existence amid the ostentatious wealth of a few. I always like it when entitled columnists who travel on jets and live the frothy life pronounce on what's relevant.
Roger, just pray the nursing home has unlimited wifi! (I tease the old Navy electronics guy who works on my computer --- I ask him if he knows I'm going to be running around a nursing home wondering where he is someday --- probably cursing up one side and down the other. The people will say, I'm looking for my husband, and the staff will tell them, "no, she's looking for the computer repair man!"
2
Roger
Before I Had read you or had even known who you are, I was a young man with a wife and seven month old daughter sitting in our room at the Dawson’s Hotel in Johannesburg, looking down at your father’s store, OK Bazars. It was the beginning in my five year assignment in South Africa for Chase Manhattan Bank. Thank you for your sensitive insights on a world I could never have understood then.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
Before I Had read you or had even known who you are, I was a young man with a wife and seven month old daughter sitting in our room at the Dawson’s Hotel in Johannesburg, looking down at your father’s store, OK Bazars. It was the beginning in my five year assignment in South Africa for Chase Manhattan Bank. Thank you for your sensitive insights on a world I could never have understood then.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
1
I am reminded of the great lines from Lawrence and Lee's "Inherit the Wind." "Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."
Even more, though, I am reminded of slavery and Jim Crow and the struggle for women's suffrage. I remember shorter lives lived in more pain, and higher infant mortality. I remember a segregation that was far more violent than the separation of Facebook or Twitter. I remember sweaty nights without air conditioning, and cars without seat belts. I remember long distance phone rates that were too steep for many budgets that left the mail as the only communication with distant friends and relatives.
We live our lives as happily and as fulfilled as possible wherever and whenever they occur. Today I cuddle with my grandchildren and talk with my children. I sit on our loveseat with my wife at night and watch movies on our large flat-screen TV. I vacation at the beach and dine on homemade food. I also fight against today's injustices so that they will become part of the next generation's past rather than their present.
These are the days in which I live.
Even more, though, I am reminded of slavery and Jim Crow and the struggle for women's suffrage. I remember shorter lives lived in more pain, and higher infant mortality. I remember a segregation that was far more violent than the separation of Facebook or Twitter. I remember sweaty nights without air conditioning, and cars without seat belts. I remember long distance phone rates that were too steep for many budgets that left the mail as the only communication with distant friends and relatives.
We live our lives as happily and as fulfilled as possible wherever and whenever they occur. Today I cuddle with my grandchildren and talk with my children. I sit on our loveseat with my wife at night and watch movies on our large flat-screen TV. I vacation at the beach and dine on homemade food. I also fight against today's injustices so that they will become part of the next generation's past rather than their present.
These are the days in which I live.
3
I didn't read it all. You are joking of course. I never understand this line of reasoning. Myopic? It was better then? I don't think so. It was only if you assume, as you have done, the narrowest measures for an isolated group. We did not manage just the same.
We are better off at this moment than 99.99999999% of all of the people that ever lived. "We" is far more inclusive that what you intend.
We are better off at this moment than 99.99999999% of all of the people that ever lived. "We" is far more inclusive that what you intend.
1
Before the Internet and my ability to get the NY Times online (because it wasn't available otherwise where I lived) I wouldn't have been able to have the pleasure of reading this column. For at least that, I am grateful. Thank you!
5
Bravo, sir....
And before checking the day's weather on a cellphone, I think we got by just looking up at the sky. Before the digital silence there was the thrill of the presses rumbling and producing the first edition of the newspaper-- a seismic event. Before restaurant menus offered a "vegetable medley," we could just order string beans all by themselves. But "it is what it is" so, presumably, it's okay to walk on someone's head. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for your remembrance of a time when life was not so rude and
cutting-edge. As usual, a lovely essay.
cutting-edge. As usual, a lovely essay.
I guess so.
But the Coh'n Man ain't Spock.
But the Coh'n Man ain't Spock.
Oh yeah, the old days when the love we found was ours alone, unseen & neglected by the hoards who passed by her everyday. It was all we needed, until the day it slipped through our fingers & our cherished wallflower became a siren. No comfort at all from the cavalcade of walking wounded left in her wake.
And so today we're married to another & the thought of postmeridian obsession makes us laugh. And she undoubtedly was a siren to others. Ha!
And now we have facebook to sneak a look at old flames posing for us in all their curiosity, albeit in carefully rendered selectivity. What's not to like?
And so today we're married to another & the thought of postmeridian obsession makes us laugh. And she undoubtedly was a siren to others. Ha!
And now we have facebook to sneak a look at old flames posing for us in all their curiosity, albeit in carefully rendered selectivity. What's not to like?
I could tell people that as a kid going to public schools in Queens in the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s I could walk to or from school or, later on when the distance got over the mile mark in junior high school (remember THAT term?) actually take a choice of buses, and my parents were never threatened with being cited for neglect. Even though I used to literally pedal my way all around eastern Queens and western Nassau, all by my lonesome, for fun and exercise. I could choose my friends, go off exploring using cheap public transportation when I was at college, and as long as I kept up my grades and stayed out of trouble there was nothing to worry about, except for the Viet Nam draft - and even that could be avoided, by going to Canada (a place I always loved, anyway) if all else failed. No tracking. No need to account for every minute of one's time. Nobody cared if you worked out, or for that matter pigged out, unless you were trying to make a team. And nobody cared about any of that when you were applying to graduate or medical schools. You could even go where you liked and couldn't be reached, and nobody made anything of it. I managed to get into college, graduate school and medical school, and never worried about popularity or fitting into a clique. I was just my nice, peaceful, somewhat bookish, eternally curious, individualistic self.
Just try that now, in this age of social media on the Planet of the Apps. We've lost something. It's called 'freedom'.
Just try that now, in this age of social media on the Planet of the Apps. We've lost something. It's called 'freedom'.
2
January 6, 2015
Let’s remember the kind of world; inherited, its vast deep culture.
Vision for tomorrows – using better memories wisdom culture that light the times we earn and share with our words, deeds, and if silence as such.
Jja Manhattan, N. Y.
Let’s remember the kind of world; inherited, its vast deep culture.
Vision for tomorrows – using better memories wisdom culture that light the times we earn and share with our words, deeds, and if silence as such.
Jja Manhattan, N. Y.
1
Our tools are changing our nature, so we no longer know who we are and have to figure out, invent, develop, and build it. Or, as we are doing now, let who we are happen to us as what results when people compete to make money from developing technologies and inventions.
The belief that this process will lead to the best, or even to an acceptable result, is on the same level as the belief that results obtained by the free market are optimal. We have to at least be aware of this process and what it is doing, but we do not cultivate this awareness or require it of our elected representatives.
The belief that this process will lead to the best, or even to an acceptable result, is on the same level as the belief that results obtained by the free market are optimal. We have to at least be aware of this process and what it is doing, but we do not cultivate this awareness or require it of our elected representatives.
Unfortunately, as lovely as this essay is, we will not have much of a future if we don't start paying attention to real reality, and stop thinking political assertions are the same as truth.
In fact, our planet is heating and we are poisoning our one and only finite planet, and we need to get cracking if we are to have a future to be nostalgic in.
In fact, our planet is heating and we are poisoning our one and only finite planet, and we need to get cracking if we are to have a future to be nostalgic in.
5
Virtual reality may be lots of fun, but entertainment doesn't do anything but take up time.
Nothin' ain't worth nuthin', but it's free
(not free, though, paid by advertisers, and marketing will be our master, a tail wagging a dog simulacrum)
Nothin' ain't worth nuthin', but it's free
(not free, though, paid by advertisers, and marketing will be our master, a tail wagging a dog simulacrum)
3
Roger Cohen, I love your writing. It makes me think of a dinner in Paris in 1972 with lamb chops and a great wine and the love of my life. Thank you.
8
This is one of the most beautifully written and profound columns I've read. Bravo Mr. Cohen! It reminds me of a quote from Albert Einstein on the paradoxes of technology. He said, "Isn't it great that the telephone was invented, because now I'll be able to talk to my aunt who lives in another city. But, then again, if the telephone hadn't been invented, maybe she wouldn't have moved." I tire of those who equate new technology with nothing but gains and "progress." With every gain that technology brings us, we must take account of the loss---that which it takes away.
56
I fully agree! A thousand bravos Mr. Cohen for another one of your sensitive insights. It was better before. How many times have I heard this refrain over and over with friends and relatives? Just lend an ear to anyone who can spread a heady scent of nostalgia.
As if reaped material progress were paid too much social suffering of all kinds. Loneliness, selfishness, mistrust, stress, anxiety: the dark side of our modernity is sorely tried by many. A feeling particularly prevalent in popular categories, and not just among the elderly, but becoming prevalent with the baby boomers too.
As if reaped material progress were paid too much social suffering of all kinds. Loneliness, selfishness, mistrust, stress, anxiety: the dark side of our modernity is sorely tried by many. A feeling particularly prevalent in popular categories, and not just among the elderly, but becoming prevalent with the baby boomers too.
Get real Roger - you should have been a female professional working in "a man's world" in the late eighties - mid-nineties in what is now the Big Four firms.
Thank God those days are over.
Thank God those days are over.
6
That's right. EVERYTHING is better now.
JMM,
Working as a typist at the time at Rock Plaza in the Corporate world, confirming that as a female 'professional', there was quite a fight for power going on, along with some pretty shabby stories which fortunately I was not aware of, because I was pouring tea at meetings, and nobody would give me the time of day. But I join you in saying that it is a relief in hindsight that those days are over, although I may have learned something to bring back to the Humanitarian world where I belong.
And those are the days, the 70s, the 80s and even the 90s that my women friends remember at times with some mirth and amusing anecdotes, along with the choices we made, the never-ending work for the cause of our children world-wide that we believe in, the rich friendships that continue today whether we live in Iraq, or Ireland, Senegal or the Philippines, while communicating well with the help of Facebook and Skype both during good and hard times, whether there is a new-born in our circle of friends, or an earthquake in Asia, we are all there 'together' just like the old days, but only faster and the wiser for this modern technology era, which has saved some of our lives.
Working as a typist at the time at Rock Plaza in the Corporate world, confirming that as a female 'professional', there was quite a fight for power going on, along with some pretty shabby stories which fortunately I was not aware of, because I was pouring tea at meetings, and nobody would give me the time of day. But I join you in saying that it is a relief in hindsight that those days are over, although I may have learned something to bring back to the Humanitarian world where I belong.
And those are the days, the 70s, the 80s and even the 90s that my women friends remember at times with some mirth and amusing anecdotes, along with the choices we made, the never-ending work for the cause of our children world-wide that we believe in, the rich friendships that continue today whether we live in Iraq, or Ireland, Senegal or the Philippines, while communicating well with the help of Facebook and Skype both during good and hard times, whether there is a new-born in our circle of friends, or an earthquake in Asia, we are all there 'together' just like the old days, but only faster and the wiser for this modern technology era, which has saved some of our lives.
