Hawaii was great until the haoles fucked it up. So was a lot of pre colombian america. And parts of pre colonization africa.
Just because Europe was shit doesn’t mean it was shit everywhere. Europe is pretty unique in that it has been total warring itself for over 2000 years straight. The streak ended in world war 2, but goes back to the bronze age.
Could those places I listed be improved by modern medicine and trains? Sure. Doesnt mean they were terrible.
Those areas are also wildly romanticized. Let’s not forget that one of the ways that some Europeans got established was by trading guns to indigenous people so they could go off and kill other indigenous people for their land.
The idea that we were warmongers was made up to justify stealing our land. Who was it that welcomed the colonists with open arms until they spat in our ancestor’s faces? Our stories talk about war parties going out and coming back home with zero blood shed. What conflicts we did have were extremely low intensity, we didn’t have the numbers for the horrific wars like the ones waged against us by the colonists.
Many of the tribes were nomadic, we didn’t have oil reserves to war over. We had hunting grounds and fishing spots and art, and just about everyone agreed that these things weren’t worth dying for.
Similarly in Australia there were a lot of symbolic battles that never resulted in serious injury or death.
That said I wouldn’t characterise pre-invasion Australia as great, most of the country is pretty fucking hard to survive in (let alone over 60k years of climate change)
There’s a reason most historical fiction focuses on nobles and land-owners. You can tell interesting stories about them, and modern people can sort-of relate to their lifestyles. If you told stories about the common people, modern people wouldn’t be able to focus on the story, and would get distracted by how brutal and awful their day-to-day lives were.
Now fairy tales, that’s where the brutality comes in. Ever heard of “The Death of the Little Hen” collected by the Grimm brothers? The last line is, I kid you not, “and then everyone was dead”. Gotta get those kiddos used to pandemics and family sized tombstones.
Ah the good ole days when children and infants were dying left and right, a splinter could mean a slow painful death by infection, and the local doctor prescribes drilling a hole in your head to release bad spirits
And the… non-WASPs knew their place. They loved it too in fact!
(I’m paraphrasing some actual things that actual people have actually said about the good old days (but I can’t remember their actual euphemisms (dysphemisms) for non-WASPs))
Was just having a conversation recently on whether things have always been this close to a complete existential crisis for humans or is the current global situation unique. Most people felt like things have always been bad but I still feel like, with everything going on in terms of global conflicts and climate change, things are uniquely, complexly and extremely bad on a global scale compared to the past.
Ugh. I totally get it. And I feel like my older family felt the same way about the Cold War. Like can you imagine sitting through Bay of Pigs listening for potential incoming annihilation?
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