It's not the same point. In the first comment I was responding to a direct and specific thing being an aspect of the culture before and not now (namely, corporate ethics).

I don't believe that specific thing was a part of the culture in the past any more than it is now.

(Other things, though, I do believe have been better back then and worse now, or present back then, and lacking now).

In my response to you, on the other hand, I responded to a more general thing. My objection was with the part of your comment that I quoted in my response ("There’s a strong case to be made that the recent past was less pleasant for, for example, women, blacks, same-sex attracted people, religious people from any number of denominations.")

That I see as orthogonal to the point the grandparent made, and wanted to address it as I think is a common fallacy people make when responding to comment's like the grandparent's.

The past could have (or not have) corporate ethics, regardless of the fact that women, blacks, etc had it worse in society.

So, to the grandparent I respond: "I don't think corporate ethics have ever been a strong part of US culture".

To you I respond: "I don't think whether some groups had it bad means that a previous era didn't also have aspects good for the whole of society that we might want to bring back. Pining for one such aspect (as the grandparent does, even if he is mistaken) is not the same as pining for every aspect of an era -- so whether some groups had it bad in other aspects then is not relevant to the specific aspect the grandparent pines for".

Still a little convoluted, but it makes better sense now, right?