Something is seriously wrong with our society

[TwixVoy]

I don't know if I'm the only one that notices it.... but the lack of concern, utter lack of respect for each other, and general "screw everyone else" attitude has gotten much worse in the past 15 years IMO.

I have especially noticed this among people in their 20's. Far too many peoples relationships with each other seem to be constructed out of incredibly shallow things. The entire foundation of many peoples relationships - even peoples closest relationships up to and including marriages - seem to be about how the other person is useful to them in some way.

I have also noticed (again, more with the youth) that people are MUCH quicker to violence over the most idiotic of things.

There was not a huge crime increase during the great depression.... but with the way people simply can not seem to get along in our current society (largely IMO due to republican programming of "screw everyone else I've got mine") I am wondering how things will play out should the economy continue to get worse. For some reason I am expecting a LARGE increase in violent crime.

[Mythsaje]

1. Actually we're apparently seeing the opposite

property crime is up, yes, but violent crime is way down.

I work with a lot of kids in their late teens and twenties... Good bunch. I think this is a very unfair broad brush.

[liberalmike27]

6. When you measure all things by money, or capital

What do you expect?

It's really a capitality, not a society.

Well, this and let us face it, most people outside of the DU are pretty stupid. Our education system, and more importantly how much we value it, are both at pretty pitiful levels. We worship all the wrong things, and sadly the stupid people have been taught to be quite proud of their idiocy, and no longer keep quiet, as to remove all doubt.

[Mythsaje]

I guess it depends on who you talk to...

Sure, I sometimes end up giving history lessons to the kids I work with (what the hell ARE they teaching in the schools these days, anyway?), but the vast majority of them are really decent people with good hearts and good heads on their shoulders. I don't treat them like they don't know anything and the respect goes both ways.

The difference between today's kids and the ones of previous generations (except mine, which really didn't care) was that they weren't raised to automatically respect someone because of age or position, but expected respect to be a two-way street. I've always felt that way, but I was strange even for my time.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Both divorce and crime rates down compared to, say, twenty or thirty years ago.

This reads like a "young people won't stay off my lawn" thread.

[liberalmike27]

12. I've read stories

that people are deciding to delay their divorces. They can't afford them.

Thanks 30 years of Republican and Democratic conservatism.

See, this is why I tell Democrats to not try to find the most reasonable centrist democrat to vote for. We keep ending up in the middle, even when we get one elected. If you pick the most left one, then maybe you'll end up with better policy, and certainly more conviction.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You are talking of the individualistic US Culture, and it goes beyond Reagan

but we are actually seeing a decrease in crime

[Hannah Bell]

4. The thing about the "no rise in crime" is a bit of a red herring. People forget that

Prohibition was repealed de facto in march 1933, & prohibition (1919-1933) had caused a big rise in crime & violence as it was put into effect & gangs took over the liquor biz.

I've never seen studies that try to tease out the drop in crime produced by repeal v. the likely rise in crime due to people being incomeless & homeless.

But I think there was one.

[Selatius]

5. I would disagree with you as far as crime rates during the Great Depression. Crime did go up.

Most of it revolved around various forms of thievery, mostly over things like food and money. Nevermind the food rioting that occurred often or the violent clashes between workers and bosses. The economic data indicate that recessions tend to increase rates of crime. It has been well documented that there is a strong correlation between economic opportunity and crime.

[liberalmike27]

22. If it gets that bad in the modern day

It's going to be a whole lot worse.

I think we're heading for a kind of dystopia. When the only positive sign of any resistance to corporate hegemony is 1.75 Billion dollars of F-22 jets that aren't being built, in a 600 Billion dollar Pentagon budget, well, things look pretty bad.

And no one seems to want to talk about the huge, looming debt, sucking up more and more, as we collect less and less in taxes each year. Partly depression, but partly by design, we've sent or lost jobs to he max.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I don't know about crime rates,

but I do know that our society is decidedly far less civil than I've ever experienced it in my many years on this planet.

