What’s so special about this date? I’ll leave you with that question until a future post as I spin my related thesis that civilisation has been on the way downhill ever since.
One obvious symptom of this collapse around the 70s was the oil crisis. Suddenly society’s very lifeblood wasn’t so cheap and has never been since. Money also lost its meaning as currencies divorced themselves from gold and became credit pure and simple. Of course this fuelled a massive consumer boom, which offset the declining standards.
Another indication that springs to mind is personal, but also general. When I left university, I had a choice of quality jobs in the computer industry. They all paid enough for me to leave home and live in central London and have plenty over regularly to attend football, concerts, cinema and of course the pub. I could afford to catch the train – at a moment’s notice, mind – anywhere in the country and I could have bought a car but it wasn’t a necessity back then.
Compare this with a couple of young chaps I know who, even two years after college, are only a paper pusher for American Express and a barista. And both are living at their mother’s house in Sussex. Not in London, notice. Who can afford to live there now? Who can pay for entertainment every night? The train unless booked weeks ahead?
Talking of travel, driving is an experience that has attained nightmare qualities in forty years. It used to be a pleasure to motor the length of the land, even through cities. Now a much expanded road network can still only speed you from one bottleneck to the next. More and more the queues result from some form of works as the country tries to repair its crumbling infrastructure. Still top of the list for the causes of this gridlock though is sheer congestion.
Back in the 60s the mendacious twats who purport to run this country dismantled our railway system and committed to road transport. Further, all new developments could only be reached by road such that now you have to drive everywhere. Did they build the road network to support this? They certainly pocketed enough cash from the attempt.
Another personal observation also pivots round the 70s. My father worked a standard week, had his evenings and weekends free, and kept a family of five clothed, housed and fed. Moreover, our food was identifiably food – not bulked out with carbohydrates and only minimally laced with antibiotics, pesticides and other poisons. In other words we were comfortable and healthy for a modicum of effort on his part. Compare that with the junk food, mortgaged, two parents slaving, rat race today.
On the subject of of health, we also had a family doctor who would come and see us. Incredible, eh? But true. And let’s not go further with today’s manifest failings of the NHS.
Those are the tangible symptoms but there’s been a mental and scientific shift too. My thoughts on them will follow.