We may be seeing changes where the gap between the 17th century and the 20th was most slower to progress than between the 20th into the 21st. The industrial Revolution in the mid-1880s was to accelerate life in some ways for the better, the Revolution in Russia in 1918 was the end of an era and the beginning of another along with wars that were no longer fought with horses and bayonets. A book particularly liked by this reader is that of Ebenezer Le Page by a forgotten author, G.B. Edwards. At 80 he has never left the Channel Island of Guernsey and he recounts the traumas of the 20th century, the Island occupied by the Germans, the men both lost to the Great War and World War II, and looks with despair at the invasion later of tourism and what he describes as 'Helicopter Thinking', the television and other distractions.
We can choose, however, to sing in praise of modern progress for reasons outlined by other commentators here, while remembering that while we fear with some reason that part of our humanity is being taken away from us and that we are becoming tools, in the end our human emotions never really change and in reading a book on love written in the 16th century or today, nothing has essentially changed of great import when it comes to how we feel and react in this mysterious existence of ours.
We can choose, however, to sing in praise of modern progress for reasons outlined by other commentators here, while remembering that while we fear with some reason that part of our humanity is being taken away from us and that we are becoming tools, in the end our human emotions never really change and in reading a book on love written in the 16th century or today, nothing has essentially changed of great import when it comes to how we feel and react in this mysterious existence of ours.
8
Not that long ago I considered the coming of computers and their accoutrements to be overrated. I was half right - they have become more versatile, more ubiquitous than I thought they would, but their overall net effect on us all is not positive, maybe slightly negative. It follows the same paradigm as "be careful what you ask for, you might get it." And how!
Nostalgia only makes sense to people advanced in age. Each time period has it's good things and bad things about it. The fact that humans choose to "remember the good and forget the bad" only reinforces the existence of nostalgia. I'm in my mid-30's and in 40 years, I bet you anything I'll be nostalgic for this time in my life--having forgotten all the undesirable things that still existed.
4
My sister told me she remembered when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
10
How do we use technology to avoid getting horribly lost, while still getting that cheap thrill from using an innate good sense of direction if we happen to have one? Why does technology have to replace instead of supplement? What if there were less emphasis on profiting from innovations and more emphasis on maintaining a balanced quality of life?
2
Obviously you've never had a family member living in another country. My mother was living in Japan when I was in college, in the good old days, where if I wanted to talk to her I had to pay a dollar a minute and stay up until 3AM in the hopes of catching her when she got home from work. Or I could have written her a letter, that she would have gotten in a week. My brother now lives in Britain with my niece and nephew. I talked to them on Christmas day, with video so I could see them all, for close to an hour. On Skype it cost me...about a nickel, maybe.
Online banking? I don't know my branch manager, no. But when I needed assistance from another country? My credit union stepped up to the plate and helped me out over the phone. Yes, with a real, live, English-speaking person.
If you don't like Facebook? Opt out. I've never had a Facebook account and have never felt the lack. Think Twitter is vapid? Don't tweet, don't read tweets. I have no Twitter account either. Turn off your cellphone if you don't want to be called. Set down your smart phone, turn off your computer. You can always turn off, opt out, fail to use. It's your choice, use it or not.
Meanwhile I think I will call my coworker in another state--over Skype, of course--and congratulate her on her upcoming marriage to her girlfriend. Because that's another thing that's changed.
Online banking? I don't know my branch manager, no. But when I needed assistance from another country? My credit union stepped up to the plate and helped me out over the phone. Yes, with a real, live, English-speaking person.
If you don't like Facebook? Opt out. I've never had a Facebook account and have never felt the lack. Think Twitter is vapid? Don't tweet, don't read tweets. I have no Twitter account either. Turn off your cellphone if you don't want to be called. Set down your smart phone, turn off your computer. You can always turn off, opt out, fail to use. It's your choice, use it or not.
Meanwhile I think I will call my coworker in another state--over Skype, of course--and congratulate her on her upcoming marriage to her girlfriend. Because that's another thing that's changed.
10
Age 61.
Ten cents bought ten pieces of candy in my youth,,, and there was, implausibly, a guy behind the counter who waited while you selected them and put them in a little brown bag for you. All that for 10 cents.
He probably lived a more secure and comfortable life than many of today's college graduates.
Progress.
Ten cents bought ten pieces of candy in my youth,,, and there was, implausibly, a guy behind the counter who waited while you selected them and put them in a little brown bag for you. All that for 10 cents.
He probably lived a more secure and comfortable life than many of today's college graduates.
Progress.
10
We've kept your last 'Remembering' column and we'll keep this one - printed out, on paper - too. Even though I always cry when, reading it aloud to my husband, I get to the last paragraph.
1
Very thoughtful and enjoyable. But I most likely would not even have been aware of your article if it wasn't in the electronic version of the Times.
5
Agree with that!
3
Just the other day I was reflecting on the "good old days" of 1972, I had just finished High School and was beginning college. It was also the first opportunity for me to vote for president, and I was not completely unaware of political events. However, I accepted the dominant paradigm fed me by the media of the time that Nixon was the good guy in this race, and that McGovern could not be trusted. Within a few years, that was turned completely, and I have been suspicious of the "main stream media" ever since. Much of what Roger is trying to convince us is extraneous, unnecessary and distracting - the multiple streams of communication and media of which we are now bombarded, would have allowed an inquisitive person like myself to perhaps find out the truth in time to have prevented me from wasting my first opportunity to vote for such a scoundrel. That, in an of itself, makes the rest of it worthwhile.
4
Changes are inevitable, as are the consequences. Technology has not improved human interactions as we have isolated ourselves on anonymous silicon islands. We continue to have much less tolerance and shorter time horizons for achievement. Are we any smarter now versus the past when libraries were the source of knowledge instead of the Internet/Web? We just seem disseminate and unfortunately, assimilate the unquestioned information faster. With all the technological improvements, the issue of continued poor management of limited resources is not being scientifically addressed. Technology hasn’t always equated to progress when it is just applied haphazardly.
9
Good article, and invocation of Marx could not be more apt. He may have had the wrong remedy, but he was insightful in his diagnosis. There are a number of inevitable effects of unbridled capitalism, and they are not all good.
If one lives long enough, as Roger has, one yearns for much of what has been lost or displaced. But the real concern is for what is to come. The trends all seem of point toward the desensitization and dehumanization of humanity.
The real opiate of the people, as it turns out, is not religion but technology.
If one lives long enough, as Roger has, one yearns for much of what has been lost or displaced. But the real concern is for what is to come. The trends all seem of point toward the desensitization and dehumanization of humanity.
The real opiate of the people, as it turns out, is not religion but technology.
56
Technology is life saving, time saving and intrusive all at the same time. Remember when the first Afordable cellphones came out and those who owned one yelled their conversations in public places intruding on every one else's face to face conversations, reading, solitude? That is rare now as every one has a cell/smart phone and it is not a nobility any more. We have learned how to properly use this technology -- for the most part. We learn new ways to positively use thachnologh with time which helps many fields advance.
I agree that there is an opiated in our society. It is all the money flooding our political system taking our democracy away by a few highly monied people remaking our democracy in their own image. Carl Marx got that part right.
I agree that there is an opiated in our society. It is all the money flooding our political system taking our democracy away by a few highly monied people remaking our democracy in their own image. Carl Marx got that part right.
Mr. Cohen:
Mindless "progress" is the human story. It has been ever thus. Still, thank you for this rumination on things long passed. I must say there is an awful lot about my past that I don't care to revisit after 67 yrs. Underneath it all, what bothers me the most is the speed at which change occurs and how persistant that speed has become. It does seem to me that we are heading downhill in a headlong rush to no one knows where. It reminds me of the fifties when everyone was excited about the future and space. No amount of argument could convince me then that Tang tasted like real orange juice. The cars were stupidly ugly as well.
Mindless "progress" is the human story. It has been ever thus. Still, thank you for this rumination on things long passed. I must say there is an awful lot about my past that I don't care to revisit after 67 yrs. Underneath it all, what bothers me the most is the speed at which change occurs and how persistant that speed has become. It does seem to me that we are heading downhill in a headlong rush to no one knows where. It reminds me of the fifties when everyone was excited about the future and space. No amount of argument could convince me then that Tang tasted like real orange juice. The cars were stupidly ugly as well.
1
As George Harrison once sang, "The farther one travels, the less one knows." Or, less really may be more. While I am not a big fan of nostalgia - and lord knows there was plenty of bad in the good old days - I must say that I worry about my 11-year old daughter and her peers. Something is missing, Is it playing out on the street until supper time? Is it discovering a new band on your own instead of seeing their video blasted out over Times Square? Is it waiting to hear your favorite song on the radio instead of dialing it up on Spotify? Is it the ability to be a kid for a while before taking on the burdens of adulthood? It's all of this and more. Something is missing. Something has been lost.
40
thebigmancat
I think there are many wonderful things to be said about the present and about the youngest generation. Who knows what they will become as they move into or further into their adulthood? I feel as you do, however, that there's also something lost. To me it's the wildness -- the freedom of getting on your bike, going anywhere and coming back when you were hungry, of hours of play unsupervised in the streets or woods (in my case).
I grew up in a place up in the mountains where my dad had to build a couple roads to get to our house. My parents didn't believe in t.v. because they thought it robbed imagination so we had no t.v. until I was eight, and then it was strictly limited. Dad taught us how to take care of ourselves in the wilderness, and I remember being trusted to find my way anywhere. Even then (the 60s and 70s) few kids had these types of experiences, though most kids had more freedom. Children didn't grow up in a marketplace society, where they are both consumers and products.
The world when my parents grew up and the world I grew up in were definitely different. But childhood itself wasn't so markedly different as it has become by technology.
I think there are many wonderful things to be said about the present and about the youngest generation. Who knows what they will become as they move into or further into their adulthood? I feel as you do, however, that there's also something lost. To me it's the wildness -- the freedom of getting on your bike, going anywhere and coming back when you were hungry, of hours of play unsupervised in the streets or woods (in my case).
I grew up in a place up in the mountains where my dad had to build a couple roads to get to our house. My parents didn't believe in t.v. because they thought it robbed imagination so we had no t.v. until I was eight, and then it was strictly limited. Dad taught us how to take care of ourselves in the wilderness, and I remember being trusted to find my way anywhere. Even then (the 60s and 70s) few kids had these types of experiences, though most kids had more freedom. Children didn't grow up in a marketplace society, where they are both consumers and products.
The world when my parents grew up and the world I grew up in were definitely different. But childhood itself wasn't so markedly different as it has become by technology.
2
I too remember taking off right after breakfast and Mom yelling "be home for dinner" as I bolted for the door!
3
As several of your readers point out, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
But still..........Maybe Cohen is right, maybe he's wrong, maybe it really was better back then, but maybe he's just pining for a past that never was. Whatever, I bet this piece spawns a cornucopia of debates and discussions over drinks and dinner tonight. In other words, he'll have us actually talking with each other. Just like the good old days!
But still..........Maybe Cohen is right, maybe he's wrong, maybe it really was better back then, but maybe he's just pining for a past that never was. Whatever, I bet this piece spawns a cornucopia of debates and discussions over drinks and dinner tonight. In other words, he'll have us actually talking with each other. Just like the good old days!
