Life as it was before WW II (according to Buk - but not only...) (1 Viewer)

Here's a snippet from a Buk-letter to Whit Burnett, dated 8-25-54:

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Just an old man complaining?
Well, he was 34 at the time, not too old. And he pretty well knew the times before WW2 and the nearly 10 years after it. As did the recipient of his letter (so he couldn't cheat).

I find it most interesting how he descripes the 'new days' now (which are just a mild version of ours) - esp since they're meant to show the contrast to earlier times.

What other reports do we have about these times (not only from Buk)? Was life really so free, that most affairs were more or less a question of a gentleman's agreement? I can't really believe. So, is he idolizing (right word?) these old times?
 
As I understand it, things in America were very different before and after World War II. It was a pretty dramatic turn, from depression to wartime economy to post-war boom. War made America and Americans more prosperous and wealthy, as it can do. That or bankrupt you.

But so much was changing anyway. If you consider that only 50 years earlier people were traveling around on riverboats in corsets and top hats...the whole world changed dramatically in those times. As it is now.

Which is why America needs Shariah law!
 
that is a great letter. i'm a history buff so sorry in advance for writing way too much as usual. also open to corrections if anybody has another reading of the period! long story short though Bukowski as usual is right on the money.

event he marhsall plan which is often described as an act of benevolence, actually destroyed the village-based culture of self-reliance in rural europe. before wwII the standard rural european village consisted of from a half-dozen to 20 or 30 homes clustered around, each with its own cows, chickens, pasture, cornfields, etc, all worked mostly by hand (certainly there was also imperialism and exploitation of foreign cultures and lands in a systematic way, but that mostly benefitted the ambitions of the industrialists, bankers, and other big city types). in other words, money played a relatively insignificant role in non-city-dwellers' lives. after the war, rural europe was very rapidly sucked into the vortex of the cash economy, forced to specialize, buy expensive 'tools' just in order to compete, and then sell their goods, and then take the money (the value of which was controlled in central banks) and buy stuff in those new things called supermarkets. so teh marshall plan didn't just 'give money,' to the poor, defeated peoples of europe recovering from the bizarre brainwashing of nazism. rather, it gave vouchers, which could only be used for certain things (sugar, grains, and heavy farm equipment from the states, especially). in the states everything changed too although we never really had the village-based structure as much because the us (away from the east coast) was built around the (a) trickle-out of white settlers following the flurry out of white armies to decimate and corral the natives according to the doctrines of manifest destiny, christian evangelism, and 'taming' of nature (b) railroads and logging paths (rather than horse- or foot-paths like in europe). we've never had a stable culture here, really. first there was logging and natural resource extraction, then family farms (and continued resource extraction, although logging has become more sustainable than it used to be for sure)) then a rise of manufacturing with the destruction of the south int he civil war and mass migration to the cities of the north from around 1880-1900. then the depression hit after wwI because of the overexuberant development after the civil war. ww2 came along and fired that old economy back up, including feminism which helped to justify the war-time cry of putting women to work outside the home (a side effect of which was the destruction of what little remained of the 'homemaker-based' domestic culture). then after the war came the four-lane highways (along with cars, tractors, lawnmowers, plastics, domestic technology and hospitals/medical technology especially), all built with the money/resources pillaged from the 'losers' in the war. when the four lanes came up, they made it possible to commute to the cities longer distances, this led to suburban sprawl. so everybody moved all at once. when everybody moved it made it possible to change the rules of the game - there were no 'locals' to say 'hold on a second.' that's when all the dogs were put on leashes, everything was sterilized, and yes, the food definitely did not taste the same - monstanto was a huge beneficiary of ww2 (along with the tractor companies, and the factory farms that ran on tractors and gmo seeds, chemical fertilizers, etc).
 
No one in their right mind is going to read a block of text like that, even if they think they might be interested in it.

Don't you get that?

Don't any of you block-writers (blockheads) get that? Are you blind?
 
dgray, I've thought about your argument and am sure that in line 17 you make a serious mistake. I know it's a tricky subject, but please think it over since it is very important for the whole matter you discuss. (esp for your conclusion in line 42.)
 
