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Well, what about an outdated electoral system that chooses the votes of 532 or so people over what millions indicate? Even many primitive countries would never allow (or get away with) that. And yet people here just shrug their shoulders and skip along in formation.
The only "fighting back" is an increased amount of fooling ourselves that we are changing and improving. We are good at changing our perceptions, but lousy at following through with anything tangible. In the end, it's all mind games and illusion.
Getting real with ourselves is perhaps step one. Most can't handle that though, and need to keep matters, and their ways, in the safe shadows.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 09-19-2018 at 12:21 PM..
Disintegration of the traditional family...support wise, that is. I support gay and lesbian families as well as heterosexual.
But it seems divorce is so prevalent, families falling apart. That is what children are exposed to so often and it has negative effects, that stem out to society as a whole.
That wouldn't happen in a classroom. Teachers are not allowed to touch students and they probably would get in trouble for swearing like that. But the kids also shouldn't be allowed to talk back to the teacher and swear at the teacher. It's an example of a breakdown in society, a lowering of standards. By that time, if this film is to be believed, it had already happened.
It didn't start with "diversity." When did diversity start? Probably most of it started in the late 1800s with all the new immigrants coming to work in the mills. In the North that's how diversity started. And fighting amongst ethnic groups--the Irish, the Italians, the French, the Polish. But things were getting better, immigrants had assimilated, and even the race issue was improving during the 1960s.
I think it was during the 1960s when people wanted to make a better world. That's when it started, but some idiots took it too far. Women got better treatment, blacks got better treatment, the emphasis was shifted to less materialism and a happier quality of life instead, no more wars, help the poor, etc.
I don't know who it was who took things too far. People who make money off wars and weren't happy that most people didn't want more wars. Maybe they pushed back? Also, people who get rich when people buy more "stuff." Greedy companies advertising "stuff" to buy, more and more stuff. How about universities who got richer by raising prices? In the mid '80s when students complained, the universities said they didn't care. They would recruit rich foreign students who could afford the high price.
It became quantity above quality. I saw the quality of education decline during the '80s, maybe even the '70s. Things got too laid back and easy. Parents supposedly didn't think they should discipline their kids anymore. If the kids can't sit still, can't concentrate, they are not going to learn anything. Schools lowered their standards. Colleges probably lowered their standards to accept not so smart students.
You can see the breakdown reflected in our public schools, for example. Discipline is actually frowned upon and parents will sue a teacher. That's backwards. The teacher is the boss and sets the rules. The students need to follow the rules--if not, you get kids climbing all over the desks, throwing things, acting out=chaos. I've seen it too often. The kids know that their parents won't make them behave--no rules? That's fine, kids will be kids, and who cares.
And the falling apart of families is a contributing issue to the breakdown of society. People have to work too much. Not enough family time. Not enough flexible hours. Too much greed on the part of corporations just bleeds the life out of the working person. Mothers need more time off when their kids are young. But if they took the time off, the company would replace them=corporate greed.
Hmmm, I think it comes down to greed in a lot of ways. Quantity, not quality. There isn't enough quality in our lives anymore. Everything is about money and greed. And not quality of life. Is it the military industrial complex, whatever that is?
To what do you attribute the breakdown of society?
Can you describe what you mean by "breakdown of society"?
When I look back at European history, I see horrendous damage being done to the environment, and to the people.
I think most people would be horrified at the kind of life working-class people had to live in the 1950s, or 1900s or 1850s or 1750s or 1650s etc.
Noam Chomsky made a very good film called "Manufacturing Consent" back in the 1980s. It's dated in some ways, but it has a perspective that many people today still don't get :
The media is owned by the ruling elite, and they divide the public into two groups - the 20% "intelligensia" and the 80% masses.
For the masses, the purpose of media is distraction - provide them celebrities and spectator sports Politics is just another spectator sport, and reporting is like a horse-race, who's ahead and who's coming up from behind. And it's sold like cigarettes - you vote for the person who most resonates with you emotionally.
The 20% that are the intelligensia are the people who are politically engaged - they join civic clubs, they watch the talking-head Sunday morning shows, they attend the party caucuses. Thiese are the people the propaganda is targetting.
This also is the group that controls the media. They talk to each other, and think they are the world.
They know they are missing some ethnic gruops, but they are oblivious to the 80% of the public that does not have a platform.
This 20% is usually what people, when they look back on history, refer to as "society". That is what is going through a sea-change now. The result of the concentration of wealth is that many of that 20% are dropping down.
Also, criminal activity is so endemic now, new influencers come from the 80% who do not have a family history of social norms that are shared with the other intelligensia. Many of them are criminals who got rich by ripping people off, not through using family connections to get a proper job that keeps them in the intelligensia.
To get a serious answert to your question, you are going to have to do some deep thought abuot what you mean by "breakdown of society" - separating out what is being publicized for the first time, from what is really a structural change.
I think our founding fathers would roll in their graves if they could see what's happing to this country.
It's still a good place to live tho.
The Founding Fathers, believe it or not, saw and dealt with concerns that were not entirely dissimilar to those that we struggle with these days. Big business (what passed for such in those days, anyway) and government collusion (look up the details of the Whiskey Rebellion). The government not making good on promises made to former and current members of the military. Political infighting. Urban vs rural American concerns. Land speculation. Crazy people with guns and knives. Domestic violence. Chronic drunkenness, abandonment of families by men and women both, people who could not provide for themselves and had to rely upon the generosity of neighbors to feed and clothe their children (if they were fortunate to have neighbors, that is) etc.--the details might change a bit, but the story remains the same. Basic human nature, failings and successes are what they are and have been and always will be with us.
I do agree with you on this, though, the U.S. is still overall a darn good place to live, though.
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