Modern Convenience

As a country, we have been saying that things are going poorly now and have been deteriorating for a few years. The market has tanked, obesity levels have ballooned since the 1980s, the rate of increase in inequality is scandalously high, and depression remains as prevalent here as in war-torn countries (though the latter is a highly subjective measure.) In any case, with the exception of Obama-phoria we don’t appear much happier than our predecessors, and the increasing number of people depending on fewer resources bodes poorly for our future. Yet after spending Thanksgiving in a time warp with my grandparents, I realized things are, generally speaking, much better now than they ever were.

A couple of instances made me particularly grateful for starting life in a more liberal era than that of my grandparents. For example, the stereotypical family history invokes memories of some bygone relative’s culinary expertise, like their mouth-watering apple pie. Unfortunately for me, last weekend’s Thanksgiving meal preparation with my grandmother involved me trying to drag the menu out of the 1950s, with its green bean casserole topped with French fried onions, and turning it into something—anything—less reminiscent of the processed fodder of World War II barracks. I’m still not sure if my grandmother was serious when she referred to Betty Crocker as an actual person who was so kind as to provide her recipes online, but even the suggestion makes me cringe. (In reality, “Betty Crocker” was a fictional domestic goddess created in 1921 by an early food processing company that eventually merged with General Mills, which makes me feel even further bereft of an appreciable family culinary heritage.)

Then came the dinner conversation during which my grandfather described hearing a speech from a man studying a basic unit of electronic data that underlay what became the computer. Fascinating as it was, he then asked my cousins and I to explain the progression of the computer from then to now. Granted, fifty years of his memory have slipped his mind, but my cousins and I couldn’t even begin the conversation because of the technology divide between us, which makes the generation gap feel more like a chasm.

However the worst part of the weekend time warp was the reminder of pre-1970s gender roles. In my grandparents’ households, on both sides of the family, the men would starve without the women, and significant decisions start and end with the head of the proverbial dinner table. While socially liberal for their generations, no amount of time can erase their gendered occupational divide.

My cynical tone contradicts popular media images of 1950s domestic bliss and my own proclivity to sympathize with a simpler past, though I tend to favor the pre-War, pre-credit cards, and pre-mass suburbanization decades. The contradiction reveals the problem with glorifying the past. Simultaneously, the 1950s warns us against exalting the future, as the decade played host to the rapid expansion of some of our current economic and ecological problems (think overconsumption, over-processing, and automobile dependence). Growth and outward optimism belied pressing needs for social reform, which would explode in ensuing decades, while maintaining a glistening façade that extolled the benefits of the microwave. As far as decades go, the heyday of my grandparents’ domestic lives looks depressing.

Comparing life then to life now, the negativism of the present does not appear to be the product of societal deterioration. Rather, it is a sign that we can openly acknowledge problems we face. The freedom to complain—about mental health, pollution, food, prejudicial politics, bad loans, etc.—is a luxury that my grandparents could not always afford. As a country we face serious problems, and it’s clear that progress is not always, well, progressive (see the “slum clearance” and “urban renewal” of the 1950s for textbook examples). But despite all, life does improve over time, even when the barometer of our nation’s and, more aptly, world’s health reads otherwise.

Hence, I vote for respect and criticism of the past that responds with modern solutions for the future. Fittingly, President-elect Obama’s recently unveiled plan for a wide-scale public works initiative harkens to Eisenhower’s interstate highway system of 1956, the last major public works program of its kind. A comparison of the two—one facilitated the automobile culture, and the other promises to reduce our dependence on foreign oil—illustrates progress that looks to the past for a model and the present for solutions. Confident that we are better off now than we have ever been, I can appreciate Thanksgiving, my grandparents’ generosity, and the lifestyles that allowed them to enjoy the better part of 80 years. Yet simultaneously, I will continue to cast a critical eye on the Betty Crockers of the past, falsified images of sanguinity and health that masquerade for mechanized, over-processed, and toxic products and ideas. To confront the future, we must shift away from 1950s priorities of “bigger, faster, and shinier” to “long-term, thoughtful, and adequate.” Columbia, like the U.S. government, could equally benefit from reviewing its allegiance to these objectives. As history shows, things might not always look perfect at the time, but if they do, we should worry.

Becky Davies is a Columbia College junior majoring in urban studies. Home Ec runs alternate Mondays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com