Good manners seem to be quite the exception, instead of the rule. When someone does something proper and mannerly, it's a surprise, instead of being the norm.

Things go so fast now, and there is so much to take in, it would make sense that kids are sometimes overwhelmed, and don't get to develop the skills that would permit them to investigate anything on a deeper basis. I mean, kids text, so now they're limited to expressing themselves in 140 characters, and who cares about spelling, syntax, sentiment, or clarity?

All that pressure could lead to shorter fuses among kids - that would make sense.

I'm glad I'm not young. Not now. It looks like a whole lot of hard, hard work, and not a whole lot of fun................

[TwixVoy]

9. It is "fun" in a twisted way

My daughter is in her 20's. From what she has told me sexual assaults at partys are the norm. Someone passes out, and most everyone at the party blames them. The guy that does it is seen as a big man. The youth society does not see it as such a bad thing. In fact from what I have seen and what she has told me finding a male in her age range who has ANY real concern/respect for their partner is pretty damn rare these days. (and many times the same can be said with the other sex)

Also from what I have seen a fair amount of them are lazy alcoholic bums who give not a damn about anyone but themselves and are PROUD of it.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. That's horrifying -

My kids are older, grown, married, parents, so I don't have that exposure to kids in their twenties. I know a few young women, but they always struck me as kind of tired and sad, clubbing being what they do with their spare time. Dead-end jobs, and wasting themselves on men who seem to bang them and that's that.

Somewhere, we as parents, all generations, maybe, did something terribly wrong..................

[TwixVoy]

13. That is what scares the hell out of me

she knows lots of others in her age range in various "groups/types" of people in their 20's and this is a common theme among all but a small minority of them.

[Mythsaje]

15. I have a TON of exposure to kids in their twenties...

It's not that bad, really. Not at all. Maybe it's the location (Pacific Northwest) or their role models, but the kids I know are pretty cool and open to learning new things. The young women respect themselves--of course it doesn't hurt to have someone older with nothing to gain telling them they're worth it.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

17. How many kids?

You're talking about a very small sample, given the scope of the discussion. We're speaking more globally, not locally, not anecdotal observations.

I'm talking about very urban and sophisticated youngsters, with access to all the perks of living in a metropolitan area, as well as all the downsides.

I'm glad your kids are doing well, but that's not so for a whole lot of kids in this country....................

[Mythsaje]

18. I'm talking about several dozen a year, constantly changing

IN an urban setting.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

20. As I said, a sample

that's too small to be significant. But it's good that you know these good kids.

The rest of the country isn't as fortunate...............

[opiate69]

31. And the size of your sample is????

Oh, yeah... "My kids are older, grown, married, parents, so I don't have that exposure to kids in their twenties."
So you base your claim on what, exactly?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

39. My mistake -

I wrote a comprehensive post about my work and my life, and then I realized that I was giving information to an anonymous nobody who simply cannot read.

My mistake, but it's been taken care of now.................

[opiate69]

42. lol.. what-the-fuck-ever.

"My kids are older, grown, married, parents, so I don't have that exposure to kids in their twenties." pretty much sums it up anyway. Casting aspersions on Mythsaje's experience, directly after admitting you have little to no exposure to/experience with the demographic in question is truly the height of idiocy.

[TwixVoy]

19. One thing I have learned

is that what you see on the outside is often not is what is actually going on.

For example, my daughters last boyfriend. Came over. SEEMED to me like a really nice guy in his twenties. Said all the right things to me.

Then one day he started bragging (yes bragging) to my daughter and his friends about two girls he sexually assaulted at a party while they were intoxicated referring to them as "dumb bitches". His friends congratulated him and had a good laugh. (these were people in their 20's college "educated" and working good middle class jobs)

Fortunately she was smart enough to get the fuck away from him after that.

Fact is though from what my daughter has told me a LOT of people in her age range are living almost what is double lives. They look like decent people, but the kind of unethical shit they are doing regularly for "fun" is what most people are not seeing. But I can tell you women in her age range are commonly and regularly being treated and used like commodities all the damn time.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. Why is this, do you think?

