When did society start falling apart?

[Deja Q]

It's worse now, but I am talking about teenage pregnancies, teenage violence, violence in general, robbing, raping, hitting pregnant women... schools not giving a damn about educating students...

And what can be done to reverse the trend? Talk to people sternly?

[Rosemary2205]

1. Genesis

Cain and Able......... I doubt it gets any worse than murdering your own brother out of jealousy ...... probably just more of it going on now since we have more humans.

Just MHO.

[Toots]

26. You don't think there was anything happening before that?

After Cain killed Able and married a girl from another tribe, was that tribe absolutely pure?

[Robbien]

2. It started with television and its commerialization of sex

Breakdown of society began with the use of sex/women/youth in selling products.

[dave_p]

3. A:

1. 20 Jan 1981

2. 4 Nov 2008. And lots of work to do before.

[LynzM]

4. As soon as "society" existed...

All the things you mention have always existed. In the past, however, they have been more ignored, more hidden, more stigmatized so that victims didn't talk openly about them. There's an interesting book called The Way We Never Were that talks specifically about the idealization of the 50s and a society that never truly existed. It's an interesting read; I recommend it.

[Madspirit]

14. The Way We Never Were

I also highly recommend "The Way We Never Were". The author is Stephanie Coontz...great read. A lot of societal problems were just more hidden and some things were worse, such as domestic abuse, child abuse, etc. I am 52 and a Texan and when I was a kid, it was legal to beat...BEAT your children and your wife and so when it happened, it was not prosecuted and so was not added to the stats. Divorce rates and teen pregnancies started rising to alarming rates in the 50s. None of this is new. Humans have always....kinda sucked.
Madspirit

[newyawker99]

15. Hi Madspirit!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Warpy]

5. There was plenty of violence

teenage pregnancy, rape, burglary, and abuse. Polite people simply didn't discuss it and it never appeared in the media.

There was gang violence in the cities, especially the big cities. The amphetamine of choice was benzedrine, something you could generally get from truckers if you didn't mind performing a service in return (price was too high for me). There was plenty stuff out there to get addicted to, and people did. There was incredible violence in the home, especially against children, as not hitting your children was thought to turn them into spoiled sissies. There was spousal abuse that was never, ever talked about and certainly never reported in the media. There was rape, but since the old rape laws hinged on damage to PROPERTY and the rape victim was invariably attacked as already damaged property, few were reported.

Everybody seemed to want to live in that never never land of the perfect sitcom family and everybody was terrified for the neighbors to find out their families were not the perfect sitcom family.

Teenage pregnancy was a huge issue, as seen by the number and financial success of homes for unwed mothers. Home was all they got, too, no education provided and hand us the kid as your rent. Girls had a few options: drop out of school and stay home and let your parents adopt the kid, the whole thing completely scorned, of course; drop out of school and get a shotgun marriage and a divorce down the line; drop out of school and go to "live with an aunt" only to appear the next year in the grade behind yours; have a rich boyfriend and risk your health and life on an illegal abortion; or suicide.

I had friends who did all of those.

It's always amazed me that people still refer to the 50s and early 60s as some kind of golden age. Either they weren't there or they weren't paying attention.

[Rex]

6. In the 1950s.

Ike warned us about the huge military monster, nobody listened or cared. Now we pay for it and our children pay for it and their kids will too. Who wants to spend 60 billion a year on education, when you can make 600 billion in the war industry?

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

7. According to Al Sharpton

at the funeral yesterday of James Brown, Rev. Sharpton said during their last conversation that James Brown told him we've got to change the music. According to Sharpton, the messages brought to our youth through music contributed to cultural and societal problems. I tend to agree. Music as we can all agree is an important outlet generationally. I am a baby boomer and my political and moral values were influenced to a great degree by the music of the times. Please don't interpret this thought as a bigoted reading of the OP. Music transcends races. It becomes the voice of society, for good and bad.

[Rosemary2205]

8. Wasn't Mozart "devil music" in his own time?

didn't I read he was outlawed for quite a long time?

[NoPasaran]

16. Don't know where you might have read that

The Austrian Emperor was one of his patrons.

[pretzel4gore]

9. something happened when JFK was killed

the public spectacle murder of a popular young, daring president (who though honoured member of USA elite, he still thought things could be made better, especially for those the power-that-were wanted discarded) truly signalled some secret communication between US and THEM. What exactly that was, no one will say, but, obviously it can be summarised as thus: the permanent rulers who govern america will not tolerate public sentiments being addressed too much, too directly, table scaps is all we're gonna get, savvy? And the situation will get worse every time WE try to make it better, by electing someone that our bossclass don't like, WE will pay for it. For example, 30 years after JFK, WE dared defy them regards clinton impeachment, which would habeen a nice thing, and for that blah blah blah... very demoralizing, spiritually.
demoralization generally takes form in indulging, or over indulging, in things that waste time, ruin health and destroy self confidence and respect....ergo crime and apathy result etc...

