I was digging through my linen closet the other day, sorting out useful and useless stuff. In the back of the closet I found some old bath towels that I had not seen in ages. They were plush and fluffy terry cloth towels and though a little threadbare they were still useful.
My parents had bought these for me way back when I got my first college apartment. I think they bought them at a Target or Sears or some such place. What struck me as odd is how good they were. I mean back in the early 90s when they bought them they were low to middle class bath towels, nothing special. I compared them to some designer towels from a high-end department store that I bought a couple of years ago and there was no comparison. These old towels put the new ones to shame.
What was going on? I looked on the tags and found part of the answer. The old towels were 100% terry cloth cotton. The new ones were 40% rayon.
But it’s not just a case of towels. The more I thought about it over the next few days, the more I realized that the quality of various things had decreased. The new things were still adequate, still useful, but the quality of the materials, the design, the craftsmanship had deteriorated. Over the long haul we have grown slowly accustomed to accepting less and expecting less.
Another unrelated event. A new apartment building went up in flames during construction recently. On a local radio station a fire fighter commented that older buildings usually took between 30 and 40 minutes to be fully engulfed in flames due the materials and building standards used, while new buildings could go up in about 5 minutes.
I wonder how an archaeologist from a thousand years in the future might view these facts. Would she look at artifacts from the 1950s and compare them to the 2000s and conclude that she had found the dividing line between the rise and fall of our civilization?
It’s not just physical artifacts that have deteriorated over time but services as well. I vaguely remember my first ride on an airplane back in the 70s. I think we were going to see my grandparents in North Carolina and I recall that the airport was a giant open and well-lit mall-like area. The passengers were well dressed and we had no security to worry about in those days. The plane seemed huge and the seats were over sized and plush. The flight crew was happy and eager to help. If I had to summarize the experience in one word it would be luxurious.
These days the airports are crowded, dingy, moodily lit bus stations. The passengers dress any which way they want, they are forced into lines to wait and be searched like common criminals and are then forced into tiny hard plastic and metal seats in the plane. The flight crews are overworked and surly and I would summarize the experience as dilapidated.
What has improved (arguably) is the entertainment available to the populace. The quantity of distractions accessible to the average citizen has skyrocketed not only in the amount but in the variety available. Anyone, regardless of income can now purchase music players, video players, game consoles, or portable computers and access entertainment choices ranging from sports, to music, to shows and movies, to games that will serve to distract them at home or even on the subway ride home.
For those that can look past the entertainments there is an avalanche of information inundating the senses. Pundits sort through it all and tell us what to make of it and blame “the other side” for our problems.
Have we become so satiated and numbed by pop culture and media that we don’t notice the concrete decline in our living standards or am I being overly harsh and critical about the way that the world works these days?
Have I finally succumbed to the “old man’s disease” of comparing things to the good old days?
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