I'll try again (and might still fail): If I look at the 70s, e.g. watch a movie or a TV show that takes place in the 70s, or is even from the 70s, it feels like... the modern world for me. Yeah, fashion is whacky, technology was primitive, but overall it's actually "the modern world with whacky fashion and primitive technology".

When I read Ubik and the various decades before the 60s were described, it felt like different ages. The point about the pharmacy is not just the wood and brass and the medicine in jars, it's that the wood and the brass was made into intricate decor, including ornaments and statues, and that the pharmacist looked extraordinarily official.