View from the Cheap Seats is an extension of the newsroom, which is frequently a site of heated debate on topics ranging from the extremely serious to the utterly ridiculous. This web edition features the views of print edition columnists Thom Barker (Wednesday) and Calvin Daniels (Saturday), as well as web exclusive content by Michaela Miller (Thursday) and Devin Wilger (Friday).
This week: In what historical era would you have liked to live.
Now and then
I honestly cannot think of an era I would more want to live in than our own.
Of course, that sentiment is also predicated on geopolitical circumstances. It was probably better, for example, to be a peasant in Rome during the Pax Romana, than it is to be almost anybody in Syria today.
Generally speaking, though, we currently have vast scientific knowledge, comparatively long life spans, relative wealth, unprecendented leisure time and, despite the seemingly endless folly of human conflict, we are living in the most peaceful time in human history.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of the exercise, if I had to live in another time, it would be somewhere near the middle to latter part of the Axial Age (approximately 800BC to AD200) would be my choice.
That time in human history is largely considered the beginning of modernity.
It was the period during which some of the greatest civilizations were developed in the far east (China) the middle east (India), the near east (Persia) and the west (Greece). Also in middle America, but since the former and latter were isolated from each other at the time, I would pick the so-called “old world” over the “new.”
In all of these places, there was an explosion of, science, technology, art, literature, philosophy and complex thought, much of which still resonates today.
I can only imagine that, like today, it would have been a very exciting time to be human. Provided, of course, you were a member of a privileged class and not, for example, a slave.
There is always a caveat.
-Thom Barker
I’m for less stress
I have to say that I frequently feel out of place with my generation. It is likely that you will find me in the company of people who are 40 years and older. Being in clubs, coffee shops and trendy fitness places with the millennial crowd makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Their worries and topics of conversation disgust me to no end. It makes me sad that this is the generation that is supposed to take the torch. How are we supposed to do that when most of us are looking down at our smart phones and cheating on our significant others? This is what makes me wish to live in a different era. And if I get to choose, I’d say the roaring twenties. Obviously I would choose this era because they were prosperous, but also because there were fewer people, cooler clothing and swing music. As a woman, the drawback would be that I stay home and can’t vote. I find cooking and cleaning to be healing though. Honest. Not in a spiritual healing sense, more in an organized brain kind of way. When my world around me is organized, I can relax. When I can make food with my own hands, I can relax. If the worries in my life were that of food, kids and a messy house I could rest easy at night. Men are welcome to the stress of business and office politics. Perhaps the only reason I can say this is because of the western society I was born into though. Women are expected to do everything now, from job performance to home ownership and back to traditional gender roles. This isn’t equality. I’d rather be in a time where I can enjoy life as opposed to stressed out about it.
-Michaela Miller
No time like the present
Why would I want to live anywhere but now? There is endless entertainment at my fingertips, the sum total of human knowledge can be accessed from a tiny device that sits in my pocket. I might like old music and old movies, but I wouldn’t want to be around when they actually came out – how easy would it have been to view my pet obsession, Japanese movies from the 1960s and 70s, when we didn’t have thousands of films cataloged and available online? My other hobbies, such as photography, are recent inventions, and while there are romantics who wax nostalgic about the magic of film I’m not one of them - I like digital, and it’s the best it has ever been at the moment. We can cure diseases now that were impossible to cure even decades ago, let alone centuries ago. We are able to become friends with people on the other side of the globe with little difficulty. It’s really great.
I can’t think of a single era that I would prefer living in. I’m incredibly nearsighted so I’d probably die in the majority of human history, so that leaves out any era before the invention of the eyeglass. I really like showers so let’s take out any era before the invention of running hot and cold water. I like not dying of communicable diseases so let’s rule out any era without easily accessed vaccinations. I find entertainment in video games, but the first game I consider still worth playing was made in 1985 – Super Mario Bros, for future reference – and by coincidence, that’s also when I was born. So really, I’ve lived in all the times I care about
Oddly, the future doesn’t look that interesting, because it sounds like it’ll be much less entertaining than the present for other reasons. Self-driving cars? I don’t even own a self-shifting car, let one never darken my driveway. People are starting to stoke the fires of hatred in order to get votes, look at the mess of Brexit and the mess going on right now south of the border. At some point climate change will have to be addressed seriously, and it’s likely that our wild technology party will be dialed back a bit as a result. I’ve already started to become suspicious of what the kids are into so it’s just a matter of time before I devolve into a curmudgeon and become less content with the world I live in.
Short version, the past was awful and the future looks worse, so this is the best era. I wouldn’t want to live at any other time.
-Devin Wilger
Looking ahead
What era would I most want to live in?
In preparing to write this, I came to a very quick realization, the answer, at least for me, is a moving target.
The era of interest changes over time, even with a day, based on current activities, or moods.
If for example, I were watching a documentary on vintage baseball, I would be longing to have watched Jackie Robinson in his prime, or Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris going at it for the home run crown.
At the role play gaming table it would be the time of Vikings, even though I do recognize the harsh realities of that era are a far cry from the ‘Hollywood’ view we tend to hold today.
And, on road trips I often think what it must have been like when the small towns that today cling precariously to existence were vibrant communities. Yes that one draws me often.
But we should not desire to live in the past, or at least that is a sentiment often bandied about.
So that leaves two choices, satisfaction with the here and now, which is not so bad when you think of life expectancy and the safety of our democratic Canada, or daydream a future era.
Now that tantalizes. A century from now what would I see? What might I experience?
Have we managed to destroy civilization through wars, or environmental disasters creating some scifi post-apocalyptic world? Probably.
But we might also have figured out racial tolerance. We might have stopped building tanks and land mines, and instead have created an amazing world of peace. Maybe we have even escaped to the stars. Imagine that for a moment and you will understand why I would look to a future era to live.
-Calvin Daniels