If this is some kind of norm, what's behind it, I wonder?

For openers, I'd say there's a certain amount of rage there, and it's directed at women.

Want to go out on a limb and say that this what daycare does when Mom's not around and is too busy to give her son the kind of care and attention he needs, and he grows up to be a male who only wants to hurt women?

At the same time, saying all the right things?

I know that's a leap, but stranger things have happened........................

[TwixVoy]

25. Damned if I know

There is certainly still a "good" set of 20 something out there.... but the kind of subset that this guy represented seems to be now in sizable numbers, and seems to be growing.

I mean hell just take a look at pop culture and it's presentation of 20 somethings. Be it magazines, TV, music, etc. The common theme seems to be cheating on someone, using them for money, finding the popular one, using women as living toys, etc. Then look at the presentation of males in this age range. The ones who don't give a damn are the successful ones. The ones who get that money by ANY means. The ones who use up women and toss them out. The ones who are "successful" - these are the ones pop culture says are the ones to be like.

I think as a society we have created this kind of person as the person to want to be.

[handmade34]

29. a leap but-

generally I think its lack of either male or female attention. I can only wince when I am out in public and watch kids and parents (or shell of parents with them)usually at restaurants or shopping malls.
I am absolutely delighted when I am at a park (and it is almost always a park or such) and parents and kids are REALLY Together. I was so very fortunate to live on a farm when my kids were growing up and we walked and read and played and worked very hard together. It is not the same world anymore.

[Mythsaje]

14. I spent some time with a female friend today (she's twenty)

and she was complaining that most of the guys her age are either shallow dickheads or just about clueless. Some of it comes with the territory of being that age, I think, but she's a smart, pretty, and talented young woman who out-shines just about all of them. Few guys her age could ever appreciate her.

By the time I'm done they'd better not mess with her though. :evilgrin: She got her first introductory course in escrima today.

[handmade34]

26. don't know much about it but it doesn't hurt to know how to protect yourself

my youngest daughter is 24 and she says the same about young men... all shallow guys and shes ready to get serious about life

[TwixVoy]

27. SOME of it comes with that age

but by the mid-late twenties that shit should be done with. It isn't.

And then the part of it that does NOT come with age (i.e. rape and being proud of it) should be a big concern to us as a nation.

[Mythsaje]

30. I don't know a single guy who'd be on-board with that shit.

Not one. Of any age.

And, no, most guys aren't clued in to who they are and what a relationship is supposed to be until their LATE twenties, at the earliest. If you're expecting it in the mid twenties, you're going to be disappointed.

[CoffeeCat]

43. Guys that age wouldn't be interested in her...

She's smart and she also sounds very mature and wise.

Most 20-year old guys just want to get laid and have a good time. Obviously, she understands this.

[Selatius]

16. I'm in my 20s. I'd whip the person who raped the girl if I were there.

My generation is going have some--in very blunt terms--pretty fucked up groups of traumatized war veterans, drug dealers and addicts, gang bangers, and people who came from dysfunctional and downright abusive households run by parents who had no business being parents and will likely themselves become the next generation of wife beaters and child abusers. Not all of us are bad though. Some of us, despite the hurdles, came out all right or at least sort of all right. I didn't come of it unscathed. I have my own problems and dysfunctions I must learn to live with.

This is the world I know. God willing, the best of us will become the future leaders of America, and I cringe at the thought that my generation's equivalent of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush could actually win power and destroy everything.

[TwixVoy]

28. Well good for you

but the problem is far too many people in your age range don't seem to have the same concern.

[Selatius]

35. Yeah, I've started feeling pretty lonely as far as that observation goes.

I really don't want to blame the society that we were basically born into, but it's difficult to imagine the problems we face weren't the result of those who came before us and that we're basically going to be left trying to fix the problems others left behind.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

40. You're first-rate,

and I applaud you for your sentiments and your obvious thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit.

My question is - what are the problems? Until we identify them, we can't even begin to think of fixing them...............

