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I believe so. I remember as a child my uncles would be married, have a home, and children all by thier mid 20's. They also looked more older than they actually were. Nowadays you cant get rid of your 30yr old manchild living in your home/basement!
This question is from many years ago, but as pertinent today.
It has to do with the worship of youth and the isolation of society.
Everyone is forced to try to look young (and, of course, to act young), no matter how old they are. There's a lot of craziness and immaturity in today's society. There's ill behavior, rudeness, plastic surgery, irresponsible behavior, self-absorption, self-centeredness, and (of course) helicopter moms raising children as royalty and regaling them with all kinds of luxury while expecting them to do nothing to contribute.
There's also a serious serious segregation of the ages nowadays. In the past, not so. People of all ages mingled. Nowadays, teens and young people segregate themselves from all other generations, and middle agers thrown the old into a form of segregated penitentiary (old age homes).
There is also a tremendous breakdown of the family. In older generations that wasn't so. Nowadays divorce is the norm, as are step-parents, step-children, step this and step that.
The fracture of society and worship of youth, has created an infantile society, suspended in immaturity, always seeking to get everything for nothing, and never being satisfied with anything at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rishi85
I love to observe people from a social and cultural perspective. Lately I see the new breed of actors-this topic especially pertains to men- and I notice that they all have a youthful demeanor. Chris Pine, Channing Tatum, Shia Le Beouf...etc etc. These are men in their late 20s to mid 30s and yet if you compare them to men of the same age from previous eras, it is so blatantly obvious.
I won't even go so far back as say the 50s or 60s but even the previous batch of young stars(Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Costner etc) appear so mature at the same age. And if you go further back it is even more obvious. James Dean died at 23 and there is no way in hell he looked and behaved like a 23 year old man of today.
Actors like Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, Brando, Tom Berenger, Robert Mitchum, Steve Mcqueen and those types of guys are just nowhere to be found. Look at any new films. Actors even enacting 30 somethings look much younger and fresh.
Now let me put forth this opinion in the larger context.
At my age 28, most of my friends(men and women) are not married. Many don't intend to marry until well in their 30s. This wasn't the case in the olden days. A 28 year old man was not only married but perhaps even had a child to support. Yes, he was a father! My father was one and his father was even younger.
Look at mental illnesses- depression, anxiety, ADHD(very important). Why didn't young men(or women) in older generations pop ADHD tabs like candy?
Is it circumstantial?
The great depression meant they had to get off their behinds and work, the wars meant you became a man at 18. No worries of a global recession like we had in 2008. No need to worry about getting a masters degree when you could get by with a high school diploma(meaning you could start earning and start a family asap).
I found this on a thread to a similar query:
New breed of actors: They play at being men, because they don't know the first thing about being a man.
The first thing about being a man is: you put the safety and well-being of your friends and family first and foremost, no matter what. This is the #1 reason men tend to die much younger than women, STRESS. The stress of being a provider. Unless they were like John Belushi and Chris Farely, shoving everything in sight up their nose but that's a different story.
Those who play at being men: they put their safety and well-being first and foremost.
But they can hardly help acting like children well into middle-age since they were essentially robbed of their childhood. It's just arrested development. Like someone else mentioned, the men of the greatest generation became men at 18 because there was no other choice.
It seems like we have many different definitions of maturity on this thread. Too many think it has more to do with work, when you live alone, or having children, than anything else. I disagree.
Maturity is how you handle things and the decisions you make. It is not making excuses. A mature person doesn't need to set "boundaries", they know how to handle it. They know how to handle "toxic" people and "verbal abuse." They don't have "social anxiety disorder" and are not "introverts". They don't need to label as so many do on CD threads.
We have become a society where character flaws are now illnesses, where failure is accepted, where tolerance isn't tolerated.
To thinkalot - Yours is such a good post. You've described it perfectly. We have become a society where failure is accepted, and accepted as if it were something good!
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkalot
It seems like we have many different definitions of maturity on this thread. Too many think it has more to do with work, when you live alone, or having children, than anything else. I disagree.
Maturity is how you handle things and the decisions you make. It is not making excuses. A mature person doesn't need to set "boundaries", they know how to handle it. They know how to handle "toxic" people and "verbal abuse." They don't have "social anxiety disorder" and are not "introverts". They don't need to label as so many do on CD threads.
We have become a society where character flaws are now illnesses, where failure is accepted, where tolerance isn't tolerated.
Why do you assume that the general way a population is, applies to exactly 100% of the population?
Also, why do you assume that war is ever going to disappear?
Where do you get such bizarre notions???
