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Do modern people enjoy a better lifestyle than people in the past did?

Romanticizing the past.

It’s tempting to click No, but the reality is, when I think if I’d like to not shower everyday, if I’d like waking up at 4 am to plow fields to eat, if I’d like being obliged to wear layers upon layers of clothes in 90 degree heat only because to show my arms would be considered indecent–when I really think about it, I realize that modern life is much more preferable. We are more comfortable, and yes, that leads to moral decline. But, that’s assuming that past generations were in fact morally superior to our own. This, I think, is romanticizing the past. Read any novel written in the 19th century and tell me that morality was really so much more intact, or that the same problems we have these days didn’t exist back then (moral issues, that is). In fact, I’d go so far as to say modern life is superior to the past in a moral respect, since, as in the past, anything considered taboo or morally offensive/transgressive was swept under the rug and kept quiet, these days, we’ve begun to talk about WHY people have such desires that are counter to our moral understanding of how things should work. In the past it just wasn’t talked about; these days it’s still a problem, but it’s KNOWN to be a problem. This awareness is part of the reason why people have no “respect for life,” I think–because, why should they? That’s not to suppose that there is no reason to respect life, but we seek a REAL answer, that is compelling for all, not just people of a certain religious inclination.