For Better and Worse

The dysfunction of Congress was a reminder this Thanksgiving of how some things seem to be getting worse.

Political ads. Air travel. Traffic. Road repair. The weather. (Climate change scientists are predicting more extremes.) The stock market. (More volatile.) Musicals. (Rodgers & Hammerstein, come back!) The Academy Awards. Hiking trails. (In disrepair.) Manners.

As usual, America is falling behind. In earlier times it was to the Russians. Then the Japanese. Then the Europeans. Now it’s the Chinese. And don’t expect a reprieve. We have a chattering class of professional worriers who are well paid to keep our anxiety levels high.

For most of my life our schools have also been failing (Sputnik, etc.), our bodies flabby (JFK worried about this), our Christmases too commercial, our greed unchecked, our national debt rampant (we had to debate this in high school in the 1960s), our minds a muddle (from Gilligan’s Island to the Kardashians), our lives a sweatshop, our psyches angst-ridden, and our tastes barbaric.

Maybe it’s true. Intellectuals have been forecasting our fall at least since Oswald Spengler’s “Decline of the West” in 1918.

But history cuts both ways. In Ethan Gage’s day at the beginning of the 19^th Century, the invention of mass conscription made warfare vast and horrific. But it was also a time textile mills made clothes affordable, paper manufacturing efficiencies began to elevate literacy, city engineers introduced sanitation, and canned food improved diets.

Similarly, we could also say that today politicians are better-scrutinized, air travel is cheap, houses better built against storms, more people have investments, Broadway shows are likelier to tour, movies are more plentiful, trails more numerous, and the use of pepper spray in Walmart is at least unusual enough to make the news.

What’s gotten better?

Coffee. Yes, pricey, but more interesting, too.

Cars. Safer, more comfortable, more efficient, longer lasting.

Energy efficiency.

Electronics at all levels. Computers that once filled a warehouse now fit in our pocket, and the software usually works. (I don’t miss my 20-pound Kaypro “portable,” a wonder in its day.)

Food. Pretentious sometimes, but varied, fresh, from more cultures.

Wine. Too many good ones to choose from.

Citizen involvement. Way more civic groups on every conceivable issue.

Tolerance. Despite the “holier-than-thou, my-way-or-the-highway” cliques, the world is much smaller and more integrated in every way. It’s much harder to stereotype.

Literacy. From email to book clubs, people use the written word.

The environment. We still might trash the planet, but we’ve cleaned up, too.

Science. Hundreds of new planets, far-out physics, miracle vaccines, gee-whiz crops, and robots that trundle on Mars.

Smiles. It’s the rare middle class kid who hasn’t been ratcheted into straight teeth.

Smoking. I don’t get why anyone still does this, but at least they do it away from me.

Comfortable clothing, sensible shoes.

Less ironing.

On-line shopping.

I still miss repair shops, banks that had architectural grandeur, the mindless simplicity of Ma Bell with its phones sturdy enough to drive nails with, and comedy that was witty instead of vulgar.

But they had plenty of vulgar comedies in Ethan Gage’s day, too.