Again, people in the past were mature. They worked hard, remained with their family, helped out their family, etc. As in all populations, some in the population were mentally ill and interned in insane asylums, some were disabled and could not have an independent life, and some were criminals. However, the overwhelming majority could have a fairly ordinary life, and were mature, which is generally something not found today in the U.S. population. Nowadays, everyone wants to be Peter Pan forever - facelifts, toys, divorces because no one wants to try hard at a relationship, kids who are so spoiled they expect things without having to lift a finger, a sense of entitlement that just doesn't quit.
As to your concept that war would end with "maturity," I have no idea where you pulled that out of, but certainly no sane place. War will always, and I do mean always, exist.
it used to be that ONE working person in a
family (overwhelmingly the man), could provide for his young family AND afford to purchase a house on average income within a short amount of time.
Yes, but the average American house then, was HALF the square-footage it is now (even though paradoxically family sizes were much larger).
No air-conditioning charges, since A/C homes didn't exist.
Many households had only ONE car, which the husband drove to work (or he rode the bus/ train to work and the wife kept the one car). Gasoline was as low at 25 cents, and people lived very close to their job. Storekeepers, doctors/dentists, church pastors, mill-workers, sometimes actually lived next-door to their worksite, and didn't commute at all.
Television service was Free.
Postage was 2 or 3 cents.
Catholic schools had nuns and very minimal tuition charges. College tuition was VERY low-cost (for a variety of reasons), and for veterans it was often covered by the G.I. Bill.
Yes, but the average American house then, was HALF the square-footage it is now (even though paradoxically family sizes were much larger).
No air-conditioning charges, since A/C homes didn't exist.
Many households had only ONE car, which the husband drove to work (or he rode the bus/ train to work and the wife kept the one car). Gasoline was as low at 25 cents, and people lived very close to their job. Storekeepers, doctors/dentists, church pastors, mill-workers, sometimes actually lived next-door to their worksite, and didn't commute at all.
Television service was Free.
Postage was 2 or 3 cents.
Catholic schools had nuns and very minimal tuition charges. College tuition was VERY low-cost (for a variety of reasons), and for veterans it was often covered by the G.I. Bill.
Wedding dresses cost $100 max, candy bars cost 5 cents or less, people made $5,000 a year, and so on. You're right that everything is expensive, but the problem is that things are now so materialistic that family has been flung by the wayside, everyone feels entitled, and everyone sees him/herself as "young" even if they aren't.
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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Slowlane3, TV is still broadcast for free. It is a lot better now. You can hook rabbit ears up to a modern TV in a major city and you'll get around 50 channels, most in high definition. Each TV channel can now have four sunchannels, although if they use all four they can't all be HD. For example the ion network typically uses all four available subchannels.
The GI Bill is still available. I already took some college courses before I joined the US Navy Silent Service in 1999, but I used it again for a while in 2014. They have the Post 9/11 GI Bill now. I was on the submarine in port on 9/11; the President ordered all ships and submarines to sea, including ours. Since I was in on that day and was in for 18 months afterward until I got out in 2003, I was eligable for 68% of the Post 9/11 GI Bill. So they paid 68% of my tuition directly to the school, and gave me 68% of what an E-5 (in the Navy, a second class petty officer) with children would be paid to live off base in the zip code of the school. This let me move closer to the community college where I was taking courses.
As far as prices, don't forget to adjust for inflation.
Yes, but the average American house then, was HALF the square-footage it is now (even though paradoxically family sizes were much larger).
No air-conditioning charges, since A/C homes didn't exist.
Many households had only ONE car, which the husband drove to work (or he rode the bus/ train to work and the wife kept the one car). Gasoline was as low at 25 cents, and people lived very close to their job. Storekeepers, doctors/dentists, church pastors, mill-workers, sometimes actually lived next-door to their worksite, and didn't commute at all.
Television service was Free.
Postage was 2 or 3 cents.
Catholic schools had nuns and very minimal tuition charges. College tuition was VERY low-cost (for a variety of reasons), and for veterans it was often covered by the G.I. Bill.
This really depends on the location. In the Bay Area, people have always commuted to San Francisco. There used to be a commuter train line that took people across the Bay on the Bay Bridge. That was later replaced by a commuter bus system. The same was true in the NYC area, and Seattle, as well. Some of the communities on the east side of Lake Washington were created as suburbs of Seattle, where people could have a nice suburban life with large yards and commute to Seattle.
It's misleading to talk about how cheap everything was without mentioning that annual salaries back then were what many people make these days in one month.
And TV service still is free. It's the extra channels beyond the basic free ones that people pay for. It's a choice--no one's forced to pay for TV. Some people stick to the basic commercial networks and PBS.
Last edited by MountainHi; 03-14-2016 at 10:58 AM..
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You're confused