[Selatius]

41. The problems we face are the problems America currently face.

We're facing everything. The reports are saying we're pretty much screwed as far as avoiding catastrophic global warming by the end of the century, but that's a bigger worry for our grand kids and great grand kids. We witnessed and have fought in the first real "oil war" of the 21st century in Iraq. I don't doubt that there will be more. We will inherit an awesome and crippling national debt from the previous crop of leaders. On top of that, we will be left with a national infrastructure that is decaying, bridges rusting and collapsing, a power grid stretched to the limit, levees inadequate to protect the people, and schools that are falling behind the rest of the industrialized world. There are more problems though from a giant wealth gap between the richest and everyone else and lack of opportunities for kids in inner-city areas and rural areas. It goes on.

I would say, though, that if it could all be boiled down to one thing, it would be that we don't really control our government. We influence it, but we have no real control. If we had elections where public money was the dominant element in political campaigns, the politicians would listen to people more instead of special interests with gobs of cash to throw around. If there is no real reform to make public financing the preferred choice of politicians, there will be no real fundamental change, I fear.

In a world of change, when you don't change, you disappear.

[CoffeeCat]

44. You seem pretty self aware...

I think it's amazing for someone in their early twenties to understand that you had some challenges growing up, and that
as a result you have some things to sort out.

That's incredibly astute.

I came from a horrendously dysfunctional family--and I spent most of my 20's in denial--partying, drifting in college, etc,

It wasn't until my mid-30's that I stopped running and finally faced that I had major issues to work out.

I think you are right--that so many people your age who were raised by very dysfunctional people, and sometimes abusive
people. The damage from parents who were neglectful, absent due to high-powered careers or just plain abusive--can be
a bottomless pit of agony. If most of these kids stay in denial about their own pain--your're right about the cycle
repeating. The denial is what causes so much trouble for people and for society in general.

You really need to understand how astute you are, and how self aware you are for a twenty something. It's really amazing.

[Selatius]

45. You sound like me from the future. I'm actually in my late 20s now.

When you said "partying, drifting in college, ..." that sounds like me. I'm still trying to right myself, but I'm in a lot better position now than I was five years ago. I spent years in college drifting aimlessly, being in an unhealthy relationship with a woman who was both mezmerizing and toxic to me, changing majors, and finding myself. I have a huge tuition bill that's sapping my finances nowadays as a result, but there's not much I can do about that now.

I met some radical people, though. They broadened my horizons beyond simply just FOX News and all the other tripe you find on TV, and they filled me in on the part of American history they like to cut out of history text books published by big corporations. There's a whole world out there beyond just the US. They liked asking questions. That's what got the ball rolling for me.

If I knew back then at the end of high school what I know now, I would be taking down all comers...

[imdjh]

8. I don't think that the Great Depression is a crystal ball for modern times.

If it were, then one could argue that the two primary "culprits" simply don't exist: Prohibition and abject poverty.

But what I have observed is that long before much in the way of real impact was felt by the average person (ie job loss or home loss) people started blaming things on "the economy". "Well, with the economy the way it is...." seemed to begin many sentences spoken by people who hadn't lost their jobs and who had not yet experienced much in the way of impact. It was the psychological aspect of the economic conditions on the horizon, it was fear itself.

There has supposedly been a spike in burglaries already here in the Tampa Bay area. Now why would that be? Is anyone about to starve to death? No. Is burglarizing some poor schmuck's house going to generate income with which to pay bills, feed children, or even put gas in the car? Probably not. So maybe, if there really is an uptick in the burglary rate, it's because people feel like they have a license to do this. "Well, with the economy the way it is..."

And a surprising number of people who are engaging in these burglaries appear to be young men who probably live with parents and eat parent food. So what is the excuse?

[TwixVoy]

10. I will tell you

"And a surprising number of people who are engaging in these burglaries appear to be young men who probably live with parents and eat parent food. So what is the excuse? "

They need the newest toy. The newest ipod. Society tells us those who have those things are the ones who have worth. Thus it is very important to have those things. How they acquire them does not matter. Instead of working to earn such things they seek to acquire them in other ways.....

