The Grim Truth About the “Good Old Days”
Preindustrial life wasn’t simple or serene — it was filthy, violent, and short. The Industrial Revolution was imperfect, but it was progress.
Below is an excerpt from a recent essay I wrote for “The Engine of Progress,” a special issue of Big Think.
When Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, declared in 1995 that “the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race,” he was voicing a sentiment that now circulates widely online.
Rose-tinted nostalgia for the preindustrial era has gone viral, strengthened by anxieties about our own digital era, with some claiming that modernity itself was a mistake and that “progress” is an illusion. Medieval peasants led happier and more leisurely lives than we do, according to those who pine for the past. “The internet has become strangely nostalgic for life in the Middle Ages,” journalist Amanda Mull wrote in a piece for The Atlantic. Samuel Matlack, managing editor of The New Atlantis, observed that there is currently an “endless debate around whether the preindustrial past was clearly better than what we have now and we must go back to save humanity, or whether modern technological society is unambiguously a forward leap we must forever extend.”
In the popular imagination, the Industrial Revolution was the birth of many evils, a time when smoke-belching factories disrupted humanity’s erstwhile idyllic existence. Economics professor Vincent Geloso’s informal survey of university students found that they believed “living standards did not increase for the poor; only the rich got richer; the cities were dirty and the poor suffered from ill-health.” Pundit Tucker Carlson has even suggested that feudalism was preferable to modern liberal democracy.
Different groups tend to idealize different aspects of the past. Environmentalists might idealize preindustrial harmony with nature, while social traditionalists romanticize our ancestors’ family lives. People from across the political spectrum share the sense that the Industrial Revolution brought little real improvement for ordinary people.
In 2021, History.com published “7 Negative Effects of the Industrial Revolution,” an article reflecting much of the thinking behind this popular impression that industrialization was a step backward for humanity, rather than a period of tremendous progress. But was industrialization really to blame for each of the ills detailed in the article?
Chelsea............You absolutely nailed it !
The past literally stank ............in every aspect ................as far as human beings were concerned.
The false Idyllic views of the past are the same delusions that spur people onward to create UTOPIA in their minds [ like the Welsh colony in Patagonia ] and COMMUNISM. Ideals which have been shown to be "nothing-like-the-imagination" in Argentina ................and elsewhere Communism was , and still is , an abject failure that has killed millions !
THE REAL WORLD we enjoy today was fashioned from all the disease , death and disaster of the past , at great cost and effort , and IT'S WONDERFUL NOW that we have finally 'tamed nature' !
Mourning the past glories of "Mother Nature" , a real murderous harridan , who uses every tactic and every opportunity to kill us , is stupidity and navel-gazing at it's worst ! Until we had discovered and developed antibiotics and anaesthetics we were completely at her very-dubious mercy , as the many graves and tombstones of infants will attest !
Mourning the loss of lions , tigers , leopards etc from Europe is quite weird if you pause for a moment to reflect on the danger that this "eradicated wildlife" would be if they roamed wild in Europe today ! Go jogging ? Yes....straight down the throat of a lion ! And you mourn that !!??
Similarly , the loss of trees ........how else were people supposed to build houses , boats , fences to retain live-stock and burn to cook meals ? Sure.....they are 'nice' to look at but you have to chop them down and use the timber just to survive , in early history and even today !
It wasn't until COAL became readily available that trees did not have to be burnt for warmth !
And it wasn't until the discovery of MINERAL OIL , quite recently , that whales did not have to be hunted and rendered down for their animal oil to provide candles and lantern oil for lighting.
Modernity was DRAGGED ,bitching and screaming into being , DESPITE the 'powers that be' ,
mostly by individuals who wanted to develop INDUSTRY and COLONISE distant lands. These people are now being denigrated by "modern people" [ especially politicians and bureaucrats devoid of the abilities and jealous of the achievements of those past GIANTS of Industry ! ]
totally ignorant of history and the reality of the past ......and very comfortable in a life-style they did very little to secure for us or themselves .........but eager to claim so !
People like Cecil Rhodes , an adventurer and explorer and philanthropist par excellence , who developed entire countries , is now being denigrated for his "colonialist beliefs" , quite often by those very same people who enjoy the benefits of his Rhodes Scholarships , yet remain totally ungrateful and ignorant of the many good things he achieved ! Ideological blindness !
SIMILARLY.......there is this stupid NEW RELIGION which worships the past and yearns to recreate the past ! This is the "Catastrophic Climate Change" sect that "believes" that IF ONLY WE COULD REDUCE THE ATMOSPHERIC LEVEL OF carbon dioxide TO THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS then UTOPIA would emerge ! Hallelujah ! Forget ALL the dreadful consequences that come with it ! Sure......in pre-industrial times BEFORE COAL was being burned.......and only wood , dried animal dung , grass and straw was being burned .......and life was precarious , short , brutal and miserable !
Few people enjoyed life....most simply endured ! .......Just as Chelsea depicted it in her article !
Even worse than that , because LIME STONE and SEASHELLS were continually absorbing the carbon dioxide from an already sparse level , and locking it away forever , there was such a low level in the atmosphere that PLANT LIFE itself was threatened with extinction ! Below 150 ppm of carbon dioxide , plants die ! Pre-the-Industrial-Revolution levels were as low as 280 ppm, based on measurements from ice cores and other data. THIS LOW LEVEL ALONE combined with various COLD PERIODS and DROUGHTS caused CROP FAILURES and left people malnourished , weak and susceptible to all the plagues and maladies rife at the time ! WE ARE LUCKY TO BE HERE because our ancestors could easily have succumbed totally and become yet another extinct species !
Fortunately for us , a few volcanoes spewed forth enough carbon dioxide to tide-them-over !
Since we started burning "carbonaceous fuels" the air quality has improved immensely and agriculture and plant-life has thrived ! So , it could be accurately said that THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION has been THE SAVIOUR OF THE HUMAN RACE and ALSO , THE SAVIOUR OF THE PLANET because it has never been greener or more productive in millions of years than it is now !
YES.....I remember the past from my history lessons and from my curiosity in libraries !
NO.....I do not mourn the past in any way , other than the loss of my youth , vigour and vitality !
But...I swapped those for money and other possessions and I am quite content at that exchange !
May you all get to enjoy your lives as much as I have enjoyed mine and may you all gain the appreciation for what we now enjoy and for those who 'paved the way' for our prosperity !
Thanks Chelsea ! Regards and best wishes , Trevor.
Why would you ever "pine for the past" when you live in such brilliant , innovative and spectacular times as the present !!???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AXQdpk8zC0