2
I don't think Mr. Cohen is pining at all. Just remembering. And that's what we all ought to do. Remember the past - live the present.
2
Change is constant, irreversible and inevitable. With conflicting emotions, every generation compares its present to its past. There is always nostalgia for bygone eras when "life was simpler." But there is also relief for progress. If we lament in nostalgia, it's only fair we remain optimistic from the progress that change brings.
But change must be judged on whether benefits outnumber challenges. Today, we are grateful for the opportunity to have real-time video chats with loved ones who are half-way around the world. But the instant messaging opportunities we embrace also deny us much needed respite from them. In our incessant search for efficiency, one of the catalysts of change, we ignore unforeseen repercussions until it is too late.
Only when it's too late that we wonder if our mismanagement of change and underestimating of its hidden threats, was a pact we blindly made with the Devil.
But change must be judged on whether benefits outnumber challenges. Today, we are grateful for the opportunity to have real-time video chats with loved ones who are half-way around the world. But the instant messaging opportunities we embrace also deny us much needed respite from them. In our incessant search for efficiency, one of the catalysts of change, we ignore unforeseen repercussions until it is too late.
Only when it's too late that we wonder if our mismanagement of change and underestimating of its hidden threats, was a pact we blindly made with the Devil.
16
Your subtlety seems to be lost on the snarks, Mr. Cohen. This is a sweet and interesting piece and I'm glad you shared it.
10
Just the other day I was reflecting on the "good old days" of 1972, I had just finished High School and was beginning college. It was also the first opportunity for me to vote for president, and I was not completely unaware of political events. However, I accepted the dominant paradigm fed me by the media of the time that Nixon was the good guy in this race, and that McGovern could not be trusted. Within a few years, that was turned completely, and I have been suspicious of the "main stream media" ever since. Much of what Roger is trying to convince us is extraneous, unnecessary and distracting - the multiple streams of communication and media of which we are now bombarded, would have allowed an inquisitive person like myself to perhaps find out the truth in time to have prevented me from wasting my first opportunity to vote for such a scoundrel. That, in an of itself, makes the rest of it worthwhile.
1
“Wherever progress is measured in terms of technology and not in terms of right understanding, the perfecting of the machine rather than of man will be the guiding ideal.” — W. Y. Evans-Wentz, in his foreword to The Diamond Sutra
1
I don't use my phone as a computer anymore. My life has improved dramatically. I saved loads of money, which I spend subscribing to the Paris Review, etc.
1
Forgive my gushing, but Roger Cohen has been leading the charge for great opinion piece writing in the Times. I don't think the point of this piece is that we should go back in time, but that we should not sell our souls for the allure of progress. Everything new is not better. I'm not about to turn in my computer, but I should probably turn it off a lot more often.
I have to say that these comment sections, which I frequently partake in, are often a distraction such as Roger Cohen bemoans.
I have to say that these comment sections, which I frequently partake in, are often a distraction such as Roger Cohen bemoans.
3
You know, Roger, you don't have to tweet, post online, be on Facebook, use apps, use a cell phone, watch TV shows on a computer, use Uber, etc. If you don't like doing any of these things, then don't. Just stop.
You can still like the Dead, though. That never gets old.
You can still like the Dead, though. That never gets old.
2
Beautiful! A poem more than an op-ed piece.
5
Many things are improved over the past: medical, social, travel. There did seem to be more downtime before the internet revolution. I was six years old when we got our first TV, one of the the first "on the block." And we knew everyone on our block! I do feel a nostalgia for not knowing who was calling when the phone rang or when the news was only reported once each evening. You looked forward to reading the paper because you didn't know what it would say. Now, the same stories are told over and over, 24/7. I am now tuning out of the internet, the TV and the radio more and more and appreciating the here and now and the real people around me.
4
Thank you for writing this piece. It is long overdue. Life, by the way, for those of you who weren't born yet, was great in the '50s and '60s, and even up into the late '70s. Though for blacks in the South it was a little later in arriving.
And in addition to Karl Marx, keep a warm place in your heart for Groucho!
Peace, brothers and sisters!
And in addition to Karl Marx, keep a warm place in your heart for Groucho!
Peace, brothers and sisters!
3
You mean a time when I couldn't read a NYT OP-ED immediately on the west coast? Clearly it was a life not as rich...
2
Weird, useless nostalgia! I'm probably the same age as the writer. Perhaps a little older. So I've lived through all those pasts he so fondly recalls. And yes we did live through them, enjoyed them and assumed that that's how things ought to be and always will. Forgetting, mostly, that to be alive and human means that change is inevitable whether we will it or not. So Marx's observation about the bourgeoisie need for reinvention is wrong. Reinvention is a consequence of change-as-the-human-condition not it's cause. And the writer's comment that "how strange to think we had to change “the whole relations of society" is way off kilter. Society changed, was destined to change, and will change further in the future as a consequence of what humans are. It didn't happen because "we had to.." Strange compulsion!
1
Change can take many forms. We are not obligated to accept all forms of change with open arms. You imply that that change is like the tides, unyielding to human action.
Many thanks, Mr Cohen, for this 67th birthday present. My big Olivetti is long gone, but I've held on to my Olympia portable -- just in case.
3
If there is one good thing about thdespiset times, it allows access to judge the past which we may not be able to add meaning to if time stood still. Much as a white paper makes more sense with a black ink than a white. Much as also it is the past that begon the leader from which top we can read this on the internet and not so much to pit the past against the present or visa versa . The tree should not look down and despise its roots, nor the roots curse the fruits it fosters.
This is an excellent article that reminds us of what the real life was and what we have made it today. We can still have most of the old life by minimizing using of smartphones and not staying connected 24 x 7. This article touched me to the bottom of my heart.
3
A time before we ruined the Earth and soon the end of nostalgia.
1
In the before, that I remember, I would not have been able to read this column. So I guess I will enjoy the good of today, letting go of the superfluous, so that my memories of now will somehow have sifted the wheat from the chaff,. My memories of those times past are tinted by what I have learned and what (and who) I have forgiven and/or forgotten.
2
Before I was old - I forget!!!
1
"sifted the wheat from the chaff," - you are not old enough, you don't sift, you thresh the wheat sheaves on a threshing floor, using flails to separate the wheat from the chaff and then toss the threshed wheat and chaff up in the air and the wind blows the chaff away and the wheat falls to the floor.
Today I am being addressed by 20 year old people as "Young Lady. Wait this sounds familiar! Now that I remember it was when I was 14 - it's turned out to be a full circle after all.
this is wonderfully evocative! but i must say that "curved shower curtain rods" are not new but an artifact of the past--at least as long ago as the 1950s or 1960s, when the one in my prewar apartment was installed
1
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Relax Roger. Have a drink. Take a walk, preferably near a large body of water. As much as people look for truth, meaning, certainty, they are concepts we invented to comfort ourselves.
Like it or not, what is. is. What was, was.
Good piece. Do not go quietly. Rage on, Roger!
Relax Roger. Have a drink. Take a walk, preferably near a large body of water. As much as people look for truth, meaning, certainty, they are concepts we invented to comfort ourselves.
Like it or not, what is. is. What was, was.
Good piece. Do not go quietly. Rage on, Roger!
3
Brilliant! Best thing of its kind ever, and one to keep in the "read every 5 years file". Too bad it missed the deadline for this year's Sidney Awards.
4
This is an era of information overload. Life was more interesting when there was a little mystery associated with it. That, and people actually conversed with each other.
6
I grew up with total contempt for all things Victorian, and slavish devotion to the modern. I've come full circle. You can have your Joyces and Picassos, your Schonbergs and your Calders. The 20th Century has been an utter, appalling waste.
Ah the good ol' days of polio, death by sepsis, or gangrene, tetanus, diabetes before insulin, the list goes on.... There were some good things in the old days, listening to your neighbors phone conversation on the party line, when you went outside to play and your parents knew what you did bore you got home, when pizza and a soda were 25 cents, and the saturday matinee for kids was a quarter. The subway was 15 cents and you could ride for hours. Then there was segregation in the good old days, there was them and there was us..... we had to take the rug out to clean with a beater and that ice was heavy carrying it up 5 flights of stairs every other day. Life was good in the old day... You can keep the old days and i will keep the modern days were life is a lot more simple and easy as long as you don't let it get to you. But there is one thing I do not miss. The American government stayed out of your life.
2
Just yesterday, I found a red grease pencil that was used in the 'old days' to circle images on a photographic contact sheet. I could not bring myself to trash it, although in all probability, I will never use it again. And I was thinking about how much I miss the moment, when after selecting a picture that had been circled, I would print it in a darkroom with objects that I could touch. I miss placing the negative in the holder and putting it in the enlarger; I miss the work of hand focusing it; I miss mixing the darkroom chemicals; I miss the smell of those chemicals and even the nosebleeds that I would often get from them. But most of all, I miss the moment when, seemingly out of of nowhere, an image would magically appear in a tray that I was holding. I miss, in sum, that sense of accomplishment from that tactile activity.
10
You know, Rog', I never imagined you a lapsed Deadhead who once drove a Microbus called "Pigpen." But alright.
3
Well constrcuted narrative Mr. Cohen - always enjoy your poetically crafted columns. For the record, many of us still dig the Dead! That will never Fade Away.
2
Not to mention unrestricted dumping of toxic waste into our water systems, and ... oh, yes ... restricted WASP-only country clubs that very easily would have banned you from membership.
'Twas ever thus, that older generations remembered pleasant times past with nostalgia. Cohen doesn't say those were better times than these, merely that they were different, and we got by. Why so many bitter comments?
7
As an Old Child of New York, I am increasingly being approached by young adolescents, who are wistful and wish they had lived in their parents' Generation. One of the recurring things they bring up are the moral values that they feel are wanting today. But, depending on their character and disposition, some are getting the best out of both generations and forging ahead, while encouraging others and inspiring them to do the same. And this can be a cause for a feeling of solace because our future rests on our younger generation and their vision of the world.
That's what I wonder. Roger Cohen is remembering, that's all. I don't understand the bitter comments nor the dismissive ones. Some people ruin everything.
Driving home through rural Ohio last week my kids were video FaceTiming my wife who was at a funeral in village in eastern Slovakia. My iPhone was bluetoothed to my Odyssey, we were hands-free and the only expense of all this was use of data against my data plan. Hohum. Same old same old. Then I remembered what a big deal, a thrill, it used to be to get a phone call and from overseas. The loss of that kind of thrill is not insignificant.
4
I frequently hear sentiments such as these -- primarily from middle/upper middle class white men who seem to lament their loss of bygone days when they had a monopoly on societal power, status and wealth.
Things for women weren't so cheery in bygone days. Could not get credit without husband's signature. Lack of access to birth control. Abortion was illegal. Divorce was difficult and rare. Exclusion from Ivy League colleges, military service academies and most unions. Job sex discrimination, low pay and workplace harassment were rampant. Domestic violence was a taboo topic, as was child sex abuse and breast cancer. Rapes were seldom reported or prosecuted. And on and on and on. For Black folks, it was even worse...much worse.