[Fumesucker]

36. We do indeed have Prohibition..

Not of alcohol, but of every other "recreational drug".. and it is driving a great deal of criminality and violence.

I've been speaking with my son in law's grandmother lately, she was a teen and young adult during the Depression, she makes an excellent point when she tells me that yes they were poor, but they didn't know it because everyone else around them was poor also, they had nothing with which to compare their conditions and find them wanting.

Today virtually everyone is exposed to a different and far superior world on television, no one struggling to make the house payment, no one struggling to get health care. It may be a fantasy but for many of us it is the reality and the far harsher world we live in is a kind of evil dream.

So many things are a matter of perspective, today we are almost all exposed to a completely unreal perspective that nevertheless often seems both much more real than and far superior to the actual reality that surrounds us. I really don't think this is a healthy state of affairs either for the individual or for our society.

Edited for grammar:

[MadMaddie]

21. This really began during the Reagan years

got worse during Clinton and then went into hyperdrive with * Jr.

Obama pisses them off because he is actually being fairly respectful to all sides. They don't know how to deal with it.

It will be rough for awhile but I think that we may get lucky and return to a considerate society.

[lonestarnot]

24. Well sort of.

Today I met 3 interesting young people. 1 was a felon, 2 had just come from an incident in which a woman raged at another driver. The two had witnessed the incident and the woman rager saw that they had seen what happened and threw a drink or something at them. (2 sides to every story, and then there's the truth) Anyway the train came just as the poles (son's 5 year old term for police) were walking across the street. They were excited because they had narrowly escaped getting jammed up into some mess. One of those two guys threw a box of donuts back onto the train. He had a sharing thing, sharing donuts, sharing stories, sharing inquisitiveness, as a kind gesture for donut eaters on the train, which the felon I was seated next to ate, as he related that his life was not worth much so it was ok if the donuts were poisoned, which I promptly demonstrated to him was not the case, and he agreed that he had both legs, arms, eyes, ears and was healthy, but was unemployed had a p.o. along with the accompanying fees, and to top it off the rent was due. Poor kid. I guess someone (a friend of his brother's) had tried to steal his laptop and he beat the crap out of him in his front yard. If someone tried to steal my laptop, I'd prollee attempt the same crap beating, but then I don't have a laptop. But so anyway, my point is that yeah violence appears to come easy for some these days. I think a lot of it is due to joblessness, deprivation, and a society that is starting to demand after having been oppressed, and diverted from the pie for too long a period. :)

[rollingrock]

32. This is what happens

when you have an education system, mass media, television, celebrity pop culture that programs people since birth to value money, status, wealth, material possessions, looks, etc. above all else. this materialism is exacerbated by other factors such as our diversity. our diversity can be a strength in some ways, but it can also be a great liability. we are an extremely diverse society, one that is highly divided by race, ethnicity, class, religion, politics, language, etc. making us easy prey for our corporate overlords and politicians to utilize the divide and conquer strategy against us. neighbors living on the same street hardly even talk to each other, for example. without a strong shared sense of history, background, shared experiences, we can't really relate and bond with each other very strongly, except in the most abstract terms. there is little in the way of our shared sense history and experiences to really ground us as a people. without unity, there is no strength. without strength, there is no highly unified action. without action, there can be no political change.

[Hutzpa]

34. Well said

could not have said any better.


:thumbsup:

[conscious evolution]

38. Good reply

conform compete
consume create

[Hutzpa]

33. I do understand your concern

it's as if some kind of spell has been unleashed on America, where folks can hate
each other for no reason, the amazing thing for me is how DU has become inundated
with some 'special' folks, sometimes the tone can be very seething.

[rucky]

37. I don't think it's a generational thing.

There are assholes of all ages. We're chock full of 'em.

I don't think you can connect it to crime. They're just judgemental, selfish, self-righteous, closed-minded assholes. All legal, but hard to tolerate.