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It's nice to enjoy the "good ol'" things of Victorian era and bash our "hollow, heartless" society, conveniently omitting the brutal inequality that allowed wea
by JorgeGT 11y ago
It's nice to enjoy the "good ol'" things of Victorian era and bash our "hollow, heartless" society, conveniently omitting the brutal inequality that allowed wealthy Victorians to enjoy that "beautiful" lifestyle.
They see the kerosene burning, but they don't see the 5yo coal children dying lonely deaths miles underground. The workers burning their life away in 16h shifts without barely any rest, medical leave, right to strike, right to unionize, nothing but the might of their bare bodies exploited so a high class Victorian socialite could enjoy her life.
But even that same 19th century socialite couldn't think of voting, or being a member of the parliament. She has strange looks around the city now? Imagine the looks, the back-turning and street-crossing she would get if she wanted to exert a life independently of a man in the conservative Victorian society.
Not to speak about access to culture, education (in 1840 only about 20% of the children in London had any schooling), information, and crucially, medical care. I wonder if this couple follows medical advice, procedures and pharmacopoeia of that era as well. Toothache? Cocaine drops. Surgery? Often without anesthesia or any asepsis. Tuberculosis? Horrific slow death sentence. Small infected wound? Too bad, no antibiotics in Victorian age.
Mind that as an engineer, I marvel at the boost of technology of that era, and the early marvels of engineering and construction. But I cringe at this whitewashing articles that glorify "simpler, truer times" and bash our vastly more advanced, secular, open, just and equal society that so many lives and fights has required.
- jacobolus 11y agoThe television show The Knick does a nice job of bringing turn-of-the-20th-century NYC to life.
- sp332 11y agoIn a "Beyond Good and Evil" sort of way, if you can get all those advantages without the exploitation, there's nothing morally wrong with enjoying them.
- hugh4 11y agoI feel like the Victorian era already gets enough hate for being less "enlightened" than our own. (No doubt they would feel the same about us.) Much like the 1950s, I feel like it's an era which gets a bad rap because of the way the people immediately following it reacted against it and then proceeded to write all the history books about how much better their own era was than the one that preceded it. In any case it gets rather tedious when one can't admire something like Victorian architecture and fashion without someone butting in to tell you that the Victorians were less morally enlightened than us.
- JorgeGT 11y agoI agree, but my criticism was directed at those who write about "the old days" bashing today's society as "empty", "out of touch", "vane", "mindless", "hostile", etc. Victorian and post-1945 were both incredible times and I have devoted so much time reading about them! But they weren't some kind of "golden days" either. My grandmother ate country rats to survive in the 40s, and only on lucky days...
- hyperion2010 11y agoMaybe now that we have had time for some perspective we can adopt the good parts of past cultural practices without having to have them supported by all the bad parts that accompanied them at that time. Let's also not get too generous about our own time, we may not have child labor in this country but we participate in a global market that does and the prices we pay for our goods are lower because of it.
- JorgeGT 11y agoI agree, we haven't achieved a good society for all. And yes, we could learn things as well (which factors allowed the scientific and technological booming, for instance?), but I don't think lifestyle mimicry and luddism are good tools to do this. Also which is "this country"? :P
- mcv 11y agoWe have a tendency to romanticize the past. Not just the Victorian era; I've heard people exclaim they wished they lived in the Middle Ages. Of course you don't! I love the Middle Ages a lot, but it was a horrible time to actually live in. People managed of course, but most of what we take for granted today would be unimaginable today. If only we could live in an age of Victorian style and/or knights in armour, but with modern rights and medicine. Well, we can play dress-up, I suppose.