Things for women weren't so cheery in bygone days. Could not get credit without husband's signature. Lack of access to birth control. Abortion was illegal. Divorce was difficult and rare. Exclusion from Ivy League colleges, military service academies and most unions. Job sex discrimination, low pay and workplace harassment were rampant. Domestic violence was a taboo topic, as was child sex abuse and breast cancer. Rapes were seldom reported or prosecuted. And on and on and on. For Black folks, it was even worse...much worse.
33
Your bitterness sadly shows.
1
Don't forget mental illness and alcoholism and drug abuse... Yes, I remember the bad old days; still, we have lost so much of the best stuff.
1
You forgot the mention the times before the atomic bomb. That is what changed war.
Nice work. You captured a lot of my feelings about modern times, yet I try to remember lots of things about the past that were not so golden. It's a mix. For the most part, I gladly leave much of modern lifestyle to young people, who are glad to see me confined to the sidelines.
6
Wonderful. A wealth of insight condensed in a few words.
3
Ditto. It reminded me of Ferlinghetti.
2
Very well said, Mr Cohen. Though I guess it depends on what your memories are after all. I think that the elder are with bo doubt the part of the society that benefited most from modernity. Today we take as granted mobility and health treatment, but it wasn't so in 'good' old days. People who are in their prime somehow comfortable with their life, but to be honest, I would rather return to my prime in these days than to the times when it had been my ''wild glory days.''
1
Cheer up, Roger! Although social media exists and you find it annoying, no one is stopping you from making face-to-face or direct physical contact with other human beings. And you are a well-known newspaper columnist, so nobody would stop you from having a few drinks at lunch, even in this day and age.
2
Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Your beautiful essay is like reading poetry.
Like you, I miss some things from the past, but I am also glad to leave much of it behind. Of course, we saw those things with younger eyes then, so who knows in what ways our memories were colored by our callowness.
Like you, I miss some things from the past, but I am also glad to leave much of it behind. Of course, we saw those things with younger eyes then, so who knows in what ways our memories were colored by our callowness.
4
"Nostalgia" for "the good old days" is an interesting phenominon. Now 71, I can remember the angry and disparaging comments made by my father about many things I did, felt, and believed in when I was young, and now I find myself worrying about the constancy with which my grand children are hunched over their iPhones and the "terrible" nature of some of the popular young adult movies ("Hunger Games") and computer games.
I have come to the conclusion that change and "modernety" is not a matter of "better" or "worse", but it is just "different". Technologial advance always has at least two sides. Who is to say if the development of atomic bomb/energy back in "the good old days" is any less destructive than the hyper-connectivity of our modern electronic age.
So in or bi-weekly grand-children/grand-parents dinners out, I try not to be judgemental, but instead try to engage them in conversation - it is heartening to see how intelligent, open, aware and interesting young people are ...
I have come to the conclusion that change and "modernety" is not a matter of "better" or "worse", but it is just "different". Technologial advance always has at least two sides. Who is to say if the development of atomic bomb/energy back in "the good old days" is any less destructive than the hyper-connectivity of our modern electronic age.
So in or bi-weekly grand-children/grand-parents dinners out, I try not to be judgemental, but instead try to engage them in conversation - it is heartening to see how intelligent, open, aware and interesting young people are ...
3
This is why we need wild places. Places where one can--if the smart phone, GPS, Go-Pro camera, personal emergency locator beacon, and freeze-dried meals are left behind--get away from all this "progress" for a while. John Muir said it best. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home." He probably had no idea how much more true that would be today than it was in 1901.
53
As a smack-dab-in-the-middle baby boomer I realized as I was reading this that my generation, the one preceding it and approximately half a generation behind me will be the last ones to have lived in the "before" times. Just as we count down the surviving veterans of various wars we'll be counting down those of us who can recall living in times before hyper-connectivity and incessant bombardment of our senses.
4
The instant, easy comment is: Like it or not, we're evolving, and many years from now, our kids will wax nostalgic for a simpler time when there were apps, Uber, and hot yoga. Meanwhile, what troubles me is that young love seems to have gone the way of the typewriter. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic, but it saddens me to see so many kids in their twenties who've never been in love and struggle to find it. They text, Tweet, and endlessly browse dating sites, rarely, if ever, making any meaningful human connection. Now, I circle back to evolving.
So many contemporary young people are so acceptably delayed in so many areas...perhaps love is just one of them.
So many contemporary young people are so acceptably delayed in so many areas...perhaps love is just one of them.
1
When you start waxing nostalgic about standing in line in a bank and knowing your branch manager, it is a sign that you need to stop smoking Colorado's finest and get back to reality.
1
I don't understand the author's point here. What's wrong with yoga (hot or otherwise) - nobody is making him practice it. Some of his other items - liquid lunches, Mao, etc. - were not good things. And, as other commentators have noticed, some of them (e.g., knowing your branch manager vs. equal lending laws) were only good things if you were a white Protestant male.
Trade-offs
1
I guess Yeats gets at this point somewhat in "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen."
"Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
"A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some Platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
"The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven;
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed."
"Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
"A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some Platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
"The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven;
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed."
23
More of the poem: "Now days are dragon-ridden, The Nightmare rides upon sleep...."
"...O but we dreamed to mend..." That is really the rub. We, and I can include myself among the cynics, too many dawns... we lose, have lost, are losing, the will to mend. Blame it on the apps. Blame it on the wars. Blame it on our humanity gone sour. Nod by the fire and hum: the failure of humanity is humanity. There. That feels better. At least we know there's an answer. A song in our heart, we do--know the reason. It is us.
Well done RC, well done. Bravo to you sir for a another poetic column. The newer wistful version RC2015 is a tremendous update to an already amazing, blazing, phrasing standard model RC1960.
It's ironic to read a Roger Cohen column pining for the good old days with a disclaimer at the end of the article that readers can follow him on Twitter or join him on Facebook.
56
This is when one can sing in praise of progress, and when a friend calls for help overseas for instance, one can be at their side the next day.
7
WOW. I think it is really great that you can remember all of those things. Personally, it makes me think that both you and I lived in a really good time; but I still wish to hang for awhile and see what other changes will come. All in all, with all Life throws at you, it has been FUN.
And yet I set in Long Beach California this morning reading today's NYT and communicating on my Mac instead of days later reading and writing on dead trees with ink and the postal service. Technology has made me a wider reader and a more frequent participant in these conversations. And Cohen's wry insights always inspire.
2
I think some of you may have missed something. Or maybe you are not given to reflection, in which case, I am so sorry; I wish I had something I could give you, some comfort, some insight, so that you might discover the divinely human experience of looking back to see ahead and examine the present--and to take the moment gratefully and laugh heartily, at yourself, at our common story, the one we share. Were you there, too? Do you miss that Olivetti, wish you'd kept it? Secretly miss that lost sound that only now reveals its music?
What have you lost, and what did you cast out? Where did you go wrong, or can you see that yet? Is that the way you saw it, or is that the way it looked? Wasn't that hard time good, too? I never thought I'd say that, but here we are... What was it we set out to do? And what have we done?
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for a most lyrical, fun and wondering, probing reflection. It was wonderful, and I'm so glad I was there to catch it.
What have you lost, and what did you cast out? Where did you go wrong, or can you see that yet? Is that the way you saw it, or is that the way it looked? Wasn't that hard time good, too? I never thought I'd say that, but here we are... What was it we set out to do? And what have we done?
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for a most lyrical, fun and wondering, probing reflection. It was wonderful, and I'm so glad I was there to catch it.
5
Well said Kris.
I can share, quite comfortably, the nostalgia of times gone but remembered as perhaps better, in the sense that we thought we had more choices...and not just a cog in our hyperconnected world. And yet, things are better when robots can save your back from breaking (even if its just the marvel of the wheels on our luggage, or an e-mail at your convenience and their uninterrupted sleep...that you arrived alive and well). Yes, the widespread possibility of being connected (a choice well worth your time if measured and controlled by you and not others), with information at your fingertips. As long as you can tell information from knowledge, fine. As long as idleness (with no guilt feelings) is accorded its due. And understanding that most things in life are random, out of your control; and yet, knowledge that our response to it is what counts, and liking what we do (the more involved in a task, the more we give, the more one gets out of life, even under adverse circumstances. And our current technology 'frees' us more, so other pursuits never imagined possible before, can take place. Not bad. Just stop taking yourself too seriously, and enjoy the moment; after all, that's all there is.
2
The Marx quote is well-chosen. I believe it is from the part of his writings from which Schumpeter developed his idea about "creative destruction," which is the sly theme of this column. Marx went on, though, to predict that the end point of these revolutions would be the end of capitalism, so maybe there is hope after all!
1
I first saw the movie The Innocents with Debora Kerr in an open-air cinema in Israel when I was 12 years or so. Years later, I visited my American husband's parents in New Jersey, when the daily TV guide in some newspaper had the movie listed. It was broadcast at 3:00 AM. I set the alarm clock and finally my husband got to see the movie of which I often talked as my first encounter with horror fiction. Nowadays we can watch it on DVD with many add-ons, to make it sellable, or on quite a number of online services, more or less legal. I can find anything I might possibly want to know about almost anything (and anyone) as soon as I think about it. It is not as much fun as that 3:00 AM movie. On the other hand, why not? Is the thrill of finding something rare greater than having it at hand when I want it?
1
Before trying to remember when they had futurists who dreamed of a world interconnected by communication, driverless cars, portable computing devices creating a world without borders. While I may not yet be old enough to fully embrace the sprit of this piece; I appreciate it. That said, in order to relieve you from nostalgia, may I remind the writer and those who share his sentiment; that in the time you're harkening back to; people of your age where seen as much 'older' than today, not only to the point of sexlessness, but to the point where if one had puttered off this mortal coil due to the effects of a now entirely curable cardiovascular issue; it wasn't considered all that much of a tragedy. Here's to 2015!
2
I have pretty much given up on all the current Hollywood movies and have now reverted to watching as many of old black and whites of the twenties, thirties and forties as I can lay my hands on. A few days ago the thought occurred to me that one of main reasons I like these movies is that you don't see any computers or cell phones in them.
5
My very fine cat indeed wishes your good dog happy new year and definitely endorses your sentiments.
1
Thanks very much and the very same to both of you.
--- Stanton and Sasha.
--- Stanton and Sasha.
1
great writing....got me thinking and reflecting there was a poetic quality to that prose. thank you.
2
40 years ago when I was 19. I travelled overland from Cairo to Bombay with no map, and unarmed, with just a general sense of diection (east) and no plan.how to get back (I hitched a ride with some French students on their charter back to Europe).
Today, Afghanistan lacks its king not to mention being in ruins, and appears to have private cars. Iran has no Shah. Egypt is ni loner secular. The PLO was hijacking airplanes. We could only get messages through American Express officrs in big cities. The news was weeks old.
You can still go back in time if you are willing to go where there are no drunk, rude tourists, but how lomg will that last?