Isn't it the few pleasures left of the elderly and or grumpy to sit around moaning about the state of 'society today' you can trace it back to the ancient greeks. It seems to be the eternal tension between two common human traits: the curious experimenters open to new ideas and thinking, then the the more conservative, traditionalists who want to keep the security of the status quo, even if it involves censorship and repression to a certain degree. Guess you need the balance of the two to form stable societies and I'm veering off topic.
 
He wasn't really "old" at that time, he just had turned 34.

Also he isn't conservativ or traditionalst or censorship-wanting in this letter - the contrary is the case: he laments about the 'new conservatives' and their claim for censorship and reperssion.
 
I did say and or old roni, the post was just pointing to the long and amusing tradition of bemoaning the present and idolising the past, as you suggested in your post. As to whether life was better pre or post WWII, again they were doing that in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War of 431 -404 BC: same old shit, different century.

Also he isn't conservativ or traditionalst or censorship-wanting in this letter - the contrary is the case: he laments about the 'new conservatives' and their claim for censorship and reperssion.
Although have to agree with you re the new censorship that occurred in the post war era, the 50's of the US and Europe seem like a bizarre repressive, reactionary era, sexually and politically compared to the more louche, experimental era (perhaps more European with this) pre WWII.Guess we can blame the Cold War for that.
 
Thanks for making light of my recurring fits of firehose prose. my gut rot was particularly crippling the last cpl days. I would have deleted it the next day in a fit of awkward self-consciousness but the forum does not have a 'delete' button (for good reason I reckon). So there it is, my firey revisionism hidden behind a ton of bricks.

Radishes are excellent palette cleansers.

But, Bukowski was right. WWII changed a lot of things around, most of them for the worse, in a very short time. Some happy things happened, though, which the media clung to and hyped up to make it seem like it was all good. What really set it apart was the mass scale, directly related to the generalized use of high-speed technologies. From an historical standpoint, high speed technologies have ushered in a sea change of astronomical proportions to human culture and behavior.

We don't walk any more. Instead we surf the swirling waves, hanging on for dear life to our boogie boards and maps and snacks. Paddle, ride, paddle, ride.

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Nice picture, can I suggest some censorship of my own here since we are (loosely) on the topic? I think I am going to inflict some actual bodily harm on you GB, if you bring your bowels into the conservation one more time! so be warned.
Still disagree with the premise that life was worse post WWII. It was a time of massive boom. In the UK apparently we had "never had it so good" and it's difficult to argue; the welfare state was in place, we were better fed, clothed, and cared for, in terms of health, infant mortality was down (always a strong indicator of a nations well being and prosperity) life expectancy was up.
In the US statistics show for this: 1900 - 46.3yrs, 1930 - 58yrs, 1950 - 65yrs, these stats are for men, obviously women live longer (and in the first year of life die less, biology favours survival of female babies, boys being more prone to infection and disease, culturally of course it'a a different story).
What casts a shadow over all this abundance and fun and rock and roll is of course the Cold War and the fear of the red devil. Hoover (evil overlord!), McCarthy and the HUAC have a lot to answer for. Here is the link to the committee's terrible interrogation of Paul Robeson;https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...=rgl-0u7QcVK9oQCrBu1R9w&bvm=bv.48293060,d.d2k
 
It was a time of massive boom. ... it's difficult to argue; the welfare state was in place, we were better fed, clothed, and cared for, in terms of health, infant mortality was down (always a strong indicator of a nations well being and prosperity) life expectancy was up.
In the US statistics show for this: 1900 - 46.3yrs, 1930 - 58yrs, 1950 - 65yrs