[seabeyond]

10. when did we walk away from personal responsibility?

this is right with what i am talking about on another thread. in all cases i think the bottom line is personal responsibility. be it those that run corporations and their part in this world, or the entertainment business and their responsibility, or a parent, or the parent teaching the child. i think it was a gradual thing starting in the 60's. at that point it was just freedoms we were aquiring, but with all that freedom i think in many areas we started ditching our responsibility in the freedoms we were allowed. as much as some may not like i think the womens movement has a part in this. i dont say this suggesting the movement shouldnt have been. it was necessary and an absolute, but when bring in the new it is an action that creates reactions. whole new sets of problems to be addressed. i dont htink we were so good at addressing them for fear that to address them would suggest the movement was wrong. it was not.

from all this, i think that people became afraid of what was becoming and the natural/universal reaction was to swing the pendulumn the other direction and in so doing, the nineties created the religion thing as the cure. i think as a nation many were desperate for what that promised leaving themselves perfecting open to the christian right and republicans to use,... setting up rules to follow for the guidelines, that we couldnt seem to hold self to in the times of freedoms...

could go on and on. and so much more in this. but just a glimpse of what i see

creating breakdown of family, break down of society, breakdown in communities.

but i think it all goes to personal responsibility. and that isnt govt or a group of society being responsible for me. only i can do it. law cannot.

we dont see that. we are going to try force responsibility. and this too will fail and then we will have a whole other set of problems

[Doctor_J]

11. Nov 22, 1963

When George HW Bush and the other Texas wingers killed JFK. They got a stranglehold on the US that we've been holding off for 40 years.

[Speck Tater]

12. I recall reading the translation of a 3,000 year old Egyptian papyrus

that voiced the same complaints. Civilization seems ALWAYS to be in the process of falling apart. The more things change the more they stay the same.

The real reason that civilization always seems to be falling apart is selective memory. We always idealize the past and think of it as better than it really was. I personally remember people saying the same things back in the 1950's. About the fiftieth time I heard that complaint over the last 60 years I started to just ignore it. It just ain't so.

[Left Is Write]

13. Rome.

[Normvan]

17. When our responsibility as parents,

When our responsibility as parents,and bringing up our kids
was turned over to the television.
True some tv shows are a big help,Sesame Street Mr.Rogers and
other educational shows.

However they cannot teach feelings,morals,respect and the
common right from wrong issues that young kids need to learn
how to deal with.The first years mean so much.

These shows also get us(parents)used to time away from our
kids.Young kids should never be away from there parent/parents
for more then a few minutes at a time.

Then we send them off to preschool,where again they are not
taught the 5 basic tools of
life(feelings/morals/respect/right/wrong).They should know
these things before they get to preschool! 

So now the teacher who wants to start at a proper level(for
there age)can't because she/he must correct the behavior of
the kids. They are starting off from behind the starting
point.

It snowballs from there.

We need to love our kids, give them all the time and attention
we can while there little,teach them the basic tools of life.
                                      Those are my thoughts.

[newyawker99]

24. Hi Normvan!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[originalpckelly]

18. Well, at least as long ago as the Romans, that's 2000+ years.

:crazy:

Problem is that humanity doesn't seem to be evolving, just our technology.

[WHAT]

19. I call it reconnietering...

consensus has become more important than collaboration. What is seen as a strength is really a weakness...because it isolates and draws fire. Because an atomized ether covers more bases and disperses more fragrance (engulfs) a wider audience...total participation makes moot direction. What will be strong is what absorbs...not what disperses.

[SoCalDem]

20. Well..probably when someone did not like what one caveman drew on the cave wall

:shrug:

[RB TexLa]

21. When exactly do you think those things didn't occur?

[tabasco]

22. It's Clinton's fault!

The evil Clenis is to blame for everything !

[BuelahWitch]

23. I blame alot on Reagan

Throwing the mentally ill into the street, sneering at poor people ("welfare queens"), thumbing his nose at unions, making "ketchup" a vegetable. With all the unrest in the '60s, Reagan's administration started us on a course to Dickensian times.

[Blue Diadem]

25. I think it's always existed, but it seems like it has increased

due to the natural increase in population..and we have 24 hrs news to tell us all of it. We've also encouraged the population to talk about it, before, it was a family shame or secret.

Of course, some crimes increase when unemployment goes up and when people have bad times economically too.

Reversing the trend..I don't know what we can do except to attempt to help people with problems and raise our own children to be caring individuals.

[Neshanic]

27. It never fell apart. Were things better in the past? Read "The History of Childhood".

Just reading about what happened to children in societies past is horrible.

Not to make it all peaches and cream, things are better than say the 70's, 80's.

Battered women's shelters did not exist.

Men who struck wives were treated to a wink and a nod in the past, now they spend a night in jail.

Children are better protected, but need more.