Today, Afghanistan lacks its king not to mention being in ruins, and appears to have private cars. Iran has no Shah. Egypt is ni loner secular. The PLO was hijacking airplanes. We could only get messages through American Express officrs in big cities. The news was weeks old.
You can still go back in time if you are willing to go where there are no drunk, rude tourists, but how lomg will that last?
There is a lot of be said for the latest technology but there is also much to be said against it. In Manhattan, many people (young and older) walk down the street with their faces in their iphones, ipads, etc. and do not look where they are going. They could not care less if they monopolize the sidewalk and to heck with anyone else. Also, on the subway and bus they have their noses in their devices and do not enjoy experiencing the New York scene. I love to people watch when I am walking in the city and also on public transportation. I find many of them fascinating and it is free theatre. Once in a blue moon you will even have a delightful conversation with a complete stranger and it really makes ones day. I do long for the time when there was civility among people and who knows, maybe we can have this once again. Let's be considerate of our fellow man and think of others and I long for a kinder world. I have hope.
2
As many have observed, life was not perfect in the old days but I do worry at people's inability to unplug nowadays. I've seen a dog-walker in our neighborhood whose charges poop in surrounding yards and this woman is oblivious because...her nose is buried in her phone. I see parents of babies and young children who are busy chatting to someone else on the phone as their youngster is pushed around in a stroller. The children are having no interaction with the parent at all. What message does that send the child? "Having you is nice, but I have more important things to do and people I need to speak to." We know that the engagement of a parent actively speaking and reading to infants and toddlers means a huge leap in that child's vocabulary and language abilities--a deficit from which it seem you cannot recover it you don't have that early investment. But the parent is on facebook or the phone so even affluent, well-educated parents create this deficit. This is my worry--what kind of socialization and mental development our youngest members will get as the older generation(s) are self-absorbed in their devices.
7
@mother of two: I am so glad you said this. I see this all the time; people out with their children who literally never look at them, speak to them or touch them. I too wonder what will be the end result of this. People glued to their phones while their child runs to the street or to the edge of the BART platform. All it takes is a moment of inattention for a child to dart out and be hit. It is actually possible to not have a cell phone; I know, I do not have one.
1
Marvelous. A free verse rendering of how I often feel.
2
Because Cohen manages to get Fascism in the mix, maybe the subject
of American Democracy is pertinent here: In which case I remember
when Dual Loyalty and having sons who fight for Israel, in the Israeli
army, were not the subject of New York Times columnists. When
our congress was not cuddled in the hands of an international lobby,
like AIPAC, or at least not so brazenly so. And when a foreign leader,
like Netanyahu of Israel , didn't feel free to race up to congress to contradict
what the American President had decided.
And when America's interests
did not include our SecState scrumming around the world to stymie
votes in the UN to stop apartheid and begin statehood for the Palestinians...succeeding by
one vote only. A story hidden by the 'American press'. Call that when the American press didn't have to hide news from
the American people routinely.
of American Democracy is pertinent here: In which case I remember
when Dual Loyalty and having sons who fight for Israel, in the Israeli
army, were not the subject of New York Times columnists. When
our congress was not cuddled in the hands of an international lobby,
like AIPAC, or at least not so brazenly so. And when a foreign leader,
like Netanyahu of Israel , didn't feel free to race up to congress to contradict
what the American President had decided.
And when America's interests
did not include our SecState scrumming around the world to stymie
votes in the UN to stop apartheid and begin statehood for the Palestinians...succeeding by
one vote only. A story hidden by the 'American press'. Call that when the American press didn't have to hide news from
the American people routinely.
1
Profound observations and haunting writing, Roger!
Nostalgia is not a bad thing. We just need to take stock now and then.
Not all change is good change. We need to temper progress.
Yes, there is so much that has improved for so many but there is so much that we are losing/have lost.
Be careful about succumbing.
Nostalgia is not a bad thing. We just need to take stock now and then.
Not all change is good change. We need to temper progress.
Yes, there is so much that has improved for so many but there is so much that we are losing/have lost.
Be careful about succumbing.
1
And I, with only 75 years of history to compare with the present,
remember when stories about Israel didn't routinely get the
upper left hand side, above the fold, in every New YorkTimes
newspaper. As, again, this morning.
And NOT unrelated, when votes at the UN by our civilized and closest
allies, were NOT preceded by a race by our Secreaty of State to
get a vote or two to stop the UN's vote to get the Palestininas
from under the thumb of Israel...get their own state as the UN mandated.
And succeed by only one vote.
remember when stories about Israel didn't routinely get the
upper left hand side, above the fold, in every New YorkTimes
newspaper. As, again, this morning.
And NOT unrelated, when votes at the UN by our civilized and closest
allies, were NOT preceded by a race by our Secreaty of State to
get a vote or two to stop the UN's vote to get the Palestininas
from under the thumb of Israel...get their own state as the UN mandated.
And succeed by only one vote.
1
How is this related or necessary here?
5
We did the best we could, with what we had, and knew of nothing different. But we had hopes and dreams of something better in the future. Is today any better or worse than the long ago yesterday? Yes and no.
3
Worse. The American dream was attainable then, not now.
44
Very true. However, medical improvements and advancements have made a life or death difference for me, so in that case it is now better. But you are right, the American Dream has receded out of reach for most of us.
3
Norain, the American dream was more modest.
I live in a house built after WW II. My father was born on the day WW I ended. He married a 'war bride' from a small town in Australia. The American dream when Mum got off the boat in San Francisco and Dad came back from occupied Japan was to have a house, a car, a steady job, the necessities and a few comforts.
One measure of how much things changed just in their lifetimes is that when my mother died, there were more personal possessions in her bedroom than in her family's entire house when she was growing up, and that our living room and bedroom are dominated by octopi of extension cords and power strips because there are never enough outlets for all the stuff to be plugged in. We still have that little house, paid off. It's considered a 'teardown' and developers would just love to get it out from under us and replace it with a McMansion such as supplanted many of our neighbours. We had a used Dodge Dart, and my first car was a used AMC Pacer. Our neighbours gave their kid a new Mustang for graduation and most have SUVs that take up more ground space than some UN member nations. Et cetera.
I live in a house built after WW II. My father was born on the day WW I ended. He married a 'war bride' from a small town in Australia. The American dream when Mum got off the boat in San Francisco and Dad came back from occupied Japan was to have a house, a car, a steady job, the necessities and a few comforts.
One measure of how much things changed just in their lifetimes is that when my mother died, there were more personal possessions in her bedroom than in her family's entire house when she was growing up, and that our living room and bedroom are dominated by octopi of extension cords and power strips because there are never enough outlets for all the stuff to be plugged in. We still have that little house, paid off. It's considered a 'teardown' and developers would just love to get it out from under us and replace it with a McMansion such as supplanted many of our neighbours. We had a used Dodge Dart, and my first car was a used AMC Pacer. Our neighbours gave their kid a new Mustang for graduation and most have SUVs that take up more ground space than some UN member nations. Et cetera.
3
Thanks, Mr. Cohen. This could be the most inspiring thing I have read in this New Year.
I am 65, retired, and once again, "Turning on, Tuning in, and Dropping Out."
What the world needs now, from me, is the wisdom of the elder. That is what I intend to give it.
I am 65, retired, and once again, "Turning on, Tuning in, and Dropping Out."
What the world needs now, from me, is the wisdom of the elder. That is what I intend to give it.
2
When a person who has gained a certain amount of age begins to feel this way maybe it is time to step back and let the forthcoming generation take over the world. The generation I grew up in changed the world in many diverse ways but found no lasting peace at home or abroad. That is my only regret about what we accomplished and now I am more than ready to leave it to em to fumble along like we did, some good and some bad but no shame never any shame..
3
I don't see, in this list, a clear statement of "we managed somehow" truly entails.
It seems to me that all the "before' states described here were themselves "after" states ... can we truly be nostalgic for the era before books were made available to all?
Humans adapt not so much to natural environment forces but mostly to the cultural environment they produce themselves and technology is part of that, of course.
Mr Cohen is simply "listing" and not really "essaying" to give us a insight in the proper and critical use of the cultural environment ... how about "paper never refuses ink" for a start?
It seems to me that all the "before' states described here were themselves "after" states ... can we truly be nostalgic for the era before books were made available to all?
Humans adapt not so much to natural environment forces but mostly to the cultural environment they produce themselves and technology is part of that, of course.
Mr Cohen is simply "listing" and not really "essaying" to give us a insight in the proper and critical use of the cultural environment ... how about "paper never refuses ink" for a start?
3
Maurice I don't see how you can simply call this a list. It's poetry. One man's response to the changes in the world around him. YMMV.
I guess it depends on what your memories are. I grew up in apartheid South Africa as (I think) did you, but because of skin color our experiences were very different. The privileged also look back to past with nostalgia when they had so many more privileges. Not all of us had Paris.
139
Au contraire! Paris was attainable for five bucks a day back then!
I'm in the "Old Fogie" category, betwixt and between, love-hate relationship with our "times." Can't live with it, can't live without it, too much for my wee brain but glad I have enough brain to try to run with it, even if by limping along at the back of the pack, determined to stay in the race, however tenuous is my hold. I did love the "getting by," and I still do, even with my curved curtain rods.
5
Such a great, lyrical, wise comment. Thank you , Ann Piehl.
Thank you for another thoughtful article Mr. Cohen. I too look back with nostalgia and question. Where we were once social and interactive we are now sedentary and isolated. I'll take the human over the machine.
4
Yes, and nostalgic for a time when we had just that, time.
62
Get a bicycle. Really. Get. a. bicycle...
1
I'm nostalgic for a time when people didn't write. Like. This.
3
There is too much of a focus on "things", rather than substance, and no inclination to "think things through" and interpret them with respect to values. If it can't be said in 40 characters or less, no one will read it or pay attention to it.
3
Your mastery of word and image is pure art.
6
The ideal: to keep the good and throw out the bad.
2
...it is always fun to go back to the sunshine of youth, to the sounds of play, to time with no boundary.
Mr. Cohen could have made all of us (OK, most of us) ashen this a.m. if he had taken a moment to recount how many elephants existed in his past, how large the rain forests were in his past, and how many extinctions have occurred since his past.
Ours is not a planet that is simply for human consumption - and we consume the planet at a rate that will not sustain 9 billion of us. I love the notion of simpler times, of having had to do more with less, when life was better lived with some mystery, and trusting your heart was the only search you had to do.
We continue to not acknowledge the dependence we have on the eco-systems of this planet - even as they fracture, and begin to fail. Nostalgia is wonderful. Being present is crucial.
Mr. Cohen could have made all of us (OK, most of us) ashen this a.m. if he had taken a moment to recount how many elephants existed in his past, how large the rain forests were in his past, and how many extinctions have occurred since his past.
Ours is not a planet that is simply for human consumption - and we consume the planet at a rate that will not sustain 9 billion of us. I love the notion of simpler times, of having had to do more with less, when life was better lived with some mystery, and trusting your heart was the only search you had to do.
We continue to not acknowledge the dependence we have on the eco-systems of this planet - even as they fracture, and begin to fail. Nostalgia is wonderful. Being present is crucial.
