How (or even would) people cope?

[OWWO]

I’m a relative newbie, and this post came about after a conversation with my elderly mum because of events at my work. I am interested in other people’s thoughts.

AIBU to think that, if people today had to live through an event like WW2, a lot of them wouldn’t be able to cope with the restrictions, rationing etc.

I work for a charity that helps those who are homeless, escaping domestic violence, or on a low income and, while 99% of the clients are genuinely grateful for what we do; lately we’ve had some who have been a little, how to put this delicately... entitled and grabby, not appreciating being told that something isn’t possible, no matter how many ways they ask or demand. Some even tell us to stuff it and walk out!

Am I wrong to think there there is a definite sense of entitlement (and an unwillingness to try to help one’s self) out there in the world today?

I think it would be hard going but most would become resourceful and resilient and we would come together again

Housewife, 49 or whatever it was called and was amazed at her descriptions of food provisioning

really great film with the great Victoria Wood

Never mind rationing, how many people today would let their children be evacuated to who-knows-where to live with strangers for an unspecified length of time?

One obvious way people "coped" in WW2 was by smoking. So not so hungry when the rations were meagre & generally seems to have worked as therapy/distraction. My mother smoked for 60 years, starting as a teenager in WW2 - and died of lung cancer needless to say.
I have thought about this topic too. Meals were on the whole much less imaginative until the 1960s when package holidays and Chinese restaurants started to change the British outlook on food. People also had the chance to eat in large restaurants/cafeterias. Expectations of what food would be like were low. I think we would really struggle now with rationing and there would be a lot more "black market" activity if it had to be brought in.
Travel would also be interesting. In WW2 we had a much more extensive rail network to fall back on than we do now.

Of course they wouldn't cope. If you have worked with young people (18-21 or so) in recent times, you would be as certain as me that the majority of them would not cope with real hardship- not a chance. Some would though.

@pennycarbonara thank you for your post. I apologise for coming across as patronising. I always try to be compassionate and understanding when dealing with clients, and I apologise to them if we cannot help. I guess it is a reflection on me that I feel frustrated afterwards.

Thank you for the alternative viewpoint.

I wasn’t there (obviously), but I think there were loads of people who didn’t cope well at all during WW2. I don’t think it’s a generational thing.

I often wonder what would happen if the internet went down permanently and phone lines didn't work. Can you imagine??!!! Or we had to go back to shopping at the corner shop where things were weighed up and put in brown paper bags? i think modern life is far far more stressful now than it was 100 years ago. It would be interesting to be able to go back in time for a while and make a true comparison. I think the biggest issues these days are loneliness and a sense of futility. We have all this stuff and all these conveniences, yet there is a sense of emptiness for many people that I think perhaps wasn't there in the 'olden days'. People were busier, did more manual work, had less time to reflect, and lived in tighter communities with support networks.

Yanbu. There is a learned helplessness which is cultural now.

Expectations of what you should have are so difffrent now to when I was growing up. I'm 39. When I was growing up People’s houses were furnished with random stuff you inherited usually. A 3 piece suite was new fangled. Now people think they need to make their house look like a page from the next directory. That's a defined shift within a generation.

Am I wrong to think there there is a definite sense of entitlement (and an unwillingness to try to help one’s self) out there in the world today?

In fucking spades!!!!!

A lot of it has to do with marketing. Before the war, products were marketed on a functional basis, eg these shoes are sturdy and waterproof. Later on they started to market things emotionally eg you don’t need these shoes but they’ll make your life better and you’ll look good in them. Also products became disposable and aren’t designed to last nowadays (because they want you to buy more). Everything is about lifestyle nowadays, not about functionality.

Also people became ridiculously healthy during rationing. The rates of heart attacks etc dropped massively!

@sar302 I agree; There for the grace of god etc...

Thank you

People would cope because they had to. I don't think you can blame young people for a culture that has been brought about by capitalism - the only important thing is that money is made. That means throwing clothes away and buying more cheap ones makes someone money (but not the people doing it) just like flying fruit from one side of the globe serves someone (even if it's not the planet or the fruit growers).

There are, as someone upthread said, different pressures these days. One of them off the top of my head - never being able to think through a response to something like you could when correspondence was post. Now messages come from everywhere, all the time, and they need an instant response.

From what my Great Aunt told me about living through WW2, affairs happened, men cheated, there was loads of smuggling, men tried to get jobs on the land to avoid the draft, there was plenty of crime too.

My grandad gave up his market garden to veg and then re enlisted in the Navy, when he came back, he found his nr neighbour made his fortune growing flowers!
People are People, its take 2 mins to learn to use a needle or read a cook book.
Look at the women who came in from their homes and worked on the land or armaments factories in both wars? they were SAHM;s but learnt how to use a tractor or make a 500lb bomb! even the Queen drove an truck!
its silly to pretend we d not cope of course we would!

Is anyone suggesting the young men/women who fought in Afghan are somehow "less" than the Paras in the Falklands or the 8th Army in N.Africa because they might shop in Primark or like a Costa?

Is anyone suggesting the young men/women who fought in Afghan are somehow "less" than the Paras in the Falklands or the 8th Army in N.Africa because they might shop in Primark or like a Costa?