Seems to me that you're doing a fine job of telling us what the Empire wants us to think - their tricks and figures are devious indeed :cool: . In the nuts and bolts of it though, the machines took over peoples' homes, the food turned to plastic overnight, dogs were put on leashes, cats brought indoors, and it became almost impossible to do anything remotely authentic. Animals often live twice as long in captivity as they do in the wild. Does this mean that trained seals at disneyland are living better that those barrelling through the ocean in pods of fifty, swirling, bobbing, chasing fish, the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the hunted as a polar bear comes growling ...
For people who are happy to be a number, maybe raise a half-sane kid, and die miserable in a sterile hospital bed, sure life got groovy. For people with any sense for what's real and vital about being a human, life got real worse, real fast to where you now need a symbolical jackhammer just to see past the constructs and the media-mist.
The letter that Roni posted is yet another example of what is uncanny and brilliant about Bukowski. Awesome letter, awesome thread. Even though Stargazer posted misleading figures, it's respectable that she kept the conversation moving despite the fuddy-duddies. Discussing history is very important. Outkast said on the Aquemini album that 'the truth hurts but you can't be scared of it' and in the years since i first heard that line it has remained reliable.
I get worked up about way too many things.
 
One good thing since WWII is that people who choose to live that plastic life and die in a sterile hospital bed, may do so. I also agree that there are fundamental things about being human (and about being alive on this planet) which have certainly dissipated in the last half of the 20th century.
 
Otto, have you been alive on any other planet?? I'm intrigued. Stop romaticizing the past gb, unless want,starvation. disease, poverty, ignorance and squalor is what your pining for. Clearly I'm talking here of the west and all the things I've just listed are all very depressingly applicable to the third world. I'm not saying that industrialisation and the modern world we have is any kind of utopia, but ffs, there never was an agrarian utopia that you speak of, we as peasants would probably have lived a shitty, very short life.
 
Sky gazer, take a deep breath and relax. Try to read things as they are written and don't get too carried away with your thoughts. How you reach such an absolute statement as the one you just wrote from what I said is...intriguing.
I don't know if I said anything about utopia or anything else you have attributed to my very simple post.
 
Otto I was laughing at the bit you wrote about "being alive on this planet", I was just pulling your leg. I should have pasted it on, (the quote that is, not your leg) but I forgot to do it and I also don't know how to turn it pink and stuff. PS no you didn't say anything about a utopia, I was referring to gb's post, I seem to be causing absolute chaos, sorry!
 
No, please Otto, don't disapoint us: I thought you were going to reveal your kinship to the Ferengi and that this was you in your former life on another planet;

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I, myself want to be Barbarella next time round.:wb:
 
This I can tell you Ms. Sky gazer: if I lived on another planet, I would certainly (like a good Ferengi) be the proprietor of the Galaxy's premier Zero-Gee strip club; in it you will always be welcome live out your Barbarella fantasy. I'll just watch.

I do love the Ferengi 'Rules of Acquisition' as a model for how to live a good life. For example: "War is good for business." "peace is good for business." "women must not wear clothing." "You can make a promise, but it is acceptable to break it." "once you have their money, never give it back."
http://projectsanctuary.com/the_complete_ferengi_rules_of_acquisition.htm
 
Outkast said on the Aquemini album that 'the truth hurts but you can't be scared of it' and in the years since i first heard that line it has remained reliable.
And with this sentence I realize that life since WW2 has become horrible in ways we couldn't even imagine. :eek:

But on a related topic, Bukowski gives the impression that growing up in the rough years before WW2 was a useful experience. It toughened him up. The experiences he went through gave him access to an endurance and perspective that many others, he would say, did not have. And that seems to be where his criticism of people in general came from. They take one hit and they're down. The WW2 generation could go 50 rounds and keep standing.
 
Bukowski gives the impression that growing up in the rough years before WW2 was a useful experience. It toughened him up. The experiences he went through gave him access to an endurance and perspective that many others, he would say, did not have. And that seems to be where his criticism of people in general came from. They take one hit and they're down. The WW2 generation could go 50 rounds and keep standing.
But given how tough the 30s obviously were I wonder why he thinks things were worse after the war. Nostalgia for a lost youth or something more fundamental?
 
But given how tough the 30s obviously were I wonder why he thinks things were worse after the war. Nostalgia for a lost youth or something more fundamental?

Worse = phony, fake, obsessed with stupid crap.
 
You're forgetting that stupid crap is a byproduct of ferengi capitalism (see above). The 20th century thus marks a watershed of phony no less important than the adoption of agriculture. But in this regard Bukowski predates Jared Diamond's critique by over 3 decades.

So there.
 

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