Quite often, the simplicity of life 'back then', is contrasted with the complexity of the world today. Before 1955, it's more or less alleged, people trudged on; good, simple souls who worked hard and slept well and to whom the world order was easily discernable and understandable.
This seems to be what draws some people to embrace a 'vintage' or 'retro' lifestyle. For me, however, that's not so. I don't think life 'back then' was simple. Absolutely not.
On the contrary, in the time between the wars the world wrestled with
enormous questions - can Capitalism survive? Is Democracy desirable? How
do we cope in a world that is filled with possibilites; a suddenly
urban society where women wear short skirts and demand equal rights to
pay and vote, where people are suddenly only a telephone call and a
train ride away, where information in the shape of papers, pamphlets,
books etc. are suddenly swelling to hitherto unknown proportions?
'Breathing', Beatrice Webb wrote in 1932, 'from infancy an up, an
atmosphere of morbid sexuality and alcoholism, furtive larceny and
unashamed mendacity [...] the average man is, mentally as well as
physically, poisoned.'*
That's how the world looked to the people living inside it. It wasn't simple; it was a time of
upheaval of the social and political order where men struggled to
understand what was going on. The transitions we have experienced since
are in no way greater than those experienced between 1870 and 1939.
Looking back, it looks simpler because distance tends to blur out the
things that didn't happen and so it seems like the choices that were made weren't actually choices but just the natural flow of events.
The patterns that are obscure when we stand close to an object emerge
when we back away, like a gouache painting. But honestly, if things had
been so 'simple' back then, would the world have changed the way it has?
No, that change is caused by the fact that the world in the Golden Era
wasn't 'simple' and that suddenly all truths hitherto known to man were
up for questioning.
Personally, I don't think uncertainty was ever greater than in this period - and that's
part of why I love it. It was so full of possibilities and visions and
promises of a grander future that never came. Instead, we're stuck with
this world, which chafes on us, and we can't even explain why. We've
driven the world to the bring of the Apocalypse through our desperate
attempts to consume away the increasing hollowness inside and yet, the void is ever growing.
To put it simple: the Western world is eating cake and wondering why it's still hungry.
*Overy, R. J., The morbid age: Britain and the crisis of civilization, Penguin, London, 2010[2009], p. 70
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