The Grim Old Days. By Chelsea Follett. Cato Institute(美国自由市场智库卡托研究所); 536 pages; $25.95
《严峻的旧时光》。切尔西·福莱特著。卡托研究所出版；536页；25.95美元。
Many people yearn(渴望；怀念) for the good old days(过去的美好时光). In a global Ipsos poll, respondents given a choice of being born half a century ago or now picked the past by nearly two to one. A startling(令人震惊的) number think even the distant past was not so bad: in a YouGov poll, 40% of Britons were unsure that life was worse in the 1600s. Anti-capitalists on social media grouch(抱怨；发牢骚) that workers in Amazon warehouses are more oppressed(受压迫的) than feudal farm labourers. “You have less free time than a medieval peasant,” and this is “frankly outrageous(令人无法容忍的)”, complained one on X.
许多人都怀念过去的美好时光。在一项全球益普索民调中，受访者需要在“出生在半个世纪前”和“出生在现在”之间做选择，结果选过去的人几乎是选现在的两倍。认为遥远的过去也没那么糟的人多得惊人：在YouGov的一项民调中，40%的英国人说不准17世纪的生活是否更糟。社交媒体上的反资本主义者抱怨说，亚马逊仓库的工人比封建社会的农场劳工受压迫更甚。有人在X上抱怨道：“你的空闲时间比中世纪农民还少”，这“简直令人无法容忍”。
P.J. O’Rourke, an American satirist(讽刺作家), once offered a one-word rebuttal(反驳；驳斥) of paean(赞歌；颂歌)s to the pre-industrial past: “dentistry”. Chelsea Follett, a scholar at the Cato Institute, a free-market think-tank in Washington, expands on this incisive(犀利的；一针见血的) quip(妙语；俏皮话). The poor in pre-modern Europe ate cheap bread made by crooked(不诚实的；弯曲的) bakers with grit(砂砾；粗砂), chalk, animal bones and other tooth-chipping hazards(硌牙的危险物). The rich had sugar but no toothpaste. Queen Elizabeth I(英国伊丽莎白一世女王) lost so many teeth that she stuffed her mouth with fine cloth to stop her cheeks from sag(下垂；松弛)ging. The ones that remained were famously black.
美国讽刺作家P.J.奥鲁尔克曾用一个词反驳对前工业时代的赞美：“牙科”。华盛顿自由市场智库卡托研究所的学者切尔西·福莱特对这一犀利妙语做了展开。前现代欧洲的穷人吃的是黑心面包师用砂砾、白垩、动物骨头和其他硌牙杂物做成的廉价面包。富人则有糖吃，却没有牙膏。伊丽莎白一世女王掉了太多牙，以至于用细布塞住嘴巴，防止脸颊凹陷。她剩下的牙齿以黑著称。