to think that modern life is utter shite

[OfCourse]

EVERYTHING is expensive; food, cars, houses, utilities, travel for work and the service is crap.

ANY GOVERNMENT PROVIDED SERVICE IS FUCKED; education, NHS, social welfare, police.

None of the above are in any particular order. Is it me? Am I just having a bad day?

SELL ME MODERN LIFE

Well, I think my point, which I didn't actually make to be fair, is that for some people life is, if not worse, then not quite as easy as expected. I would say the middle classes now have to run faster to stay in the same spot.

But, far more importantly, children's tv is now worse. Waaaaay worse.

Wolfblood? Horrible Histories?

ohmymimi

wow, may I ask how old you are? I ask in seriousness as thats hard core what you report

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/oct/01/below-the-poverty-line-slum-britain-in-the-1960s-in-picture

Overall, I think it's better...

Modern life is, of course, much more cushy than pretty much all that has gone before BUT there has recently been a generation who, taken as a whole, have had it much easier than
anyone did before or will again in the forseable future.

The little blip in time who are the
baby boom generation have been so
ridiculously privileged that compared
to them life is less rosy for most
younger adults. They are an anomaly though, and if we avoid going green with envy thinking of their full student grants and cheap house prices which have massively inflated, leaving a lot of people sitting on big gains, and retirement and genuine "cradle to grave" welfare state, and look at the last hundreds of years instead of couple of decades, then we still, in the grand historical and global scheme of things "never had it so good".

Have you never watched Call the Midwife (set in 1950s) fromparis?! For poor people, that life isn't that long ago. My Great Aunt was a Midwife in Sheffield during that period and her stories are very similar to what's shown in that programme.

Modern life was brilliant 20 years ago. Now, less so

Duh I do realize that lots of working class kids are still going to university because there is still the general held belief that going to university and getting a good job is seen as the way forward for gaining a better life. I dare say, in a lot of schools, doing a vocational qualification or an apprenticeship is seen as a lesser choice

Even the hardships such as £9000 a year in fees is not deterring working class kids from university but it is something that was not in place for previous graduates like myself. Just because more kids are taking up the offer of university these days does not mean they are having it easier

When me and DH bought our 1st London property 10 years ago it was 4x our salaries, if we were buying it today it would be 9x our then salaries plus we would have an additional 60k in uni debt to also pay back. If I was starting out today I feel it would take me a lot longer to have less. Whether that's ultimately a good or bad thing is not for me to say when I have done well out of circumstances no longer openly available to others

OP with a few caveats I think YABU, for all the reasons already stated above. I would hate to have been a woman living in pretty much any other period of history other than this one - or, for that matter, a man who was outside the perhaps 5 or 10% of people who made up the elite/aristocracy. (I'm no genealogy expert, but I'm pretty sure my family come from peasant stock, and my DGM was one of 8 siblings to have grown up in a Hoxton slum, so belonging to any past elites seems distinctly unlikely!)

While I agree that many people in the UK are struggling at the moment, you don't need to travel that far to find places where things are much worse - I spent time in Italy this summer, and was shocked at the very obvious poverty and social discord I found there, especially in the South. There was a real feeling of malaise, and a sense of hopelessness among many Italians I spoke to - especially the younger ones, who had no prospect of any real future in Italy. The economy there is almost completely stagnant, and the infrastructure is crumbling to an extent that makes ours look positively new and sparkly. Many of them saw the UK as a utopia in comparison.

However (and here's my big caveat) - this isn't a message that many people want to hear, but I do think that the boom times of the past few decades are over, and that we (throughout the West, not just in the UK) are going to have to adjust our expectations accordingly. If we want to sustain the level of public services we've become accustomed to (notably the NHS and social care), then we're going to have to pay more tax. Most of us will have to rein back our spending on things that in the past would have been considered luxuries - clothes, holidays, meals out etc., and these things will revert to being luxuries again. Food prices will have to rise due to climate change and global population increases, and we'll have to be more thoughtful about the food we buy and where it comes from. Basically, we're going to have to pare things down and simplify our lives.

The one aspect of modern life I do regret is the way that multinational corporations, rather than governments, now seem to pull most of the strings. In that respect, I do think that things have definitely got worse.

actually just remebered reading "union Street" by Pat Barker- similar conditions and set in the 60's, only a decade before my birth

e vero....

