Last modified on Fri 15 Jan 2021 05.02 EST This weekâs Upside comes to you from the past. Iâve been buried in the Guardian archive all week, looking for treasures from yesteryear. My rather facile thought was that if there is not much encouragement in the news at the moment, perhaps we can find some in the âoldsâ. The victory over fascism, the civil rights movement, the stunning rise in prosperity, longevity, health, the long struggle for womenâs rights ⦠Perhaps itâs only when you take the long view that you can see progress in all its varied forms. Despite everything, we must be grateful to be alive today, rather than, say in 1921, when disease, postwar trauma and nasty food made things pretty glum (life expectancy was about 50), or 1951, when prejudice and bigotry was still the rule, not the exception. Our current era is so maligned, and yet a child born today still has a better chance of leading a long, fulfilling, agreeable life than at any point in history.