Everything Is Not Terrible; We Live In An Amazing Era

The view that things are "bad" is perpetuated by those who've only known good

Having been on this earth for 55 years, I’ve seen some stuff. Old enough to remember some of the 70s, of course, the 80s, and then so on. One thing I have found common is that people always say a particular era is the worst time in life, or that things are going downhill.

The great film ‘No Country For Old Men’ had Tommy Lee Jones' character, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, say, during a discussion about society, “Once you quit hearing ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am,’ the rest is soon to follow.” The movie took place in 1980, and he was discussing the downfall of society. One guy was complaining about seeing a young girl with “green hair.” Ten years earlier, two older guys would have been complaining about seeing men with long hair.

I bring this up because of something commentator Matt Walsh recently said on Xwitter.

Now he says “the decline can be measured,” but he doesn’t offer any evidence to support what he supposedly observes. If I walk outside my house and it’s snowing, I can say “It’s an empirical fact that it is snowing” to someone 1,000 miles away, and it would be true based on my observation of snowflakes falling from the sky.

But for Walsh to claim “everything in our day-to-day lives has gotten worse over the years” doesn’t really stand up under scrutiny. The quality of all that he lists has declined? How? In what way?

How has the quality of food gotten worse? I could spend the entire day and 10,000 words going through all the ways food is far better and superior to what it was 20, 30, and 40 years ago. One example: jarred spaghetti sauce. Here is a screen grab from a Ragu commercial in the early 80s:

Look at that slop. Does that look appetizing to you? Maybe not now, but at the time, what was basically ketchup with some spices was convenient for people who couldn’t afford to buy the ingredients to make homemade sauce or to dine out. People can still buy Ragu, but the quality has gotten better to keep up with the competition, though it is still a lower-end product. However, if someone wants good jarred sauce, this is an option:

The ingredients? Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Onions, Salt, Garlic, Basil, Black Pepper, Oregano. That’s it. Yes, a jar of this will cost nearly $7 at grocery stores, but the option is there. It is better. That is empirically true.

Making homemade sauce is easy, too, because ingredients such as crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and spices are very affordable for the average consumer (and don’t come at me with higher prices at the time because that is a different discussion entirely). People have access to an abundance of food choices like never before. Even the “store brand” items are typically made by the premium sellers. At Costco, they sell Kirkland coffee beans and ground coffee. Who makes it? Starbucks. Walmart has its Great Value and Equate brands. Any idea what the difference is between Tylenol and the Equate brand acetaminophen?

Branding. That is it. Yet, a 200-count bottle of 500mg extra-strength Equate costs $4.00, while a 100-count bottle of extra-strength Tylenol costs $11.00. Again, it is more accessible now to people than ever before.

In years past, a grocery store such as Pathmark had an entire aisle devoted to its “No Frills” items. This is what it looked like:

When they said no frills, they meant it. It was cheap, and it wasn’t very good at all, not like the store brands of today.

Now, Walsh likely has a point about traffic. With the increase in population and more people driving, it means more congestion, especially in urban areas, and it does suck. That said, traveling now, overall, is still much easier and better than it was 30-40 years ago. Cars last longer, can travel farther on a tank of gas, and people have more travel options. Yes, flying can be annoying because of TSA lines and cramped planes, but if people want to hearken back to a time when people were seated in gigantic seats with flight attendants serving steaks, then be prepared to pay $1,500 for a two-hour flight instead of $200. Andrea recently traveled to Washington state. It takes 5 hours to travel 2,500 miles and costs several hundred dollars for a round-trip ticket. That flight would cost $500 in the 80s, which is the equivalent of $1,500 today.

People can still buy and use the best if they want. But the reality is that better-quality products and services are now more accessible to many Americans than ever before.

I remember my former boss getting a 50-inch plasma television in the early 2000s, when they were becoming available to consumers. He paid $10,000 for a 720p television. The other day in Walmart, I saw a 75” 4K UHD television on sale for $400. My first HDTV was a 32” off-brand that I paid nearly $700 for in 2008. Now I have a 65” Samsung hanging on my wall that I spent less than $500 to get. Is a top-of-the-line Samsung available to me? Sure, if I had $7,000 to spend on it, but I don’t. But some people do, and they can.

I would like to see him expand on those thoughts. How can he possibly say an iPhone 17 is “drastically” worse than a first-generation iPhone? In what way? It’s almost nonsensical.

People keep talking about violent crime, and yes, there are plenty of examples of brutal crimes being committed. But again, look at the data. Take New York City, for example. In 2023, there were 391 homicides. Do you know how many homicides the city had in 1990? 2,245. The per capita rate in 1990 was 31 for every 100,000 people. In 2023, it was 5 for every 100,000, the same rate as in 1960. Here is a visual:

Age is certainly an issue. Walsh is only 40 years old, one of those millennials who came of age just as technology exploded in a way never seen before. In their teen years and in their adult lives, they’ve only known the best of everything, and so I guess to many of them it seems as if society is going downhill. You’ll see people posting photos such as this:

With smarmy comments like, “We used to have this.” What they don’t say is that people still can, if they want to live in a home like the one above, with maybe 1,000 square feet, an eat-in kitchen, a small living room, and maybe three tiny bedrooms and one bathroom—no air conditioning. No garage.

Too many people want a home like this:

When they may have to settle, for now, on a home like this:

But too many people don’t want that. They want a bathroom in every bedroom, square footage, a giant kitchen island, a big backyard for “entertaining”, and so on. But they’ll complain because a house like that is out of reach for them, and pretend there is a societal issue at play. Yes, housing is more expensive due to the pandemic, rising interest rates, and lack of supply. But the market will adjust. People will have to wait a few more years.

People like Walsh have become too accustomed to instant gratification. People want all the best stuff, want it now, and if they cannot, then it must be that the quality of what they have access to isn’t any good, or they act like things have gotten worse than what they were 10-20 years ago. However, there is no evidence to prove it.

I am open to anyone who agrees with Walsh to tell me why he is right. But such complaining as his has become commonplace for people in his age range and younger. If people cannot have it all now, then it must be getting worse. Or something.