It's a myth that moral decay exists in America - article (principle, morality)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That implies that there was some point in time when all was better - some point in time from which an objective decline can be measured. However, objectively, things have gotten better and worse. Those who perceive only decay are restricting their care (or their attention) solely to those things that have trended negatively.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle
Police are the bad guys now.
When do you think they were not, in some tellings of the story, bad guys? When corruption was rife in the 1970s? When police regularly perpetrated racism in the 1950s? When? You can pick any aspect that has existed for centuries, and there will have been times in the past when things were as bad or worse than you think they are now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle
people telling other people that they have to pay for people's ...
It isn't decay just because your politics isn't winning. Politics is, explicitly that for which there are (at least) two sides. If your politics is flagging then that means someone else's is prevailing. Not decay - just simply change. And things have always changed.
The world is getting worse... in the sense that it's getting more deceiving. It's like a drug.
I am not any kind of fundamentalist (not even an Abrahamic believer), but I agree with this. Maybe the world is getting better materially, but there is less and less room for love in it. It's just all materialism. Even relationships between the sexes have become merely another way of "consuming".
Except that I believe the real reason for it is not the failure to believe in any dogma, but rather the decline of Western civilization and of the White race. We are becoming just another minority, as someone stated above, and all the good things, all the beauty and ideals, everything that makes life worthwhile, is dying with us.
I am not any kind of fundamentalist (not even an Abrahamic believer), but I agree with this. Maybe the world is getting better materially, but there is less and less room for love in it.
In a way it is a shame that we cannot transport ourselves back into (for example) the life of a slave on a 1840s Georgia plantation, or the life of a peasant in 14th century Europe. We're suffering from a regression - a decline from a peak which could arguably be placed in the last decade of the 20th century, if we were truly honest about how things were for everyone during previous generations. It is natural that falling from a peak, when you're in the middle of the decline, makes it seem like things have gotten so much worse and that things have been getting bad for so much longer, than things actually are.
Don't get me wrong: It could be the start of something akin to what you're saying, but there's no way to say that what's going on isn't just normal, generational variance.
In a way it is a shame that we cannot transport ourselves back into (for example) the life of a slave on a 1840s Georgia plantation, or the life of a peasant in 14th century Europe. We're suffering from a regression - a decline from a peak which could arguably be placed in the last decade of the 20th century, if we were truly honest about how things were for everyone during previous generations. It is natural that falling from a peak, when you're in the middle of the decline, makes it seem like things have gotten so much worse and that things have been getting bad for so much longer, than things actually are.
Don't get me wrong: It could be the start of something akin to what you're saying, but there's no way to say that what's going on isn't just normal, generational variance.
Well said.
Atop this of course is the standard-issue tendency to think "things are different than when I was young and (thought I) had everything figured out, therefore everything is going to hell in a handbasket".
With the Orange One surging in the polls against a candidate who is far more weak and vulnerable than most in her party seem to realize, we have potential for more than the usual "down two rungs of the ladder after successfully climbing three". We have the potential to rip out a dozen rungs and then have to rebuild them to re-climb them. But just as we recovered from two world wars in the last century, the overall upward trajectory of the 21st century is not something we can clearly see as ruined at this point.
Atop this of course is the standard-issue tendency to think "things are different than when I was young and (thought I) had everything figured out, therefore everything is going to hell in a handbasket"
I am still young, not even 30, so there is no "when I was young" for me. And I still feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket with rapid acceleration. Even the time of my parents who lived in the Soviet Union, seems to me better than the present. They had dreams, they had ideals. They valued education, family, beauty, community, physical and moral strength. They were a purer people. The people of today seem to me spiritually bankrupt and caught up in empty materialism, running like gerbils in a wheel after the new iPhone or the latest car model. And the United States lead humanity on the way down.
The first thing historians learn is that you cannot judge history while it is happening. Living through a time is, itself, a bias that precludes any semblance of objectivity.
good people are good people. I believe most people, anyware, are good. But we have let the marginalized take over. And the marginalized, as a group, are unsafe to good people everyware. The good thing about that is that we are shown why we need to sweep them back into the corners.
I understand that is a very general claim. And flat out wrong in many caes. We can break it down and form a list to see if such a claim holds water. But that won't happen do to the nature of facts getting in the way of opinions and revenge.
That implies that there was some point in time when all was better - some point in time from which an objective decline can be measured. However, objectively, things have gotten better and worse. Those who perceive only decay are restricting their care (or their attention) solely to those things that have trended negatively.
When do you think they were not, in some tellings of the story, bad guys? When corruption was rife in the 1970s? When police regularly perpetrated racism in the 1950s? When? You can pick any aspect that has existed for centuries, and there will have been times in the past when things were as bad or worse than you think they are now.
It isn't decay just because your politics isn't winning. Politics is, explicitly that for which there are (at least) two sides. If your politics is flagging then that means someone else's is prevailing. Not decay - just simply change. And things have always changed.
no doubt that this post has great points. My brother has always told me that "You would be great for internal affairs." Taking coffee and donuts is one thing.
I think my politics isn't winning because of the decay. But, today, ask yourself this. Where are most of the innocent victims today in the USA? we would have to look at by volume and event, but I think we could get to the point with just a surface skim.
I am still young, not even 30, so there is no "when I was young" for me. And I still feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket with rapid acceleration. Even the time of my parents who lived in the Soviet Union, seems to me better than the present. They had dreams, they had ideals. They valued education, family, beauty, community, physical and moral strength. They were a purer people. The people of today seem to me spiritually bankrupt and caught up in empty materialism, running like gerbils in a wheel after the new iPhone or the latest car model. And the United States lead humanity on the way down.
Alienation is a common feeling, particularly among the young who are trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in. And it is to some extent a downside of the industrial and post-industrial eras where we have lost our sense of connection to nature, and to an extent in the current generation even a lot of face-to-face social skills. As such it is tempting to romanticize (and indeed to take entirely seriously) the fond recollections of others about their salad days in just the same way it will one day tempt you to romanticize your own salad days.
The only thing I can tell you, trite as it may sound, is "this too shall pass". You will find your footing, learn how to make meaning for yourself, and how to embody the virtues you listed from your parents and others whom you respect and admire. Your very awareness of the emptiness in others suggests that you will succeed in not being an empty vessel yourself. And you will come to see that there are empty people in all generations and eras -- but also complete and functional and self-aware people.
Nonsense. You've crafted a rather corrupt rationalization for petty oppression of those who are "other". It violates the most basic principle of morality, the ethic of reciprocity, and you apparently don't realize it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle
The good thing about that is that we are shown why we need to sweep them back into the corners.
Even the language you use highlights the abject depravity of that for which you advocate. If you, yourself, do not relish the prospect of being "swept back into the corners" then that should have informed you of the indefensible moral bankruptcy of suggesting that that be visited on anyone else.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
