We are constantly told by politicians, journalists and business experts that
we live in an era of unprecedented change — a dizzying period of
technological and geopolitical revolutions, in which every year brings some
new and astonishing upheaval for which our nervous, insecure societies are
totally unprepared. What nonsense.
Never in human history has life been more predictable, safe and stable — at
least for that large minority of the human race who live in the advanced
capitalist countries of Western Europe, North America and East Asia.
This thought overwhelmed me last week as I prepared a tribute for my mother,
who was born in Odessa in 1916 just before the Russian Revolution, and died
peacefully in London on March 31. Who would have imagined, in the terrible
and wonderful 20th century, almost all of which she lived through, that she
would end her days peacefully in her own home in London — surrounded by the
secure, comfortable family whose prosperity she had created literally from
nothing — instead of being carried off by the wars, famines, revolutions,
epidemics and state terrors that had dogged the first half of her life? And
how could we compare the small changes in our lifestyles caused by the
internet or Islamic terrorism or even the rise of China with the upheavals
that my parents lived through during their first decades of life?
Despite all the claptrap about the accelerating pace of change and
technological revolutions, most of our children’s lives are almost
indistinguishable from our own. They may watch widescreen DVDs when we only
had small black-and-white TV sets. They may chat via e-mails instead of
phones. They may use Google when we used Encyclopaedia Britannica
for our homework. They may play video games when we played pinball and go to
comprehensive schools of variable quality instead of grammars and secondary
moderns. But how can we compare these small steps of progress — or indeed
the regressions to barbarism in parts of the Middle East and Africa — to the
chasms of life experience between people who grew up in Europe in the first
and second halves of the 20th century?
In the years before she died, my mother used to retell a story almost
obsessively about her childhood. In the early 1920s post-revolutionary
Russia was gripped by famine after the destruction of private farming by the
Bolsheviks. My mother was walking with her father down the street in Odessa
when she saw a beggar crouching at the roadside. She asked her father for a
piece of bread, which they could ill afford to give away since money was
worthless and could hardly buy any food. As she put the bread in the man’s
outstretched hand, her childish curiosity could not resist the desire to
touch him. His hand was as cold and hard as stone. The man had starved to
death, his hand frozen in a dying gesture of supplication.
Almost everyone brought up in the early 20th century was haunted by some such
story — and many formative experiences were, of course, incomparably more
horrible than that. My mother herself had many narrow escapes. Her father
was a self-made businessman who became a wealthy oil trader before the First
World War. To escape the revolution he chartered a ship to take his whole
family to Italy, but just as they were setting off for the port, a business
associate phoned, promising to repay a large debt in gold. My grandfather
decided to wait and an hour later the gold was duly delivered — but by that
time the advancing Red Army had cut off the port, ending forever their hope
of escaping the Communist regime.
From that fateful moment onward the wild swings of destiny continued, with
postrevolutionary famines and epidemics, followed by returning prosperity
under Lenin’s New Economic Policy and the horrors of Stalin’s purges. For
several years my mother’s parents, as former bourgeois capitalists, had to
go into self-imposed exile in Siberia, leaving their children to be brought
up by their Italian nanny, Signora, the widow of a White general who had
been executed by the Bolsheviks before her eyes.
In the Second World War, however, my mother’s family were incredibly lucky,
having managed to squeeze themselves on to the second last train out of
Leningrad before the Nazis completed their encirclement of that “hero city”.
After that, as engineers and industrial managers, they all managed to avoid
conscription and contributed to the war effort with their brains rather than
their lives. Had they missed that train, they would almost certainly have
died of starvation, like their many relatives and friends who stayed behind.
For my mother’s generation, brushes with fate like this were taken for
granted. The life of her husband, my late father, was, if anything, even
more dramatic. Born on the Polish-Russian border in 1908, he lived as a
child through the First World War and managed to walk the 150 miles from
Warsaw to Bialystock just before the Germans invaded in September 1939, only
to find himself on the front line again when Hitler attacked Russia in 1941,
cutting off Bialystock on the very first day. Luckily for my father, who was
by then a successful pianist, he was on a concert tour in Uzbekistan when
Hitler launched his surprise attack. Unluckily, he had left his mother
behind. She would certainly have perished in the Holocaust, had my father
not somehow managed to bribe an army officer to find her in Bialystock and
smuggle her out across the German lines.
