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Happiness


Stallard12

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It's been a fairly sad 12 months for me personally, but the question was

Is the world a happier place
, and I don't think it is.

 

War, illness, poverty, care of the elderly, prospects for the young. None of these have got any better over the years, so in that respect it's all rather sad. :|

 

However, it's not all bad, United supporters are much happier than they were 40 years ago. :D :grin:

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In 1972 I was still at school. Looking back the 70s were dull and often a bit grim.

 

I think there was still an over-deference to authority, including Doctors (who were regarded , by many, as bring as infallible as the pope), teachers,the local vicar (of course he wouldn't do that to him/her :shock: * ) and even local councillors.

 

Being questioning of authority, without being abusive or aggressive, is a good thing, they are there for us, not the other way around.

 

Are we less happy or just less content to put up with things?

 

There was far more open bigotry then - my home town had a virtually non-existent ethnic minority population yet many people still seemed to hate them in the abstract. In the absence of ethnic people or even those of non-christian faith, my mother managed to find disparaging things to say about catholics. Some people are still just as determined to identify groups as being other than them to feel superior to to blame for the world's problems.

 

I know some people think PC has gone too far but surely we don't want to go back to a time where signs would go up in cafes or guest houses saying "no blacks" or where it seemed okay to build a pub without bothering to have a ladies toilet as happened in my home town in the 1970s, just to clarify 1970s NOT 1870s.

 

On a global level I am not sure if the world is a less happy place or we are not just more aware of the unhappiness that is out there. if that is the case then it is no bad thing.

 

* no , not from personal experience.

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Well! I thought I was Happy until I read Nick's post! :unsure:

 

Happiness is a relative mental condition, if your circumstances change for the better you may be happier than you were before, if your circumstances change for the worse you will most certainly be less happy, there again you may be happy with the result of a situation you find yourself in, though unhappy about the way you have arrived at that situation.

 

Define happy and unhappy. :blink:

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You may have extracted the essence of the question right there Gary. There were no worries about teenage riots, internet porn, classroom violence, 'activists' etc. I guess that soccer hooigans were getting close though.

 

No riots in the 1970s - 1976 Notting Hill, Southall 1979 to name but two - not to mention it being a national sport in Northern Ireland.

 

What is the problem with "activists" per se - change can be good and activism helps brings that about.

 

 

(One good thing about the 1970s was that "Tea Party" meant a pleasent way to spend an afternoon on the vicarage lawn - not a bunch of dodgy, and in some cases borderline headcase, politicians :blink::D )

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You ain't working your on here, unless you work for big G which then means that you probably are working. :mellow:

 

forty years ago I was a teenager with nothing more on his mind than getting four lots of homework done before Friday and getting out for a kick about with the lads who never seemed to get homework. Such is a grammy school education for you.

 

The only people who had mobile phones were the "BT" engineers when they were delivering them to somebody's house. A playastation consisted of a cardboard box or a tree house in the woods.A personal organiser was a pencil and a diary if you were one of the posh kids.

 

We could wander the streets until all hours without fear of getting mugged or beaten up.(unless you encountered a rival gang and that was more like handbags at twenty paces than anything). Parents never seemed to worried that we would go out at first light and not return until the witching hour and a wander up from bewsey through burtonwood and as far as the St helens end of sankey valley was something that was all in a days play.

 

yes we were happy but cannot say that we were any happier than kids today, just more innocent and less "worldly wise"

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