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The song thing is interesting. There are a ton of songs about getting screwed over by the opposite sex, and a lot of songs about the hope of love happening in the future...but you're right. Not a lot of songs about love right now.
Except for everything Darius Rucker has put out in the last few years. And boy is that getting old.
Lol sorry, I just couldn't resist sending a few examples of modern / contemporary love songs, by various artists
I always get a kick out of people who "know" what life was like in the 50's even when they were born in the 80's. How do they know. Well, they learned it in school. Trust me, you have no idea what life was like in the 50's. In middle America, the streets were far safer. We never locked the doors to our house, and my dad would get mad if someone took the keys out of the car. In fact, we had to all hunt for the house key when we went on the trip cause no one knew where it was. One lady told me that on hot nights in the city of Milwaukee, people used to sleep out in the parks. It was perfectly safe. I don't think anyone would try such a thing today.
The biggest problem in schools, according to teachers was more like things like gum, chewing, not weapons, drugs. In my graduating class of 450 in 1971, there was only one girl who got pregnant. (And this is before the pill or legal abortion.) So yes, life was much different. The "progress" of the last 40-50 years means a much different world, but not much for the better. Are people happier today. I don't think so. In fact, a recent survey indicated that women were becoming increasingly unhappy with their lives. So much for "progress."
People can learn about what the fifties were like from talking to their older relatives. Others have already pointed out the pill was out long before 1971, and that girls disappeared if they were pregnant. In the fifties mindset, which my parents somewhat subscribed to, the most important thing to occur if a girl became pregnant, is that no one find out...this came before the welfare of the teen mom or the welfare of the baby.
I'm sure there was much to like in the fifties, depending on who you were. As another poster pointed out though, if you weren't white, life wasn't quite so rosy. It seems to me that much was swept under the rug though to give the illusion life was great.
I'm not religious, but I agree with the general idea here. Religion (and the restrictive sexual "rules" it imposed) served an important cultural purpose in promoting monogamy, and monogamy is the glue that holds western society together.
I think the rise in single motherhood is the single biggest evidence of our crumbling society.
In that there are a lot of pregnancies and births outside of marriage or that women can keep and raise the child outside of the institution of marriage?
People can learn about what the fifties were like from talking to their older relatives. Others have already pointed out the pill was out long before 1971, and that girls disappeared if they were pregnant. In the fifties mindset, which my parents somewhat subscribed to, the most important thing to occur if a girl became pregnant, is that no one find out...this came before the welfare of the teen mom or the welfare of the baby.
I'm sure there was much to like in the fifties, depending on who you were. As another poster pointed out though, if you weren't white, life wasn't quite so rosy. It seems to me that much was swept under the rug though to give the illusion life was great.
My parents were both in college in the late 50s, and my mom (and my dad, too) would always tell me and my sisters how lucky we were to be born when we were, because my mom had only the options of studying to be a secretary, nurse, or teacher in school.
Yesterday was Julia Child's 100th birthday, and in reading how intelligent and methodical she was in developing and testing her recipes, it made me wonder what she could have accomplished if a woman of her class and education would have been allowed to study math, science, and engineering.
I was just thinking today as I read these women (quite justifiably) complain about being harassed by all of these men. Frankly, it's not something I can relate to as a man, but boy, if I were a woman it'd be almost enough to turn me gay (if true)! I was thinking, isn't this pretty much going back to what happens in nature?
Male finds female attraction, male tries to mount her, if she 'rejects' him she will chase him away, if not, he she will let him have his way with her. Sometimes he doesn't care and will mount her regardless. Today this is called rape. Also, competition for females was more obvious - through pitched squabbles, or which male had the brightest feathers or was the largest and most belligerent.
Over time male value has been abstracted. Bright feathers have been replaced by fat wallets. How do men nowadays compete for women? Looks - that's a given, but also money.etc. Women, by their nature, will always prefer the cream of the crop - as will men, but the difference, which should be obvious by now, is that men are less fussy in spreading their seed (even if that's no longer the intention, the impulse is from that).
Maybe, just maybe, we reached a sweet spot during the 'bad old days' when couples got married for life and things like pre-marital sex, FWB's were frowned upon. I'm not preaching abstinence and all that because God will judge you for your sins, but I'm saying, as far as human happiness goes, maybe we reached a sweet spot in the 1950s or so? When we married out of true love. Sure, it was stifling for some, and people still had affairs/strings of short relationships, but it seems people were more romantic/happier than any time before.
You had arranged marriages etc in traditional societies, but is it really that much better today, with many people struggling to find dates, being lonely, all kinds of STD's/VD's, mental illness...
I, for one, probably would rather go back to the 50s if it meant I could find someone who was truly into true love -even though I'm not the most monogamous person in the world. People look down on arranged marriage because it wasn't 'out of love', but the love they shared was a damn sight more genuine than the so-called 'love' that infatuation/lust passes for in this hedonistic day and age. Is not not better that people have somebody instead of nobody? It seems online dating makes it no easier -indeed sometimes it just makes things even messier.
Point is, I see us going back to this pattern...more sex for sex sakes. There's nothing NEW about it. Not saying it's a disaster, some may prefer it this way, but it's ridiculous to think true love is compatible with it. The lusts of the eyes is a powerful motivator.
In that there are a lot of pregnancies and births outside of marriage or that women can keep and raise the child outside of the institution of marriage?
In that a lot of children are being raised without their father living in the household with them.
In that a lot of children are being raised without their father living in the household with them.
All throughout history women have been raising children alone. Their menfolk went to war and never came back.
It isn't a new phenomenon.
And where is this idea society is crumbling coming from? People are richer, we are more civilised, the crime rate is dropping, we have more opportunities. Health care is improving for the whole world, there is more equality, more people go to school, there has been a reduction in world poverty. I don't see this "crumbling society", I see evolving homo sapiens.
There's a good book called The Progress paradox by Gregg Easterbrook that discusses why people feel worse when the world is actually getting better. It's all about perception. If you watch too much TV you soak all the negative stuff up without counter balancing it by the facts.
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