and astute enough to recognize that EVERY SINGLE DECADE in history has good AND bad. In the thousands of years of civilized history, no single decade is free from having both good and bad, so it comes down to prevailing trends, general sentiments, and other factors that are used to weigh both and see where the ending balance is after weighing all that happened. It is just fine to acknowledge the bad in a decade while also saying that overall, things were pretty good because they were improving, better then previous decades, and overall pretty good, DESPITE the list of negative things also happening and occurring. Take the 1960s for example, the weight of good vs. bad in that decade decidedly comes down in the negative side and that was not what you would consider generally a pretty good, positive, and productive decade for our country...same with the 1970s...which is why the reversal of many negative trends in the 1980s, that continued into the 90s, is why they are considered more positive. Same with the 1950s, they followed the 40s and 30s which were overall pretty negative.