Such stories could go on and on — and in my family they often did, especially
when my irrepressible father was still alive. But the point I am trying to
make should be clear enough.
Compared with the upheavals of the early 20th century, the challenges we face
today — whether as families and individuals or as societies and nations —
are almost laughably trivial. Have psychologists who tell us that accident
witnesses need grief counselling forgotten about Holocaust survivors and
PoWs in Burma? Do environmentalists really believe that global warming is
the greatest threat ever faced by Western civilisation? Do judges understand
what they are doing when they extend doctrines of human rights to gay
adoptions? Can politicians honestly speak of terrorism today in the same
breath as the threat from Communists and Nazis to previous generations?
Anyone who makes such comparisons is insulting our intelligence, as well as
our courageous forebears.
I think western countries cuased a lot of trouble in world if we look in history.I think we live in most ambuguious times as ever when people live for one day and dont know what will happen after one year.There are more children growing up lonly and in adverse conditions that can make them a balanced and not sick human. Being from eastern countries, i just hope culture of east is saved from sickeness of western culture. I have lived in west, seen their lifes and mentle conditions, and feel sorry for them and for their abstract thinking and imgaginations about "third world" countries. I think sickness of western countries stem from their immoralities leading to less than ideal brought up of their children. I used to think not to reveal these things and let western people dream on in thier imaginative artificial world feeling good by dreaming they are in better condition than eastern countries, so that to let people stay hopeful, but western people dont derserve it due to shame history.
tapani, Copen Hagen,
Anatole, spot on. So many of the problems we face today are precisely because of the lack of this historical perspective. Today, no President can afford to be accused of lack of vigiliance in protecting the population from any and every conceivable risk no matter how trivial in comparison with the horrors of the last century. Hence, the war in Iraq and its unlikely companions, the twin hysterias right and left, illegal immigration and global warming. With Depression-era economic ruin seemingly behind us, Hitler defeated, the Cold War and its threat of massive thermonuclear exchange ended by more accomplished generations, we in the West, untested to the degree they were, are left with little else to do but stare fretfully at our own navels, imagining cataclysms.
John Rogitz, San Diego, CA
This is a great article on the toughness of humanity and the importance of family. The real threat to the world today is radical Islam and not "man-made" global warming. The West (the USA and UK...not the worthless French, Germans and Spanish) must stand up and fight for free expression and representative government against the totalitarian bent of the radical Muslims. I believe there are millions of Muslims afraid to speak up for democracy due to the fear of violence. We must stand up for what we believe in and defend those Muslims as defenders of freedom. We must also have the guts to destroy the radical elements that stand in the way of freedom.
Fred, Kansas City, MO, USA
Compliments for this article. In the next one, to make it more understandable for tremendous journalists and columnists, the author might explain the difference in existential threat between some Talibans with old guns and some RPGs, waging guerilla today several 1.000 miles away, and 30 Panzerdivisions 1.000 meters off your own border like in 1939.
walli, Elche, Spain
Thank you for giving a balanced and rational view in your article. I think the un-sensationalism itself is indeed sensationalist. Might we see headlines from other commentators 'Kaletsky Doesn't Distort Facts!!' or 'Inquiry into Un-sexy Facts-based Article' ?
We do certainly live in relatively peaceful times in the West and many parts of Asia - Vietnam is going commercial and opening up, as is China, Cambodia is rid of the Khymer Rouge, Korea and Taiwan are in continued negotiations with their neighbours and the US (unlike our own IRA just a few short decades ago). In the middle East there seems to be some civility born of self interest which could be lasting (we all hope).
On the issue of GW (that's Global Warming not Bush ha ha) it looks as though every country in the industrialised world is looking at ways to cut down on CO2 emmisions, and alternative energy is looking more and more financially attractive. Gay adoptions - Why not give it a try? (not you personally!)
Justin, Wuhan, China
Rather, I think our age is potentially turbulent. The end is nigh.
Ludwig, Vienna, Austria
I have been reading your articles regularly and am nearly always in agreement with what you have to say.