Do you honestly believe that war veterans from recent conflicts are treated the same way as WW2 veterans? Because I can tell you they’re not. DP is an Iraq veteran and he has had many, many nasty, spiteful and downright awful comments directed at him,

I'm not sure modern life is more stressful. My great grandma had 15 children, only seven of them made it to adulthood. And my great grandad and all his sons were miners with tied houses. I imagine they all found life quite stressful.

@OWWO

Doesn't mean you don't want to bang people's heads together sometimes :D

I think you seriously underestimate the degree of trauma many people who endured WW2 - both civilians at home and those deployed - were left with, and the ongoing detrimental impact it had throughout their lives.

There were dishonest, entitled people then too.

But neither of these facts will have featured in the rose tinted, morale boosting propaganda that was created during the war and afterwards to help people cope and to created a shared cultural understanding of "who we are" as a nation.

We hear an awful lot about the positive stories because it is comforting, inspiring, and gives us meaning. The rarer heartwarming, inspiring stories quickly become the only stories.

Reality wasn't like that for many, many people.

We don't hear about all the trauma because for the most part people don't want to talk about it, and for the greater part nobody wants to listen. It's human nature, sadly - just look at how holocaust survivors were treated in the 70s. We turn away from the things that cause us discomfort, and focus on the things that make us feel more secure.

Let's not forget that between the wars there was both the 'gilded age' where luxury and excess proliferated, and the Great Depression in the US. Although the economic up & down was most extreme in the US, it did get reflected in Europe.

One generation lived through WW1, boom, bust, WW2. Most people did adapt & survive, but not everyone did. My gran's brother died and his wife committed suicide. Quite a few people committed suicide, actually. Many more became close to non-functional. Both returning soldiers and civilians had seen horrors that they couldn't process and "shell shock" or PTSD was fairly common. Then there were those who simply buttoned it up, stiff upper lip, but woke up screaming from nightmares for the rest of their lives.

After WW2 life was pretty grim for a long time. The relief at the end of the war was followed by rationing, housing shortages and low wages.

My parents (age 75 & 85) still can't allow themselves even to have coffee out without a guilty reference to "having a treat". They tut and roll their eyes at how wasteful people are today. They never replace anything until it is broken beyond repair & function. They don't need to live like this - they have plenty of money - but the behviours they grew up with are so deeply ingrained that they can't move beyond them.

The majority of people would cope, and adapt. Some wouldn't and would end up with really awful consequences (homeless/sofa surfing/suicide). Many of us would moan - it wasn't all having a cheery sing-along around the old joanna with a cup of rosie lee. People moaned and griped, and traded on the black market and all sorts.

I totally agree OP. I was born in the mid 1940's and honestly can't see people coping today as well as they did back then and that's men and women. I think this country would be fucked if WW3 occurred to be honest.

I'm sure there were plenty of selfish / entitled people around even in WW2. People got on with life as best they could because they had no choice. If WW3 started, we would do the same

I think Allthegood is right. You cope if you have to.

I have twins. When they were babies I used to get frequently told by other new Mums that they wouldn’t be able to cope with two babies.

But of course most of them would, if they’d had to.

If for whatever reason (war, famine, environmental disaster, disease etc) society fell apart people would either have to cope or die.

That choice would pretty much focus the mind.

Of course there would be cheating, hoarding, theft and murder just as there was in both wars but those are mostly just different methods of “coping”.

I’ve grown up with central heating, a car and a fridge but I could survive with out those if I had to. I could kill and animal to prevent my children starving if I had to. I could fight to defend my home if I had to.

Let’s just be grateful that we currently don’t have to.

YANBU, half the population would be so busy composing tweets and apportioning blame that they wouldn't have a clue what to do or how to cope. Everything must be somebody else's fault after all.

Do you honestly think 'everyone' pitched in and helped' during the war? From a BBC Article Despite the Blitz spirit of World War Two, crime rose from 303,771 offences in 1939 to 478,000 in 1945.

People hoarded food, they looted bombed houses, they tried to use the bombings to cover up murders etc.

Also, people didn't cope because they wanted to, they coped because they had to, and many suffered for it for the rest of their lives.

From another article:

The first large study of the long-lasting consequences of the conflict has found that living in a war-torn country increased the likelihood of physical and mental problems later in life.

Food shortages, displacement from homes and the loss of relatives all created a toxic legacy that was still being felt for decades after fighting ceased in May 1945.

The difference was that there was good reason why life was like it was and everyone really was in it together, sort of. But they had a common enemy/cause. In some ways, life improved, from the previous generation.

The social problems that you deal with are created by those in power. There isn't any reason why the Cuts have happened, they haven't saved the country any money. It is fueled by a hatred for the poor. Life isn't improving generation to generation, because of the lack of funding.

Like it or not, immigration has changed things and the opinion is that if we can support others, why can't we support our own citizens.

Which makes a massive difference, when everyone feels that they are going without for the common good.

As for the World, there's never been that sense of helping that you talk about. That's why there was a WW2 and the Vietnam/Iraq etc wars. The last two being started and based on lies.

The people who would cope best are those with trades and barterable skills and goods. And I hate to say it, the low lifes, the thieves, cheats, burglars, black market racketeers would all flourish in such an environment. .

The people who always flounder are largely the unfit, the pen pushers, those with no vocational skills.