31
To see farm animals roaming the glass lands, knowing they had a quality of life before their slaughter is mostly a vision of the past. Knowing that greedy, callous CEOs head corporations that run concentration camps for animals makes me dream and yearn for a return to the past. The lack of compassion in the world of today, the detachment between what is on the dinner plate and the suffering that was endured prior, is unrealized as extreme processing disguises that very fact. Bury your head in the sand, let your heart grow cold, as human beings one day will be unable to love one another as detachment grows and twitters away. Communications are texted, the inability to be compassionate is waning and making time for love and intimacy is mostly gone with the stress of gaining material possessions which destroy the simplicity of a loving life.
5
Oh, I don't think it's that bad. Really. Chill.
Do you know about Smithfield? Do you know the conditions surrounding the farm animals prior to slaughter? A drone was sent in to photograph the Smithfield property and a huge cesspool lake full of pig waste and blood was photographed. Periodically this cesspool is emptied by spraying the contents on the neighboring acres of land which is inhabited by low income families. People living there are becoming ill. Most people are clueless about "modern" animal farming. As I said it is a concentration camp for the animals who have the same emotions as we do.
Has life really changed radically? One hundred years ago,we had cars,planes telephones,electric lamps,subways. elevators and of cause central heating and indoor plumbing.Our grandparents could easily adjust to our living but I doubt if we could live as our grandparents grandparents lived.Progress today generally makes what had better not new.
3
My particular nostalgias concern the card catalogue at the library. I could hunt for what I needed in a more accurate fashion in those catalogues than I can online. Someone could be going through the R drawer while I could check in the C drawer. Things were cross referenced and there weren't any ads. It was joy.
My other pleasure was knowing that if I said hello to someone on the sidewalk they'd reply. Now, so many people are wearing earbuds they don't hear anything, not a hello or a warning to watch out. Oh well, it's their loss that they don't hear the honking horn, the sound of birds in the woods if they walk there, a child saying something interesting to its parents or to them. I still listen and enjoy those moments.
My other pleasure was knowing that if I said hello to someone on the sidewalk they'd reply. Now, so many people are wearing earbuds they don't hear anything, not a hello or a warning to watch out. Oh well, it's their loss that they don't hear the honking horn, the sound of birds in the woods if they walk there, a child saying something interesting to its parents or to them. I still listen and enjoy those moments.
15
I buy most of my books now, but several years ago I walked into the public library and asked, where is the card catalogue? The librarian stared at me before explaing that they went out with the dinosaurs; everything was on computer now. Just then the power failed, the lights went out, and no one could find anything on the computer. Haha, poetic justice.
2
Although the 60s and 70s of my youth were rebellious, contentious times, what I remember most about my growing up years was the middle-class spirit of it all. So many people had about the same level of material goods, at least here in CA, that there was no hoarding and gloating by the wealthy (as there sure is today) and no fawning admiration of wealth by those with less, or by a silly mass media (as is certainly the case today). This left people free to interact on a range of other more important and stimulating matters: a rising interest in whole foods, political discussions, books like The Godfather or Exodus that we teenagers passed around, one reader to the next, sharing music and film suggestions, a new appreciation of nature as we saw what corporate america wanted to do with our natural bounty, etc. In short-- it was much more about US than ME. That is what I miss today-- the sense of a community being in our life travels together.
65
Exactly--we lived to"live" and not just to consume.
2
You lost me with this one, sorry. I indulge in nostalgia on occasion, but I don' t delude myself, especially as an African American and as a woman, that things were better in the "good old days."
This reminds me of those irritating emails that go around decrying things like safety standards; you know, "in the [40s, 50s, 60s, insert your decade] didn't need safety standards for our [cribs, bikes, old refrigerators, insert your favorite gripe]. They forget that babies used to hang themselves sticking their heads through slats on cribs; or that every year kids died playing in discarded refrigerators that had been thrown away intact. I started work as a secretary when a few mistakes or minor changes meant you had to retype the entire document.
Today's world is a product of the past; it didn't just pop up out of thin air. Yeah, sometimes we regulate ourselves silly, and it is a shame that an entire occupational category that didn't require a graduate degree is disappearing (even though the work sucked) but so be it. Things change.
This reminds me of those irritating emails that go around decrying things like safety standards; you know, "in the [40s, 50s, 60s, insert your decade] didn't need safety standards for our [cribs, bikes, old refrigerators, insert your favorite gripe]. They forget that babies used to hang themselves sticking their heads through slats on cribs; or that every year kids died playing in discarded refrigerators that had been thrown away intact. I started work as a secretary when a few mistakes or minor changes meant you had to retype the entire document.
Today's world is a product of the past; it didn't just pop up out of thin air. Yeah, sometimes we regulate ourselves silly, and it is a shame that an entire occupational category that didn't require a graduate degree is disappearing (even though the work sucked) but so be it. Things change.
128
It's US and WE no hyphens needed. Axiomatically sometimes the FIX is worse than the problem
I think he is just reminding us that we can, and should, take some time away from all these goodies we have built, and just BE.
1
Before Facebook, when you saw an actual face, before narratives, when there were just stories, before LOL, when you actually laughed, before texts, when there were books.
84
"Go and stop progress!" - Malevich
I don't know what you drank before you knocked this out on your old Olivetti (OK, my imagination), but I would like to have some of that. It was - pure inspiration.
Try this on: we can keep all the new knowledge but still go back to a more simple life. I think some day, society will do that. Just like buying a retro car. OK, I am dreaming again. But still, there is no law in the universe which says we cannot toss out some technologies. So, maybe some people will choose to reduce their dependence on the internet, throw out their cell phones, go back to meeting other people face to face, and travel with old-fashioned paper maps. Maybe even (perish the thought!) read old-fashioned newspapers and magazines again. (I hate pop-up ads and cyber-criminals.)
Try this on: we can keep all the new knowledge but still go back to a more simple life. I think some day, society will do that. Just like buying a retro car. OK, I am dreaming again. But still, there is no law in the universe which says we cannot toss out some technologies. So, maybe some people will choose to reduce their dependence on the internet, throw out their cell phones, go back to meeting other people face to face, and travel with old-fashioned paper maps. Maybe even (perish the thought!) read old-fashioned newspapers and magazines again. (I hate pop-up ads and cyber-criminals.)
2
Old guy is old. Hey, I can sympathize, I'm old myself (well, maybe not THAT old). The fact is, could you be magically transported back to the decade of your choice knowing what you do now, you would be bored out of your skull, frustrated beyond belief by the lack of access to information you now take for granted. Some things are worse than they were 20 or 50 years ago, some things are better. You take the bad with the good, or you can just check yourself into the old folks home and join in the general kvetchfest.
2
a suggestion: play Ravel's "Bolero" while reading this piece aloud. tm
2
In the beginning we were upright walking furless dusky East African apes born and bred by biological evolutionary natural neutral sexual DNA selection to crave fat, sugar, salt, water, habitat and sex.
And in the last 180-200 thousand years we spread out and evolved to deal with different levels of sunlight and climates and natural resources. Those who left Africa first were nearly wiped out by some natural disaster that may have reduced them to as few as 2000 individuals. As a result of that genetic population bottleneck the humans who left Africa are not nearly as diverse as those who remained.
Color and ethnicity and faith and national origin are not race. They are myth. There is only one human race.
There are 7.3 billion humans. And while we still need more clean fresh water to drink and dispose of waste and more food and better health, we have been mostly our brother's keepers and hear their bell tolling for us. Not bad for an ape living on one small planet revolving around one star and in one galaxy.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on. And our little life is rounded with a sleep" The Tempest Act IV Scene 1 William Shakespeare.
And in the last 180-200 thousand years we spread out and evolved to deal with different levels of sunlight and climates and natural resources. Those who left Africa first were nearly wiped out by some natural disaster that may have reduced them to as few as 2000 individuals. As a result of that genetic population bottleneck the humans who left Africa are not nearly as diverse as those who remained.
Color and ethnicity and faith and national origin are not race. They are myth. There is only one human race.
There are 7.3 billion humans. And while we still need more clean fresh water to drink and dispose of waste and more food and better health, we have been mostly our brother's keepers and hear their bell tolling for us. Not bad for an ape living on one small planet revolving around one star and in one galaxy.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on. And our little life is rounded with a sleep" The Tempest Act IV Scene 1 William Shakespeare.
1
What is sometimes difficult to remember is that for young people, what we see now was always there. Vietnam is a tourist trap, not a war. The Empire State Building is just another building. Black and white Tarzan movies launched the imaginations of a generation, but their Africa and their hero no longer exist. Our children have never known the world without cellphones and the Internet. Perhaps that older world never existed. Soon our children will only be taking other people's word for it.
Before when people were decent and morally correct.
Before when people dated they thought of marriage not hook-ups.
Before when politicians worked for the people not themselves.
Before when you could read or watch the media without trepidation as to what affront to us would appear on the next page or scene.
Before when you could watch a show and not worry about suddenly viewing naked frontal fornication.
Before when humanity had a sense of decency.
Before when people dated they thought of marriage not hook-ups.
Before when politicians worked for the people not themselves.
Before when you could read or watch the media without trepidation as to what affront to us would appear on the next page or scene.
Before when you could watch a show and not worry about suddenly viewing naked frontal fornication.
Before when humanity had a sense of decency.
4
Folks in the 1920s remembered when horses ruled the streets; in summer there was a yellow haze from the crushed and dried horse manure in the air; the city was full of birds feasting on the undigested grain in the horse droppings. We read at night in the light of oil- or the new-fangled, gas-lights. "Those were the days, my friend, we thought the'd never end..."
5
Something's lost but something's gained, and vice versa.
A very small example. My hobby is writing novellas. This form is an awkward, nuisance length, like your hair when it's too short to fit into a clip and long enough to need styling. Moreover, I write by accretion - a scene, usually in the middle of the story, then accumulating more scenes before and after, until a plot and purpose emerge, and it all gets put in order. You'd think Word would make that easier, rather than more difficult. But my writing was easier, and more important, better when I had to type a scene, hand-write edits in the margins, then retype (making serendipitous additional improvements as I typed), spread the paper pages out and shift them around physically to move scenes, etc. My experience is that Word makes it easier to write badly. Even aside from AutoCorrect introducing errors in an attempt to do my wordsmithing for me. And typewriter ribbons were much cheaper than printer ink.
Backward, turn backward, O time in thy flight.
A very small example. My hobby is writing novellas. This form is an awkward, nuisance length, like your hair when it's too short to fit into a clip and long enough to need styling. Moreover, I write by accretion - a scene, usually in the middle of the story, then accumulating more scenes before and after, until a plot and purpose emerge, and it all gets put in order. You'd think Word would make that easier, rather than more difficult. But my writing was easier, and more important, better when I had to type a scene, hand-write edits in the margins, then retype (making serendipitous additional improvements as I typed), spread the paper pages out and shift them around physically to move scenes, etc. My experience is that Word makes it easier to write badly. Even aside from AutoCorrect introducing errors in an attempt to do my wordsmithing for me. And typewriter ribbons were much cheaper than printer ink.