Whilst I agree with you that the suffering of significant number of Europeans during the first half of the century was truly horrific, I feel it is wrong to talk about today's challenges as 'laughably trivial' and to minimize the impact of terrorism on ordinary, decent, lives.
My husband, Michael, was murdered by Saudi terrorists linked to Al Qaeda on 29th May 2004 and I can assure you that his death and my subsequent grief are in no way 'trivial'. I have to get through each day with a courage I did not know I possessed and I think you insult my intelligence and the intelligence of others in similar situations by minimizing and demeaning our suffering, compared to that of previous generations.
Penelope Hamilton, RYE, Sussex
Kaletsky's point is well-taken-- if one's perspective is focused on _Europe_. The extraordinary suffering, turbulence, violence and misery that Europe endured in the 20c continues today for that vast majority of humanity that doesn't live in Europe, North America or Japan.
Kaletsky and his peers should spend some time in a Rio shantyville or a Mumbai slum. Or for that matter, in a Moscow orphanage. Our age needs its own Dickens to report on the extraordinary cruelty and misery that goes on beneath the shining surface of our "emrging markets" (not to mention the submerging ones).
thibaud, san jose, california
When talking about global warming and how bad things are today you should consider two things:.
One: global warming of 1000 AD (which was warmer than today) caused a significant population increase and prosperity. Global cooling which followed caused mass starvation and ushered in the bubonic plague which killed a third of Europe.
Two: The advent of Automobiles and the introduction of sewer systems for the large cities significantly decreased to airborne diseases like turberculosis caused by open sewage and horse manure in the streets. It must have been fun walking in a street full of horse manure and next to an open sewer.
I'd rather live today than at any time in history.
Bill Roberts, Annandale, VA
Britons' failure to realise how terrible Europe's past was is that by and large they were spared the worse horrors. British casualty rates in both World Wars were relatively low. They were never subjugated by a foreign occupier or forced into compromising collaboration. Some nations had to bend first to the Nazis and then to the Soviets. Civilians suffered as much as soldiers.
With a bit of help from geography, Britons steered clear of much of this, so small wonder they don't find today all that more peaceful and safe. It was never that bad.
Marcus Ferrar, Geneva, Switzerland
It is of course important to make a distinction between Europeans, and UK residents. Clearly Mr Kaletsky's brave family suffered a very turbulent first half of the 20th century. But for most UK families, other than the peripheral points he notes, life in the first half of the century was remarkably similiar to the second. Other than the destruction of our educational system over the last 40 years, that is...
Michael, The Wirral, , UK
What looking back at 1907 tells us is that our future will probably be determined by the unexpected. In 1907 the world looked relatively benign. The Kaiser visited Windsor. Hitler was rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Stalin attended a meeting of the Russian Democratic Party in London. Mao went to school. All was well, or so it seemed.
Charles, London, England
To John Small: Why was the Permian Extinction a result of a massive release of greenhouse gases? I could not find that cause anywhere. Most think it was 'glaciation' or 'large astreroid impact'. Is there any record anywhere of a large release of greenhouse gases? Are you saying that someone can actually tell that there was a large release that long ago?
I think your statements emphasize the silliness of the 'global warming hysteria' that is going on.
Tom Hinks, Greenfield, USA/Delaware
I was enjoying your article right up the question about whether "judges understand what they are doing they extend doctrines of human rights to gay adoptions?" You have lost me? What on earth could you mean? That children are better off in state institutions than with loving human being who want to provide for the needs of children? Do you understand that gay and lesbian people often adopt the most needy and challenged of our orphan children? To use your own words:
"Anyone who makes such comparisons is insulting our intelligence..."
Mari Engelhardt, Lorain, Ohio
I really agree with this article. The world is getting better in so many ways, not worse.
The world is so much more peacful than it used to be.
Matthew A Clarke, Worcester, Worcestershire
A fine article, yet why on earth did you have to stick in a broadside on gays? It seems that no matter what the topic, conservatives need to at some point to say something against gays. No, gay adoption is not of the same imporatance as what you mention, but it's still important, but basically irrelevant to what you are talking about.
Do we always have to be a punching bag? That one sentence ruined the entire article for me.
Pal, Minneapolis, MN
Since time in memoriam people have judged personal suffering in their lives on the then, here and now and in so doing have prayed for a better future which is frequently outside their control.
