Also, before you blame a vague "they" for a contemporary social norm or law or policy you think is bad, look up what the norm was before it. What did it replace?
"They created the 40-hour workweek to --"
QUERY: What was the average working-class person's weekly workload before the 40-hour workweek was standardized?
"They created credit scores to --"
QUERY: How did banks determine who was and wasn't worthy of a loan before credit scores?
"They promote bad media to --"
QUERY: What was the average working-class person's entertainment before this era of "bad" media?
"They invented schools to crush children's creativity and --"
QUERY: What was the average working-class child's daily life like before universal public schooling?
To be clear. Before someone accuses me of pissing on the poor.
I AM NOT SAYING "Stop opposing current social practices because Things Used To Be Worse, stop complaining about a 40 hour workweek because great-grandpa worked 90 hours a week uphill both ways in the snow --"
We should advocate a shorter workweek, actually! We should advocate abolishing credit scores, actually! We should advocate non-authoritarian schooling, actually!
But we should do it from a place of informed historical perspective that doesn't quickly become romanticizing the past and perpetuating the idea that Things Were Great Until They Took Over.
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