Backward, turn backward, O time in thy flight.
4
You have written a lovely piece that refers to a "we" that includes about 15% of the population of the earth. How lucky we were to be born in the right place and time. Although the "we" includes myself, I shudder to think of the complacency and stratification of societies implied. Most of the world would not have looked back with such tenderness.
5
When yearning for a simpler, gentler past it pays to recall the yet-unmatched horrors of humanity's self-inflicted atrocity of the 20th Century's first half. Of course, most of humanity cannot recall, so reading about it should be a mandated part of any educational curriculum.
Only then can humanity, as it emerges, understand the value of the "boring" political center where negotiation and compromise assure collective survival. Centrists need to defend against extremes with strength and passion so that, as a community, we retain an identity to pass along to succeeding generations.
I wonder if the Democratic Party gets it.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
Only then can humanity, as it emerges, understand the value of the "boring" political center where negotiation and compromise assure collective survival. Centrists need to defend against extremes with strength and passion so that, as a community, we retain an identity to pass along to succeeding generations.
I wonder if the Democratic Party gets it.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
1
“...the whole relations of society.” My memory is fading too.
Had to check my app to see if that was Karl Marx or Mark Zuckerberg.
Well done, Mr. Cohen. Another superb column.
Had to check my app to see if that was Karl Marx or Mark Zuckerberg.
Well done, Mr. Cohen. Another superb column.
1
Roger is wistful today. Eh, oui. Moi aussi.
Regret: seeing the young un's cocooned in headphones, staring down at their pixelated lives on the little screens, ignoring and the actual life surging and pulsing around them.
Memory: vent windows on the old man's Oldsmobile; turn the window as far as possible, stick your face into the blast of damp air.
Regret: seeing the young un's cocooned in headphones, staring down at their pixelated lives on the little screens, ignoring and the actual life surging and pulsing around them.
Memory: vent windows on the old man's Oldsmobile; turn the window as far as possible, stick your face into the blast of damp air.
4
Before trying to remember, when there was trying to forget!
Waiter, I’d like to have what Mr. Cohen had before he wrote this column?
And, before I forget, when there was a greeting called “Happy New Year!”
Cheers!
Waiter, I’d like to have what Mr. Cohen had before he wrote this column?
And, before I forget, when there was a greeting called “Happy New Year!”
Cheers!
1
Years ago I enjoyed buying a fresh copy of The New York Times from my local deli, and then pouring over it with a hot cup of coffee and a bagel with a schmear of cream cheese at some family-owned coffee shop. Now the news is on my iPhone and the coffee pours from some global chain. But remember Roger Cohen, for kids today these are the good old days.
6
yes...because you can no longer buy the paper at your local deli and read it over a cup of coffee. not possible.
1
The last change for the better was when good Colombian pot appeared.
2
Much as I understand the sentiments, many of us--myself included--would not be around to ruminate were it the "good old days." Without coronary bypasses and statins, quite a few of us would be dead. Without modern antibiotics, quite a few of us would be dead. I might miss "The Wire," "Breaking Bad," or "Orange is the New Black." But I would not know it. We can romanticize or demonize selective elements of our past and present. I seem to recall that mankind has done this many times before.
56
Maybe your coronary bypass gave you some more years but possibly a huge debt and a lesser existence of someone with a weaker heart and less energy. So you might have died. Now you just lose your job and can't find another and these extra years are not so great.
1
I think you might have misread Mr. Cohen's piece. He didn't argue that there shouldn't be life-saving and life-improving technologies, such as coronary bypass. He was simply recalling a time when communications and interactions between people and the world around them were of a different nature.
4
Wrong scenario. Led a very productive life, finished one career, developed another. You can create any number of story-lines, but without the technology you never get the chance. You can be miserable without the technology as well.
Before vaccines, when those children without polio ran in the streets, when vacations are a leisurely stay in a tuberculosis sanitarium, when black lung meant coal miners didn't have to worry about pensions, when rickets didn't need a definition because everyone knew someone with it.
Before wars became regionalized, and whole continents or the whole world were at war. When chlorine wasn't used to make water safe to drink, it filled the trenches full of soldiers.
Before the FDA, when adulterated meat could be found at every neighborhood grocery store. When food tasted so much better because hunger was part of everyday life.
We have lost so much.
Before wars became regionalized, and whole continents or the whole world were at war. When chlorine wasn't used to make water safe to drink, it filled the trenches full of soldiers.
Before the FDA, when adulterated meat could be found at every neighborhood grocery store. When food tasted so much better because hunger was part of everyday life.
We have lost so much.
86
If the gop gets its way, we shall return to those days.
3
OK, we've conquered polio and smallpox, but now we have AIDS,Ebola and drug resistant TB. And it was technology that allowed us to produce concentration camps, atomic bombs, and international terrorism. On the other hand, we managed pretty well without technological advances in Rwanda, Cambodia, and in China's cultural revolution. And while fewer of us are hungry, we manage to kill ourselves just as effectively by gorging on junk food and becoming obese.
Yes, at least in the industrialized world, we live longer, and by some measures, that could be called progress. But how about the quality of our lives?
Yes, at least in the industrialized world, we live longer, and by some measures, that could be called progress. But how about the quality of our lives?
1
Wonderful use of sarcasm.
There's something about the latest 'bourgeois revolution in the tools of production' that seems to inspire a belief that the very nature of human action and interaction has been transformed. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for re-grounding us with this wry perspective!
It's because technology is not fun anymore. Anyone old enough to remember the early days of the internet in the early to mid 1990s, the so called dial up era, remembers how much fun technology was back then.
Once technology invaded the workplace it became a drag, actually increasing our work loads rather than reducing them as promised.
Remember how we were told the internet would make business travel, the file cabinet, the fax machine, even paper itself a thing of the past?
Now, you must still engage those things sometimes to support the increase in technology.
Once technology invaded the workplace it became a drag, actually increasing our work loads rather than reducing them as promised.
Remember how we were told the internet would make business travel, the file cabinet, the fax machine, even paper itself a thing of the past?
Now, you must still engage those things sometimes to support the increase in technology.
3
Excellent point. I remember eBay when it first started out. It was exciting. We were like kids in a candy store mostly just looking. Indeed, back then it was fun.
The only thing constant in this world is change. The only people who like to be changed are babies and they cry and scream through the whole ordeal.
Which is better the past or the future? This is the choice that divides conservatives and progressives. The past was better and all this "progress" is disturbing; or, the future can be made better let's work to make it so.
Maybe our past, when we were young and full of hope for the future, was better. But, not for our children and future generations. It is for them that we must continually change in order to make the future better. Change is hard; but, we must do it, not because it is better for ourselves but because it is better for others.
Which is better the past or the future? This is the choice that divides conservatives and progressives. The past was better and all this "progress" is disturbing; or, the future can be made better let's work to make it so.
Maybe our past, when we were young and full of hope for the future, was better. But, not for our children and future generations. It is for them that we must continually change in order to make the future better. Change is hard; but, we must do it, not because it is better for ourselves but because it is better for others.
10
It is fine to look at the past. Just don't stare at it.
26
And what will we do with ourselves after we've developed all the technology needed to do for us all the things that need to be done?
1
“We” didn’t have to change the whole relations of society. The wealth addicts did, as predicted by Marx. Otherwise, I applaud RC’s willingness to distinguish between “progress” and happiness. I’m wary of that topic because I’ve seen too much of the religion that tells us to be content with our lot, and to paraphrase, we’ll get pie in the sky when we die. I’d like to advise people to be happy, to take a break from protest, but that might sound like the English baron telling his impoverished tenants to suck up and know their station in life.
3
Religion was created because people are afraid of dying. Christianity was created to appease the dirty, hungry masses, by preaching that the last will be first. I love Jane Austen, but while reading her witty novels I often think of the masses of people who lived and died in squalor in order to afford a very few a life of "gentlemen", where having a profession was shameful. I hope we are not headed towards the same divide among the haves and have-nots.
1
A lovely and sensitive retrospective. Thank you.
7
Brilliant. I especially like the choice of the insight from Marx as the theme of the column. I would add another quote, this one from George Orwell: "Every generation believes itself to be better educated than the one before it, and wiser than the one after it."
35
Your piece did more that warm my heart. It reminds me that all improvements are a double-edged sword. We have reached the point where our electronic relationships (and relationships with our electronics)far supersede our human ones . my 20-something kids are absolutely enchanted about about our quaint practices from past decades. I told them on a Sunday afternoon the doorbell would ring ,(weird enough in itself,), and my mother would leap up to straighten the room while inclining her ear to decipher the voices and laughing in the hall. She'd whisper a smile to me, "its cumad'e Francesca!". That meant my godparents and their kids Sammy and Laura, and Cindy the collie. My dad would give me three bucks and tell me to run to the corner and get a six pack of Carling's and go across to Helds Bakery and get an apple alligator. The adults sat around the table for hours. We went out back and created an obstacle course for Cindy. I'm not sure what modern gadget, however convenient, can replace the pleasure and satisfaction of one of those days.
85
Really liked the article and your comments. Life was simpler and more connected.
1
Thank you, Mr. Cohen for reminding us what is worth keeping from our past, and, at the same time, pointing to what is worth leaving behind. Our new speed and connectivity does not replace the depth of mystery and wonder we've always felt grounded by, and which still provides the greatest meaning.
2
I would just address one point: that of tobacco smoke. It seems to me this might be the second column of Mr. Cohen's I've recently read that waxes nostalgic for the old smoking freedom.
I quit smoking myself when I was 30 and 35 years later my lungs and body do not yearn for the old days. I remember dining in the non-smoking half of a restaurant and having the smoke from across the aisle waft across my breathing apparatus and my meal. I worked down the hall from another fellow whose cigarette smoke drifted all the way down to me and left me ill for days.
In Maine we are now pretty much smoke free every where (except at home) and I am very thankful for that. I know Mr. Cohen is an avowed cigar aficionado and he has my respect for that but I cannot wax nostalgic for the good old days of tar and nicotine sharing.
I quit smoking myself when I was 30 and 35 years later my lungs and body do not yearn for the old days. I remember dining in the non-smoking half of a restaurant and having the smoke from across the aisle waft across my breathing apparatus and my meal. I worked down the hall from another fellow whose cigarette smoke drifted all the way down to me and left me ill for days.
In Maine we are now pretty much smoke free every where (except at home) and I am very thankful for that. I know Mr. Cohen is an avowed cigar aficionado and he has my respect for that but I cannot wax nostalgic for the good old days of tar and nicotine sharing.
1
"...when you were told to eat up..." Mr. Cohen must never have been required to eat canned spinach, the most vile food ever invented.
2
My grandmother fed her dog canned kale.
1
"how strange to think we had to change “the whole relations of society.”"
I don't think we did change very much. All that is ephemera. It will be gone as fast as it came, some new ephemera flashing by in its place.
True, some are distracted by those means from what they are the means to be. But that has always been true too.
I may chat with my kids electronically now, but I still chat about things and show them things that interest me. Then we talk more about them when we get together. What is important is the talking and sharing, not the how.