As there can be no historical comparison of the present day under a Universal Index of Suffering the present is no better or worse than at any time in history it just depends on personal moments in time and destiny – as an acid test ask the Darfur refugees their opinion.
Michael H, Phuket, Thailand
"...extend doctines of human rights to gay adoption..."
I believe this refers to the characterization of the modern adoption issue as one involving "human rights" as compared to previous human rights struggles of the 20th, and earlier, centuries. Say, execution of gays by the Nazi's. The constant invocation of the term "human rights" has eroded much of its meaning.
Tim Lutz, Cary, NC
David sands,
Appalling and barbaric would be stoning gays, as is done in Islamic countries.
Refraining from permitting gays to adopt (and other singles, for that matter) is sound protection of what marriage and families have been understood to be about since the birth of western civilization.
Frank, Alexandria, VA, US
I agree with 99% of your article. The other 1% is very scary. We have an enormous 5 th column of Muslims living all over the World. If a psychopath such as the President of Iran abtains an atomic device, I feel sure he will use it. He has said he will, and when a nutjob with a bomb speaks-listen. Hitler had Mein Kampf, no-one listened. This is still the most popular Western book in the Middle East. Fore warned is fore armed. However I believe this time also, nobody is listening. I suppose dumb luck will have to do.
Desmond Taylor, Houston, USA Texas
The Permian extinction was caused by eruptions of volcanos in present-day Siberia that lasted about one million years. The volcanic region covered over 200,000 square miles. At that time, today's continents formed the single supercontinent Pangaea. In other words, the extinction was caused by a large mass of volcanos bellowing smoke for one million years.
Once again, environmental scare-mongers are tripped up by facts. Yes, get a grip, John.
Ross, Alexandria, USA / Virginia
Anatole, you make an excellent point, one which we could all bear thinking about in depth.
Today politicans bleat on about context. If they extended the context of suffering to the period and places you discuss, our trials and tribulation peter out into mild annoyances at best.
Great piece.
Andy McCaughtrie, Peterborough,
"...extend doctines of human rights to gay adoption..."
Do I understand you correctly in that you disapprove of gay adoption rights? If so I find your opinion appalling and barbaric.
David Sands, London , UK
I thought "politician" was an insult to intelligence.
KR, Stockport,
There are some very good points made in Kaletsky's article. The mindless scaremongery about the climate change is lacking in historical perspective, and positively dangerous to human prosperity.
William Hagerup, London, England
It was certainly a traumatic century, but I suggest you are making a rather misleading comparison.
Think of how the world might have looked in 1907 and then compare it with how the world looks today. I do not think anyone in 1907 could have predicted what lay ahead, within just a few years. And I do not think they would have seen as much danger in their world as we see in our's today. Indeed, many would probably have felt that they were living in a golden age of peace, prosperity and human advancement.
ps. Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907, which says much about the spirit of those times.
Charles, London, England
Although the general thrust of the article is sound, Kaletsky makes a common mistake in missing the main point about terrorism in the 21st century. The reason it is so dangerous is the potential use of chemical, biological or even nuclear material in a terrorist attack. If such an attack succeeds anywhere in the West , the mindsets of many commentators will change overnight.
arnoldo, Coventry,
Listen Up! Just a 5C rise will cause hundres of millions to die via famine & war. Its not the 5C that kills us - its the associated famine and upheaval. The Russian famine will be a picnic by comparison. But relax - it wont be until 2117.
Andy Sims, Wookingham, UK
Agreed, Anatole - but it's through this obsession with solving these challenges that we have arrived at this golden age, and in the same vein, how we will look back in 100 years time aghast at the inconveniences suffered during the early 21st century.
Future generations will be horrified that their forebears were willing to take a quantifiable risk on the future of mankind for the sake of short-term economic growth.
Mark, Woking, UK
The first half of the 20th century was certainly a very turbulent one for Europeans. Let's not forget, however, that for numerous people around the world such upheaval still continues. The stories of Anatole Kaletsky's parents could be told many times over by Iraqis, for example. An Iraqi born in the 1970s, for example, would have lived through a dictatorship, a very bloody war with Iran, the Gulf War and now complete political and social meltdown, I'm sure such a person could tell some hair-raising stories to rival Mrs Kaletsky's.
