Nice, and I definitely agree. Another skill that has been actively discouraged over the last century is agency. Planning for the future involves acknowledging that you have some manner of choice as to what you will do in that future, which is scary because you could then muck it up. It makes sense that in an economy trying to milk you for every penny, and keep you chained to the machine all the while, that discouraging agency would be front and center.
In my 20s, I went searching for an American generation with which I shared any values at all. I ended up having to go all the way back to the WWI generation before I found any common ground (mostly due to land use beliefs: I'm not a fan of suburbs or cars). The WWI generation lived through two world wars, the raging twenties, and the great depression. That generation in my family immigrated to the US because they were starving in Europe, just in time for the dust bowl. I doubt many members of this generation were fooled by the myth of progress.
When I evaluated the actions of that generation in my family, I also found peak agency and planning. They kept a victory garden, and a cellar with pickled/canned/jarred preserves from that garden. My great grandfather slept at the door to the cellar with his rifle in case anyone tried to steal their food. Even though they were technically in a city, he trained his horse to drop my grandfather off at school and pick him up, since buying a car was unthinkable and they needed to save cash rather than take any kind of transit. Their household economy produced almost everything they needed, and I remember the hand-crank fan my grandparents had from them, because the house back then didn't have electricity. No wonder they were called the Lost Generation.
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timeasmymeasure
Lost skills
Date: 2020-08-27 09:29 am (UTC)In my 20s, I went searching for an American generation with which I shared any values at all. I ended up having to go all the way back to the WWI generation before I found any common ground (mostly due to land use beliefs: I'm not a fan of suburbs or cars). The WWI generation lived through two world wars, the raging twenties, and the great depression. That generation in my family immigrated to the US because they were starving in Europe, just in time for the dust bowl. I doubt many members of this generation were fooled by the myth of progress.
When I evaluated the actions of that generation in my family, I also found peak agency and planning. They kept a victory garden, and a cellar with pickled/canned/jarred preserves from that garden. My great grandfather slept at the door to the cellar with his rifle in case anyone tried to steal their food. Even though they were technically in a city, he trained his horse to drop my grandfather off at school and pick him up, since buying a car was unthinkable and they needed to save cash rather than take any kind of transit. Their household economy produced almost everything they needed, and I remember the hand-crank fan my grandparents had from them, because the house back then didn't have electricity. No wonder they were called the Lost Generation.