I recall an old secretary when I was just starting as a lawyer, who explained to me how briefs were done back in the day of carbon paper and sending them out to the printer. She was amazed by the electric typewriter with its automatic correct, and by photocopying and binding it ourselves. Now of course much is submitted on a disk. But she would recognize every word and all the structure, all the same, and she'd still do it better than almost anyone else.
I don't think we did change very much. All that is ephemera. It will be gone as fast as it came, some new ephemera flashing by in its place.
True, some are distracted by those means from what they are the means to be. But that has always been true too.
I may chat with my kids electronically now, but I still chat about things and show them things that interest me. Then we talk more about them when we get together. What is important is the talking and sharing, not the how.
I recall an old secretary when I was just starting as a lawyer, who explained to me how briefs were done back in the day of carbon paper and sending them out to the printer. She was amazed by the electric typewriter with its automatic correct, and by photocopying and binding it ourselves. Now of course much is submitted on a disk. But she would recognize every word and all the structure, all the same, and she'd still do it better than almost anyone else.
4
Yes, we were fine and we are fine. Things do change - always a mix of the 'got better' with the 'got worse' or, at least, 'we lost something in this area.' In some ways we are better off, in other ways not so much. I always loved books and still do, but when I travel, I love that I can take several books along in one slim e-tablet (with which I can also check weather in a foreign land).
11
Good points. Unfortunately, your e-tablet, like other "smart" toys, depends on rare and precious metals that are also rightly called "blood" metals. Once more, our ease is bought at a compound price including the deaths of others.
3
My memory of the fifties and sixties is still reasonably intact (albeit I was in school at the time) and life was less complicated. About the time I was born, our home was finally reached by the rural electrification program and we had running water and central heat for the first time, the luxury of hot baths and showers. Our party line telephone had 12 families on it. Memories of "zipper skin" tangerines showing up in the grocery store for Christmas was another treat and winter meant living off what one had "put up" in the summer for any fruits and vegetables. Flying meant a propeller airplane. Neighbors looked out for each other because there was no other source of help. Today, I sit at a computer I can program if needed, hooked to a fiber optic system unfathomable a few years ago. Is this progress? An emphatic yes. But at what cost to our social structure?
37
Great cost, I'd say. We'll be doing the accounting for a long, long time.
Now we can text while we're drinking and driving, driving to Home Depot
to get a hinge for the barn door and have our personal data strewn across
the world when we pay at the register. Your comment is good and your
polemical question right on the Bitcoin...
Now we can text while we're drinking and driving, driving to Home Depot
to get a hinge for the barn door and have our personal data strewn across
the world when we pay at the register. Your comment is good and your
polemical question right on the Bitcoin...
1
And yet, in the future, these will be " the good ol' days " to untold billions :)
31
Which is itself a frightening concept.
2
mother - agreed, but no less true !
1
Perhaps that will happen. If so, I am heartily glad that I will not be present for a future in which the attempted destruction of our political system by one of our political parites, the degradation of our air, seas, land and water, and the re-emergence of incurable diseases - was the good old days.
What Mr. Cohen (and I, in a very small way) would like to warn you about is that you younger people, as individuals, have unknowingly made a enormous sacrifice of real interaction with other human beings and the right to use the time which constitutes your life - for the sake of a large number of expensive, alienating toys.
What Mr. Cohen (and I, in a very small way) would like to warn you about is that you younger people, as individuals, have unknowingly made a enormous sacrifice of real interaction with other human beings and the right to use the time which constitutes your life - for the sake of a large number of expensive, alienating toys.
Ah yes, when "old fogie" was somebody else
94
Yes, a time when "old fogie" wasn't applied to anyone over 30.
4
Technology evolves. Society evolves. Habits change. Economies grow.
But I agree, basic human needs and feelings arise from something more central and immutable: the human condition.
There is an underlying value system that does not evolve, because it arises from the certainty of our own limited life spans. The knowledge of justice, of right and wrong, derives from this central fact of existence. As do joy and despair, delight and frustration. The taste of a very good wine resonates from the knowledge that it is an uncommon occurrence, and may not happen in the same way again, ever - at least to the one who has just tasted it.
And since we all face the same fate, under whatever circumstances they befall us, we may understand how to behave, to react, to live fully and morally.
Kant made a "categorical imperative" out of this. Christians made the "golden rule" from the same understanding. And the writings in the "Tao" and in all the other religious texts follow the same logic.
The difference is today, anyone who doesn't know Kant's work or the Tao can look it up on his, or her cellphone. And perhaps comment on it somewhere.
Progress?
Perhaps.
But I agree, basic human needs and feelings arise from something more central and immutable: the human condition.
There is an underlying value system that does not evolve, because it arises from the certainty of our own limited life spans. The knowledge of justice, of right and wrong, derives from this central fact of existence. As do joy and despair, delight and frustration. The taste of a very good wine resonates from the knowledge that it is an uncommon occurrence, and may not happen in the same way again, ever - at least to the one who has just tasted it.
And since we all face the same fate, under whatever circumstances they befall us, we may understand how to behave, to react, to live fully and morally.
Kant made a "categorical imperative" out of this. Christians made the "golden rule" from the same understanding. And the writings in the "Tao" and in all the other religious texts follow the same logic.
The difference is today, anyone who doesn't know Kant's work or the Tao can look it up on his, or her cellphone. And perhaps comment on it somewhere.
Progress?
Perhaps.
17
Excellent article, Roger. Often I look back at those times with nostalgia; I still try to "experience the moment" without the aid of a computer or smartphone. I don't feel the burning need to update my Facebook page either!
4
I am professor of history, and I have been reading letters on Civil Rights in the 1960s. And I have to tell you Mr. Cohen that I have columns and letters like this for years. This is one column that you should have spiked. Then, may I suggest pouring your beverage of choice, whipping out your .mp3 player and listening to "The Kids Are Alright" by The Who. (Because they are. :-))
18
Every era has good and bad aspects -- including the current one. You choose to see the 1960s as a glass half empty, Mr. Cohen sees it as a glass half full. I think it is healthier and more productive to reminisce on the positive aspects of the past than the negative.
2
The kids may be all right but the schism in society is growing.
2
But with such sadly impoverished childhoods spent staring at screens instead of playing outside, running, ju,ping, climbing, free-range. The kids are safe inside, but definitely not "all right."
1
Thank you, Roger. Very well said.
28
Yes! What we have been convinced is progress, is merely change, and not always for the better. In general, technological developments almost always imply a certain degree of dehumanization. With the advent of the automobile, our cities --- Delhi, Beijing, Los Angeles--- have become smog choked urban expanses where we never have to come into contact with people of a different social class. We zip past their neighborhoods on elevated highways. Before the internet and even the telephone, we made time to visit each other, to make room for real human contact. We met each other and fell in love through personal contact, not through internet dating sites. Technological developments convince us that we can move to distant places and still maintain our personal relationships, but is this really true? Eventually, we will never have to leave our computer screens; we will save time and vastly expand our range of contacts. All information will come at the click of a mouse. But how about the quality of those contacts, or of the information? Not only will the whole relations of society change; we will actually change what it means to be human. Change, most certainly; progress? I'm not so sure.
25
Thanks for your trip down memory lane, Roger, trying to remember how it was in the earlier parts of last century. Food for thought! Maybe the ancient Egyptians and the wizened Romans and Greeks tried to remember how it was during their earlier centuries. We'll never know, as Wikipedia doesn't extend back that far (except in their exegeses of those slices of time, aeons ago). Not to bring up corduroy roads, whale oil and King Cotton and the miseries of life without central air or toasty warm central heat and one- or two-holers in the wee backyard house with the crescent moon on the door - but we are surely in a different place now in our strange hinge of history. Looking at obits (a daily exercise in curiosity) I note today that Bess Myerson, first Jewish Miss America, died at 90 years of age. Now that is an indicator of how our times have changed. And good old Mayor Ed Koch, is no longer around to shout "How'm I doing?" So much has changed for the better and far more for the worse as social media, the ruling ethos of our culture wasn't around then, and time passed at a desultory, less frenzied pace. Yes, there'll always be a Paris, and a Rome and a "Sceptered Isle" but they won't be recognizable due to changes that will occur within this century. Perhaps our genes and telomeres, transmitted to our grandchildren and descendants, will reside on Mars or another likely planet, where perhaps they resided before the new Eden of our planet Earth was born to be plundered.
12
Beds Myerson is still the only Jewish Miss America. Plus ca change....
1
The US has produced a nation of whiners!
7
Time was - the US was a nation of "can do" and "get up and go". Now not. Rules, rules, rules, cover-your-a*s (have to use * or somebody will be upset and cry and a lawyer will file a huge lawsuit and the FCC will assess a huge fine and parts of the readership will tag the comment as "Inappropriate" ...).
Americans can't or won't do anything without permission in triplicate anymore**. Such a shame.
**(Unless it is raising prices or sending jobs to China)
Americans can't or won't do anything without permission in triplicate anymore**. Such a shame.
**(Unless it is raising prices or sending jobs to China)
1
And you, sir, appear to be their leader.
I am no whiner!
You do not know me, so you cannot state this.
But I am very unhappy with US culture, which is excessively narcissistic, permissive, materialistic, anti-intellectual and superficial.
This is not whining, and I do not whine in my personal life for personal issues, or my state of being in the US at large.
You do not know me, so you cannot state this.
But I am very unhappy with US culture, which is excessively narcissistic, permissive, materialistic, anti-intellectual and superficial.
This is not whining, and I do not whine in my personal life for personal issues, or my state of being in the US at large.
1
Mr Cohen, you are turning into a nostalgia, and that worries me,
because the part of the society that profited most from modernity are the elder.
Many old people embracing the sound coziness of their memories turn blind about how the life of the elder had been back then, when the lack of mobility and the lack of health treatment, which we take today as granted, bounded them to their domicile until their demise.
Everyone is somehow comfortable in his prime, and if i would make a plea, i would rather return to my prime in these days than to the times when it had been my wild glory days.
because the part of the society that profited most from modernity are the elder.
Many old people embracing the sound coziness of their memories turn blind about how the life of the elder had been back then, when the lack of mobility and the lack of health treatment, which we take today as granted, bounded them to their domicile until their demise.
Everyone is somehow comfortable in his prime, and if i would make a plea, i would rather return to my prime in these days than to the times when it had been my wild glory days.
43
"the times when it had been my wild glory days"
Nah, it still is, as Alfred Lord Tennyson put it:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
And Churchill's basic advise, "Never give up."
Nah, it still is, as Alfred Lord Tennyson put it:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
And Churchill's basic advise, "Never give up."
7
Anyway, youth and enthusiam loses to age and cunning.
2
Or as Oscar Wilde put it: 'The problem is not getting old, the problem is still feeling young'.
And then again, how can you feel young when the modern world teaches you every day that you are not the with the avantgarde of gadgets and applets.
And then again, how can you feel young when the modern world teaches you every day that you are not the with the avantgarde of gadgets and applets.
2
"People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening..."
Prescient - "The Sounds of Silence" 60's Garfunkel/Simon