The point made about keeping our worries in perspective is a good one but we should remember to keep it in perspective not just in relation to the past but in relation to people who are currently suffering as well.
MB, Edinburgh,
John Small - get a grip.
Harry, Lawson, Manchester
"Do environmentalists really believe that global warming is the greatest threat ever faced by Western civilisation?"
Read up on the Permian Extinction, caused by (or so it seems, from this distance it's hard to tell) a massive release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which raised the temperature to levels which killed 99% of life on Earth. Then tell us that global warming is no big deal.
John Small, Faversham, UK
I think this all depends on perspective. Mr Kaletsky comes from an Anglo-Euro perspective - most of the upheavals were in the early part of the century underlined by the brutal Great War and the inhumanity of the Second War.
I see this from the perspective of the Anglo-African. One grandfather left what appears to have been a feudal existance in rural England, just in time for the Boer War. The other served in the Great War.
However, I've escaped the ravages of crime in South Africa firstly to England and now to Australia. Many havn't. Forced migration isn't a pleasant experience in any age. I can tell stories of hazardous military service. Those with low impact value in the Western media will also disagree with Mr Kaletsky. Millions of Rawandans for example whose suffering is just as poignant and relevant as Mr Kaletsky's forebears. How about the unfortunate Iraquis and Iranians killed in crazy wars since the '80s.
Relativism between ages is a hazardous persuit.
AngloAfrican, Sydney, Australia
Tell that to 650,000 Iraquis, Mr Katletsky. Go to Darfur. Out of sight out of mind.
Oxforddon, Oxford, UK
There are two strands to your article - the general level of prosperity and the catastrophic transformation of the latter by war. The general level of prosperity has improved beyond the imagination of people even 50 years ago, eg Macmillan’s early 1960s, ‘You’ve never had it so good’, thanks to the colossal increase in technological knowledge and productivity allowed by computerisation. This can’t really retrograde. On the other hand, the spectre of war - the violent interface between competing material interests - remains, and it is that, it’s effects, which your article is actually describing. The 20th century experience was of a type that the governing class responsible did not foresee but to which it remained nonetheless committed. With a world population closing on it’s viable limit and the hugely increased and unbalanced consumption of resources, you don’t need to be Isaiah to see what may be just around the corner. Even if you belong to the ‘I’m all right Jack’ school, you can afford to be cautious, because as we saw in the last century, smart people in high places can get it disastrously wrong.
Henry Percy, London, UK
I am not entirely sure what point Old Atlantic (?!?) is trying to make, but I feel it must be worth noting that the genetic survival of native Americans is already essentially zero and that the 300 million who's genes are apparently doomed to irradication are themselves descended from a rather more aggressive wave of immigrants. Immigration is NOT a dirty word.
In a desperate attempt to return to the article, I would like to mention that we are only 7 years into this century so it would seem a little harsh to write it off as a cushy number already. I'm no history buff but I get the impression that if you lived in Britain the first 7 years of the 20th century weren't all that terrible either.
Dave, Worthing, England
A very partial view indeed, so particular as to have no relevance to the UK at all. Here the skill of reading is eroding, moral sense decaying, democracy going, the clash of civilizations in full swing - the changes are just different that's all. Take off the refugee spectacles!
Blackstone, Banbury,
"I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill and pay mill owner permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah" And you try and tell the young people of today that..they wont believe you.
Mr Kaletsky, try living as a young person in a world with no moral absolutes, with political nihilsm, the emptiness of old men able to patronise you from on high with their inherited wealth and tax advantageous income. Go back to the Victoran Age where you belong sir
Tony , Yorkshire,
"I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill and pay mill owner permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah" And you try and tell the young people of today that..they wont believe you.
Tony , Yorkshire,
The same upheaval is also true from the point of view of technological change during the 50 years spanning the year 1900. The world went from a mostly agricultural to a technological, city-focussed society. Think of all the inventions we have now - telephone, radio, automobiles, aircraft, etc. that didn't exist in 1875 and did in 1925. My mother saw her first car, first airplane, first telephone. The list goes on and on. My children have seen the only progressive innovation and development of those primary inventions. The turn of the 21st century saw nothing compared to the turn of the 20th century.
