These Days

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Too many people are stunned and indignant over what they think is suddenly happening “these days.” Teenagers are lazy, politicians are liars, popular music is disrespectful and the cost of living and business and raising a family is more expensive than it has ever been.

People sometimes do use the term in harmless ways like “I’m playing a lot more golf these days,” but those uses are usually framed in the context of a single lifetime.

It is unfortunate and much more common, however, for people to use “these days” to talk about a growing shadow of sin and repression or the dangerous moral inferiority of the current generation of youth.

For example:

• “Can we afford fun these days?” a Idaho Statesman reporter asks the richest society in the entire history of world.

• “Having a bad boss is more than an annoyance. It’s the main reason people leave their jobs. Increasingly, that’s a tough choice these days,” lies a writer for Forbes.

• “These days, (Mexico) is dealing with an unprecedented epidemic of drug use …” argues a bullshit USA Today story.

• “These days, the (Supreme) Court seems to find duly enacted laws unconstitutional six days a week and twice on Sunday,” says neocon Jonah Goldberg about one of the most conservative courts of the the last century.

• “It is an unfortunate risk these days to allow a young child to use a public restroom alone,” clucks a syndicated advice columnist.

I guess the people who go along with current event fears — such as the mass assurance that if the housing market doesn’t bottom out soon the entire stock market is going to implode — aren’t as bad as the others who think dishonor and ejaculation were discovered at the beginning of the Vietnam War.

This second group is even more likely than the first to believe that decadence is springing out of every bar, college and hip-hop song for the main reason that The Greatest Generation has made its stand and the rest of America chosen not to follow.

“These days, they don’t have clean old-fashion music like we used to,” they might say.

Or

“These days, I can’t believe what has become of the traditional family.”

Or

“Goddamnit, I guess these days you can’t round up and imprison thousands of Japanese Americans.”

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