Op I agree. Yes obv medicine, human rights etc are better than ever before, but there are so many things - like those that you list- that I always think should be so much better than they are now. And they aren't because it isn't in the interests of the conspiring triumvirate of the media, big business and the govt to make them better. So we have smart phone controlled front doors and about 3 million TV channels any other amount of pointless shit that can be flogged to us in the name of progress, while we also have the first generation in a very very very long time who will have it worse than their parents. AND FOR NO GOOD REASON! Beyond the self serving greed and wilful incompetence of a minority.

And the planet is being destroyed. So we can continue the mad blinkered endless pursuit of an economic system that is proving itself to be an utter utter disaster for many people. But again, not the few.

If I was starting out today I feel it would take me a lot longer to have less.

If fewer people go to university, the value to the lucky people that do go to university is greater.

Whether you think that's a good thing is another question.

It's like the grammar school debate. Assume, arguendo (it's not as obviously true as some think) that those that go to a grammar school get a better education. Does 20% of the population doing better justify 80% not getting that opportunity?

At least we have lovely clean water here in the UK. When I lived in Istanbul back in the 90's the tap water came out cloudy white yellow or brown!!

Plus we used to get terrible water cuts in some parts of that city whereas over here if there is a water problem invariably it is fixed within a couple of hours.

TempsPerdu

YES! I just agree with everything you say. and I hate the greedy culture we live in. I went to Oxford St this weekend and there is something obscene about the quantity of shit people buy, the waste, the packaging, that all end up in a fucking landfill eventually

Most of what we consume it sourced in some way by the oil and gas sector, be in the energy to make them, or the chemicals that form the product. the only reason they cpontinue to explore if becuase of the demand

its our fault, noone elses

I do think that you may have a point Duh, most of my university friends have gone on to get reasonable well paid jobs but some who did more ahem esoteric degrees have struggled to get jobs and are bitter and disillusioned at working in call centers or doing basic admin roles that don't require a degree.

Perhaps debts of nearly 30k focuses the mind of what one should be ultimately doing

YANBU and YABU

Throughout history most people have led relatively short miserable lives. We are very lucky today with things such as health care and clean water etc

But things have gone too materialist, selfish, lack of communities etc. I'm not sure how good the seperation of work and family is. Inequality etc. Disrespect of unpaid work. So in those ways I can see your point.

Modern life is not utter shite! However if the OP was that life now is getting tougher in the UK as compared with 15 years ago I could agree.

fromparis, I'm 67, born in 1947. My dad was a head teacher in a local primary and my mum a sahm and we lived in a small village in Worcestershire. There was nothing unusual about how we lived then. We first had a bathroom and an hot water tank when I was around 8/9.

Oxford St at the weekend is the Seventh Circle of Hell fromparis!

Yes, I think our (relative) wealth is now conspiring against us - it's not enough to be warm and comfortable and have enough to eat any more; there are entire industries devoted to telling us that we're inadequate if we don't look better/have a bigger house than/go on more exotic holidays than the next person. Society conditions us from birth to want material things, because our entire consumer culture is predicated on buying more stuff.

We also lap up Sleb Culture, even though ultimately it makes so many of us feel crap for hankering after a lifestyle that's inaccessible to us. There's this weird paradox whereby we know that 90% of celebrity lifestyles are artifice, that even our idols are airbrushed to look nothing like the way they're depicted in magazines etc. and that many of them are troubled and dysfunctional, and yet we still seek to emulate them. It's OK for those of us who can recognise and deconstruct all the advertising, social conditioning and media bollocks, but plenty of people can't, and they suffer for it.

Personally I'd rather have a more modest, less glitzy lifestyle now (and pay a bit more in the way of tax) so that in the future the NHS will still be able to care for me should I need it, and there'll be decent, well-funded State schools for any future DC.

Oh well we are all different, I accept that lots of mothers wouldn't want to have the luxury of staying at home to enjoy their babies. I personally would have, knowing they're not babies for long and I know a lot of people who absolutely hate having to return to work after their maternity leave. But I really wish that we lived in a society where we were able to have the choice of either staying at home with the babies or going out to work. Lots don't have the choice, going out to work is a necessity, wages are just far too low.

me too temps, I sometimes think I would be better suited to living in the post war austerity times

I find some of my peers/friends and even family shocking how they basically spunk their money up the wall- but hey ho

I read my 2 sons a LONG book on recyling yesterday - I think they need to learn that all this crap we buy ends up in landfill- I will drill the message in, lucky boys!!!!

and YY for South Italy, my god its fucked there. My family are from an island and basically have to fund their own travel to get medical care on the mainland. yound people barely work.

thanksa ohmymini, I thought so- was not meaning to be rude!

It could be worse. You could live in France.