Garry Jantzen, Edinbugh, UK
Excellent. We need to put our lives into historical perspective. My grandfather's family were also from Odessa and were slaughtered by the Cheka. He only escaped because, at the time, he was fighting with the White army. His world was one of incredible suffering, a bloody civil war, exile in the Balkans before settling in England.
I cant help thinking he would be exasperated at our cosseted self-absorbtion.
george, Cape Town,
Well, Mr Kaletsky, I hardly must remind you it is only 7 years into our century so you ought to have taken stock of the world until 1907 to be fair to Twenty first and the Twentieth century. Most of us are not sufficiently short-sighted not to have noticed a mass of black clouds gathering on the West's horizon. If we seem too hysterical to you at present, it is because we have taken stock of those dark looming possibilities which may gradually engulf us and bring our well-orgainsed and prosperous existence to nought. Oh, how I would wish you had a definitive proof it is only our collective neurosis that is responsible for our pessimistic attitudes. Please accept my commiserations, by the way.
Jerzy Wawro, Sydney, Australia
not bad man innit
mr man, beijing, pissoff
My great grandfather, who lived to be nearly a hundred and who I knew as a little boy was a foot-soldier in the Army of the Czar. Perhaps ignobly he decided to desert at sometime during the first world war. Then he made his way the several hundred miles across various borders and front lines to the coast where he got a ticket to NYC. It is amazing what a person can do when there's no alternative.
I can't say it's necessarily a good feeling but one doesn't ask whether something is possible. It has to be possible.
As to the subtext - "To complain or not to complain?" I had a friend who was a psychoanalyst who would often tell me that studies indicated those who did not
"get their problems off their chest" had better outcomes.
However the word "whinge" is not known in American English, and "queue" as well, is rarely used, which is to say patience is a virtue of the gods and we are but humble mortals, mostly...it seems.. kinda
Glenn Schaefer, Holbrook, Ny USA
Immigration is actually a bigger conflict at biological level. Take US and suppose pop is level at 300 (all in millions). People live 75 years so 4 die per year. If 2 immigrants per year, then 4-2 leaves 2 births per year. We take 2 births over 4 deaths and get 1/2 as the genetic survival ratio. 25 years birth to death, so in 75 years you have 1/8 the starting genes. At start of century fertility above replacement, now its below.
Even if pop went to 450 and immigration was 1 per year, one has 6 deaths per year, so 5 births. So 5/6 is survival ratio per 25 years. Still get to zero.
Old Atlantic, Atlantic City, NJ
Excellent write up !! It was very touchy and poignant . Gone are the days , of our forefathers and grannies, who would narrate the stories and anecdotes of the Wars, large scale famine and exodus . Life was very harsh and brutal, though simple in its literal sense. My grand ma would tell the horrifying incidences of pre-independence wars, partitioning of Indian sub continent and massive genocides. Strange enough, though our life is hectic and complex ,we are living in a very civilised society with all comfort zones, having communication done at the click of a button. Our Gen-next are attuned to high tech gizmos, i-pods, mobile phones, internet sufring , branded products ,which in turn diminishes their innner strength to endure and cope up with the state of deprivation and austerity. My young teenage daughter could hardly visualise the hardships endured by our ancestors.She would shirk and Oops!!! at the extent of simplicity and unpretentious life styles of the yesteryears.Yeah!!
Sandy, New Delhi, India
How do we measure human suffering? From the travails of a family of a Tsarist capitalist caught up in the European wars of the last century? Or from the travails of an Iraqi mother who has had a daughter kidnapped on the way to school, raped, held for ransom and returned with her head missing, who has had her front door kicked in at dead of night by American goons, her meagre possessions rummaged through and pilfered by mid-west small-town Army thugs, her husband taken away with a black hood over his head, never to be seen again, her teenaged boy shot dead in the street because he was carrying a schoolbag which the American yobs thought was a bomb? Tell me, Mr Kaletsky, I would dearly love to know.
Sarbo Sen, Calcutta, India
Brilliantly written, but in my opinion optimistic rather than realistic. We should not forget that World War I started at the end of an exceptionally long period of European peace. WWI ushered in the century of turmoil.
