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Comment by tgv | Hacker News Reader

Too nonsensical to even consider.

The English indicator drops from 1914 to 1960. WW1? Great depression? WW2? Nah, that doesn't depress us. Cold war, nuclear threat? Life's great! 1980, the advent of word processors, more personal, psychological literature, and a linguistic style closer to the present? Now we're depressed!

It's beyond me how you can publish findings which are based on correlations with correlations, and validations which took place 100 year later, when other explanations aren't even mentioned.

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What do you mean? There are small effects for the depression and WW2. I would argue that the nuclear threat and the cold war really only started to have a significant impact on the overall psyche of societies after the 70/80s. The peace movements really only started in the early 80s (except for the opposition to the Vietnam war which is actually reflected in the record). The 50/60s were generally characterised by an broad optimism and believe in the future (look at all the things they thought we could do).

More generally you seem to dismiss the work largely because it does not match your preconceived notions of what should have been major effects. Maybe the question is to ask why they might not have. Or at least bring up evidence that they had a great impact on the language used.

I also wonder what the effect is of effectively a much richer/convenient overall population, and the ability to reach what is basically the top in the Maslows hierarchy of needs (self actualization) and how it maybe that many more people write about their mental states. The amount of coaches has boomed in the last decade!

From a US perspective, I think there are major differences between WWI/WWII and 1968/perhaps recent years.

In the WWs you had a society perhaps more structured and united for a common national and patriotic cause.

In 1968 (since it's mentioned) and perhaps in recent years you have a society that arguably is less structured and people having issues with society itself and the state of the country.

It also seems to me that it was during the 70s that the US started to feel that things and the country were going down.

I suppose there is a parallel in the UK, for instance. Things were hard during WWII but people came together and had a sense of purpose and of fighting for their homes.

But then factories close, you lose your job, inflation picks up, society changes... now you may perhaps really feel depressed.

Not really a fan of militarism, but WWII had a lot of people working alongside a lot of other people they wouldn't usually spend time with. And a desperate need to innovate new technology and new industrial and managerial processes. So there was unity in the face of a common threat.

Also, GI Bills allowed intelligent individuals to get an education without worrying about debt as well as discounted mortgages and business loans.

That need dissipated after the 60s and there was more emphasis on hedonism and competitive individual ambition. Then in the 80s competitive economic individualism started to dominate everything else.

The result was a classic race to the bottom - with a few extreme winners who are indulged and beatified, a productive but often hamstrung professional underclass, and a huge precariat of economic losers.

At the same time the media landscape started promoting division and tribalism for profit.

So now we have a dysfunctional culture which is unable to cope with challenges like Covid, gun violence, and climate catastrophe because it has been groomed to be more emotional than rational, and the tone has affected everyone from the top down.

> WWII had a lot of people working alongside a lot of other people they wouldn't usually spend time with.

To some extent, but the military was still segregated by race.

> So now we have a dysfunctional culture which is unable to cope with challenges like Covid, gun violence, and climate catastrophe because it has been groomed to be more emotional than rational, and the tone has affected everyone from the top down.

The arc of cultural history you describe seems spot on. But I don't think splitting between "emotional" and "rational" is useful or even the root of what you describe.

Emotion is a kind of reason too, only it yields affect. Much of what we reason out "emotionally" is the really important stuff - who we marry, whether to have kids, when to change jobs.

I'd rather say, if it's true, that the quality of emotive and positivist thought has been equally corroded. I think if you truly take on board the thrust of the Trilateral Commission's action on the "Crisis of Democracy", the attack on emotional literacy has been even more vicious, and vital to the their aims, than the so-called "dumbing down of education".

> From a US perspective, I think there are major differences between WWI/WWII and 1968/perhaps recent years.

The UK's literary output is probably also included among the English books of that period. It should show up, shouldn't it?

> But then factories close, you lose your job, inflation picks up, society changes... now you may perhaps really feel depressed.

Then it should go down in the 90s, right?

They paper says the English sample is from the United States of America, U.K. publications are presumably excluded.

Because “social sciences” aren’t science. These stories come up on HN and there’s always lots of smart left brain people trying to puzzle through this as if it’s not just based on reading tarot cards.

Do you include economics in this judgement?

Macroeconomics, yes, but they’re at least trying.

I had to think of my grand dad. As a (german) child he fled from war in his early childhood. Back in the days there was no psychological help for people like him. Going to a psychiatrist had the reputation of going to the madhouse and back in the 40's to 70's you really would not want to end up there. He and his whole generation never talked about what happened in war. There were some exceptions in literature but the tenor in the general public was to 'get on' and leave it all behind. Now his past is coming back at him and he tries to open up about it.

What I'm trying to say is: he never grew up with an accepting society or internet forums to easily find like minded people in anonymity. Publishing on a widely accepted and discussed topic seems more obvious than publishing on topics that are considered taboo. After WW2, germans discussed and published about the guilt of their parents. There was little room for compassion for those who "started war", but there was no room at all for those who suffered from it.

...when other explanations aren't even mentioned.

I did a quick "find in page" and "war" is mentioned 22 times.

it's entirely possible that those events didn't have the depressing effect you might expect. it's also possible that you're right

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