Can we be so confident that Islamic terrorism will not escalate?
As for climate change, dismissing it is controversial to say the least!
Nick, London, UK
Your mother will be in my prayers.
Surely the big change is that our children's lives are similar to our own. Apart from computers and allied gadgets, the rest of technology is hardly changing. The street scene in 1907 was completely different to the one in 1957, the 1957 scene, with its cars and asphalt roads and electric lights, quite familiar to the 2007 child.
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
Apart from an attempt to impose a weird set of values in the name of "political correctness" (how George Orwell would have loved that term!) on modern society, the metroliberal Establishment seems to have lost all sense of proportion.
Thank you for restoring it in your penetrating comparative analysis.
Gervas Douglas, Andorra la Vella, Andorra
"most of our children’s lives are almost indistinguishable from our own".
Do they really? Wait till the effects of global warming kick in seriously.
And what about the lives of the millions in Darfur, Rwanda, Somalia, Iraq, Tcechnya, Kossovo, etc.?
Or doesn't that concern the "large minority"?
Bill, Bristol, UK
Reading this brilliant piece makes me think a lot of us just whine too much, and for nothing. I, too, had my experiences, growing up as a young man, during WW II in the Philippines when it was invaded by the Japanese Imperial Army. I can see parallels in those two wars (Europe and Asia), with senseless killings and rapes of women, and it took two atomic bombs to end the war in my part of the world.
Now we are confronted with another war, sporting a new face, and I find spineless the timidity of most Europeans in facing this new danger. We need to relearn the lessons of history, or we face the risks of reliving the days Mr. Kaletsky and his family went through.
R. G. Lacsamana, Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
1907 did not indicate what future would be ... So, 2007 does not indicate the future and there are ideologies like Islamism that are able to change our lives very much and not for better ..
Gregory, London, UK
While true from a western-centric point of view, upheavels of the scale you talk are still ongoing in the 21st century. If you lived in Darfur, or Congo, or Zimbabwe for instance, you may not take such a benign view of this century.
G, London,
Sorry to hear about your mother.
Paul, Ashford, Kent
Very much enjoyed this article. Made me feel bad for the things I'm constantly worried about. Explain's Anatole's present day optimism too maybe. No wonder he tells us not to worry about the housing market !
Paul, Ashford, Kent
You are right, time is definitely not as turbulent for western world today as it was in the early 20th century. Though sadly it is not nonsense that the conditions are either equally bad or worse in many parts of the world even today. Try it with people in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Iraq and you get the answer. Yes time is turbulent, may be not for you and I, but it is the case with many like you and I. There is no denying about this!
Gulfam Zahoor, Lahore, Pakistan
Well said!
Anthony Price, TRURO,
Anatole, I would just like to convey my sincere commiserations to you over the recent passing away of your Mother. Regards, and thanks for your many excellent articles.
Errol Flynn, Chester, England
Amen! We have become so soft and spoiled and downright ridiculous in our foot-stomping, infantile demands.
deb, kenosha, US
Being from Iranian and Russian heritage, I too am familiar with such stories. My Great Grandfather and Grandmother escaped revolutionary Russia and Stalinist Russia respectively. Only to live through the Iranian revolution and the Iran/IRaq war.Thankfully my parents moved to London in '79. Giving me the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of the western world from birth.
Three generations, two revolutions, three wars. That's just my family. The upheavals of the 21st century certainly pale in comparison to those of the 20th.
Brilliant article, the best I've read on Times Oline.
Houtan, London,
"Do judges understand what they are doing when they extend doctrines of human rights to gay adoptions?"
Wonderful article up until this line. I am unsure how extending human rights to the ability of gays and lesbians to adopt is anything but positive. Perhaps it is not as significant as earlier extensions of human rights, but I believe that it is a testament to these earlier struggles that we are now free to extend rights of a more trivial nature to those who once had none.
Shannon, Toronto, Canada
A wondefully well written article - until the last paragraph. I have no doubt for Western Europe today is a far less turbulent time - but in what way does that link to the threat to the environment, gay adoptions, fear of terrorism and the need for grief counselling? Is the argument that these things are so 'trivial', we should not be making a 'fuss' about them? Why not? We clearly have so little else to worry about!
Matt, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC