I've always read that during the Great Depression, people helped one another

[LiberalLoner]

and that's how a lot of people survived.

With the deep recession we've been having, I feel we are becoming meaner and more callous and sadistic as a society, rather than more altruistic.

What are your thoughts? As we head off the peak oil/peak everything cliff and our economy worsens even further, will we pull together as a society or disinigrate further into "Lord of the Flies" life?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Read on US History and the environment

before the Civil War and that will answer your question.

Our environment right now is polarized like it was before the civil war.

[LiberalLoner]

3. Oh, that's so not good. We are so polarized...I'm thinking it seems mainly

to be more of a generational thing than anything, though, from what I've been seeing. Nearly all the teabaggers I've seen have been over 60. I'm not sure a bunch of over 60 types will be very effective in a new Civil War.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. There are two things that people miss

it won't be blue\gray armies fighting each other, that is oh so last century it is not even funny.

Think more of the guy who went into the holocaust museum. He was in his late 70s... that's the kind of crap I expect, at least in the beginning. Quite frankly "lone wolf operations." This also means that nobody will call it a civil war. We will be damn lucky if they call it terrorism.

From there we may move to things like the Red Brigades, but formal armies killing each other? If we get there... I will be shocked, but not truly surprised.

[LiberalLoner]

14. I think you are right...n/t

[supernova]

2. We don't have as many extended families

living together or nearby as we used to. That's how many people pooled their resources during the depression. You didn't have just the family and granny and gramps living together but aunts/uncles and cousins too.

[Dappleganger]

20. Yes, and REAL connection to our communities/neighbors has been cut off.

People are exhausted when they get home late at night from working so hard for so little. They go into the garage, put down the door (pulling up the proverbial moat) and gravitate to the tv or internet for what little interaction they're able to get.

[KittyWampus]

4. I help people, do you?

I also tend to gravitate towards other people who are helpful.

Maybe you read too much news which focuses on negative and rarely reports on positive.

[LiberalLoner]

5. Yes. n/t

[raccoon]

6. Most of us don't have the sense of community they did then. Back then,

many people lived on farms, in small towns. Most people knew their neighbors. How many of us do these days?

[LiberalLoner]

8. There's a big part of me that worries we have lost so much farming knowledge...there used to be

so many people who knew how to grow a garden or raise chickens...I think there aren't too many people now who know how to do those things well. I am thinking we might need to know how to do those things again someday...

[Dappleganger]

53. Good point.

I'm grateful for a mom who taught me so much about gardening, in particular.

[leveymg]

7. We've been conditioned to be mean and callous from birth. TV, video games,

all of it is meant to keep Americans agitated, ready to kill anyone who gets in our way, and consuming more!

Eighty years of mass media has done this. We have no expectations for anything - gov't, business, religion -- more uplifting than the next splatter scene.

Pass me the chain saw . . .

[LiberalLoner]

12. We have become dehumanized...n/t

[leveymg]

16. Exactly! The Germans and Italians knew all about it in the '20s - Gramsci, W. Reich, Pareto

They called him the New Fascist Man.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. People are the same now as they were then.

Some were helpful, some would stab you in the back.

Enough with this "good old days" shit.

[uppityperson]

11. Exactly. As now, some helped others, some didn't.

People were, and are, people.

[greencharlie]

41. can't agree... sorry. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

52. That's fine.

Back in the Depression, there were no shortage of rubes who felt that people in those days weren't as civil as they were back in the good old pioneer days. They typically blamed automobiles and movie picture shows.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

46. +1 - I think the difference is that we didn't have the media that we have today.

We always, always have a tendency to look back with rose colored glasses, but the sheer volume of today's media and archives wouldn't possibly allow that.

[Donnachaidh]

60. fail - total fail

No they were NOT like the people now.

Having been brought up by people who lived through that period, I know your assertion is totally wrong.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

61. Yeah, we are.

People like you said the same thing. 20 years ago. And 40 years ago. And 60 years ago. And 80 years ago. And so on and so forth all the way back to the beginning.

[Tsiyu]

66. Ha! I agree

You get what you give.

Where I live, people help one another, neighbors know each other, we get together often, we celebrate births and graduations and marriages and sicknesses and deaths as a community.

Some people here don't. Their choice.

If you only sat in your apartment during the Depression, listening to news reports and yelling at the radio, you didn't know from neighbors back then either...

[Ron Green]

13. People are different, and it's mostly because of TV.

There have always been loving people and misanthropes, but mass alienation is on the rise, from about 50-60 years ago.

It's all part of the plan.

[LiberalLoner]

15. Yes - this is what I am seeing. Thank you. n/t

[monmouth]

17. "Pot-Luck" suppers, usually at churches were very popular and those

who were really strapped referred to them as their saving grace. The other popular event was the "Rent" party. Hold a party, contribute what you could and that money went to help pay someones rent.

[onestepforward]

21. I think so too.

My grandparents would often sit outside on the front porch after dinner to visit with neighbors and friends or perhaps take a walk through the neighborhood and chat with neighbors.

Now, people spend their time watching TV, playing video games or surfing the internet. Most of our porches are now isolated in the backyard. There isn't that sense of connection like there once was.

My husband and I work hard to at least have a sense of friendliness in our neighborhood. It has worked out nice. We all share various tools and lawn equipment, and yes, the occasional egg or cup of sugar! We have gatherings on occasion, drink some beer and share laughs. It does take work, but I feel really good about our neighborhood and I think that others appreciate it too.

[gmoney]

18. well, the "social safety net" may actually contribute to that vibe

I think many people have the feeling that when someone else loses a job, it's a snap to just collect unemployment, go on welfare, get food stamps, get free food from food banks, and take part in various other "lucky ducky" programs that are paid for with "taxpayer dollars."

They don't want to get their hands dirty. They pay taxes so that it's the government's problem to deal with the unemployed, or the poor, or the elderly, or the disabled. Or they contribute to charities thinking they'll do the job.

I don't know that we'll be "Lord of the Flies" or "Mad Max" unless there is something that completely wipes out the infrastructure. I'd say "Soylent Green" is a lot more likely. If you recall, the "MacGuffin" in the film is a book which reports on a study that finds the oceans are finally dying -- thus ending the harvest of plankton and seaweed that served as the prime food source in the form of "Soylent" foodstuffs. This is what leads to the introduction of "Soylent Green" which is famously made from people.

[LiberalLoner]

23. Good points. I loved that movie, still one of my favorite movies. n/t

[Journeyman]

19. Here in California in the Depression, the City of Los Angeles put up road blocks on Route 66 . . .

to keep out Okies who migrated in search of better lives. So there was that, too . . .

I try to keep in mind the parable of the travelers that Carl Sandburg chronicles in his epic poem, "The People, Yes." I'll only paraphrase, but it involves two travelers who each ask a farmer about the people who live in the area. The farmer turns it around and asks about those who live where the travelers are from. The first says they're mainly a mean spirited, back biting lot, worthless souls who'd never help another. The farmer replies that that's the sort the traveler will find thereabouts, as well. But the second traveler says those where he's from are decent, hard working people, always open to help their neighbor. And the farmer tells him that that's the sort he'll find thereabouts, as well.

[gleaner]

63. Your post makes me think of my Dad ....

He came to California from Utah in 1939 to try to make a living during the Great Depression. When he got here he was able to make a living in construction then in the WPA when FDR got it up and running. I remember that he told us (I came along in 1947) that some people were kind and some were not. He was called an "Okie" and and "Arkie" and sometimes turned away from jobs he could have done because people were mistrustful and unkind toward "outsiders."

Eventually he gravitated more toward the helpful people. He was able to work more. We never went hungry and we prospered as much as middle class people do. I noticed when I was little that one of the worst things he could call someone was an "Okie." But still both of my parents taught us to help people who had less and needed much, and I still do. So do my nieces and nephews. I think much of the time we are informed of people's behavior through the MSM which is both conservative and leans toward the worst in people because it draws more attention.

How many posters in this chain would actually refuse to buy a homeless person a sandwich or a cup of coffee or give cans to a food drive or provide other help within their means? You don't have to answer by post because I do not want to call anyone out. I'm just asking you to think of what you yourself would do and remember that there are others like you who are aware, helpful, intelligent and moved toward the kinder impulses. There are also bad people, but that was always true. I don't think basic human nature changes.

[Hannah Bell]

22. also no alternative political formations today; having organizations to fight what was happening

fostered solidarity.

every man for himself nowadays with no strong push-back.

[Mari333]

24. my friends and I barter, and help each other

allow someone an extra room to crash in, exchange dinners, etc..we share..

I think people still do that in small towns..

[madfloridian]

25. Social Security came on the scene...courtesy FDR

The same Social Security that I fear this administration will privatize.

[Dappleganger]

54. Good point. nt

[bobbolink]

26. As a homeless person, I can tell you emphatically... the only people who care are other poor people.

The rest, and that includes "progressives", are only concerned about themselves.

There are so many affluent people around me who pride themselves on being oh, so "progressive", and were active in Obama's campaign.

THEY. DON'T. GIVE. A. SHIT.

It's today's world.

Deal with it.

[LiberalLoner]

28. Oh Jesus. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I stop and give money when I can when I see someone who

is homeless. I usually give $20. I know that's not much but it's better than nothing. When my husband is with me I can't stop because he doesn't believe in helping them.

You are right, most people don't give a shit. Where are you - are you anywhere near Northern Virginia by any chance?

Jesus I hate what is happening to our country. I'm so sorry. We've failed you. I'm sorry.

[bobbolink]

43. I understand that you care, and I understand that you feel like you do what you can.

What I want to emphasize is that CHARITY is not it... charity is what is keeping the whole homelessness racket going.

JUSTICE, may I repeat

JUSTICE

is what we are NOT FOCUSING on.

Sapphire Blue used to post all the time, trying to get through to people that

HOUSING

is the issue.

Yet, whenever I try to get people to take action on HOUSING, I run into brick walls, the same as Sapphire Blue did.

Please.... I ask you to do this one thing for me.... read this, the best report on homelessness available:

Without Housing, by WRAP
http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf

If you really care, and I believe that you are sincere, PLEASE read this and familiarize yourself with it.

Thank you!

[LiberalLoner]

45. I can see why all of a sudden there were homeless people everywhere...I wondered

why that happened. I remember in the 1970's I never saw any homeless people. The funding got slashed to hell with the Reagan revolution.

I wrote to WRAP and asked what I can do to help. I vote Democratic but it never seems to help. And the last 30 years it seems like Democrats have hardly ever won either. And the Reagan revolution keeps on killing people.

[bobbolink]

48. Thank you for being willing to read more. Now you can see why CHARITY

is part of the problem.

ALL that we have been doing in this country for the last 30 years has obviously not worked. Continuing in the same way will only have the same effect... homelessness will continue to increase.

We must CHANGE (remember that word?) our whole approach if we want to END homelessness, not just salve our consciences.

I am glad that you wrote to wrap. Just so you know, I have tried to contact them, and don't have a lot of success. They are coming out with an update to their report.

I was trying to work on a PowerPoint presentation to show to civic and service clubs across the country, but the crisis I have now prevents me from continuing it. What hurts most is that nobody wants to pick it up and see that the program gets beyond the choir, and actually educates people.

PEOPLE MUST CHANGE AND TAKE HOMELESSNESS SERIOUSLY if we are to eradicate it. I now seriously doubt that people actually want to eradicate homelessness.

[LiberalLoner]

51. I think so many of us would love to eliminate homelessness...we just don't know how in the face of

politicians that keep slashing programs. Even in this area, they are making some rules that hurt people, trying to limit how many people can be in one home and limiting what rooms can be used as bedrooms, etc. Where are those people supposed to go? Yeah, three or four families per townhouse isn't the greatest thing, but if we outlaw that, then where do people go?

I just see it as part of the whole wages falling every decade, we work harder and harder for less and less, no security. I see it all tied together with the rich getting richer and the rest of us getting screwed. There has to be change, BIG EFFING CHANGE. There have to be living wages paid so that one person working 40 hours a week can afford a place to live, transportation, going to the doctor and dentist, etc.

I don't know if people don't care so much as so many of us feel helpless after watching things get worse and worse for decades.

[bobbolink]

56. I'm giving you some clear ways, as I have many times on DU.

When people aren't even willing to do a simple thing like send an email or make a phone call, then it is clear they really don't care.

Please understand.... I know this is repeated over and over and over, but please try to replace it with the real facts....... this isn't about JOBS. I know that is the mantra..... PEOPLE WITH JOBS ARE HOMELESS!

AND, as I keep saying, what about those of us who are too old, too sick, too injured to work? Hurl ourselves over a cliff?

We must either stop the mantras of "the working poor" and JOBS, or be honest and admit that we don't care about those who can't work, and just want us gone.

Do you know.... over 50% of people on disability are on SSI?

Do you know the highest amount that people on SSI get per month is $674?

Do you know that this year, for the first time in over 30 years, we were frozen out of a COLA?

Do you know that I figured out that SSI amounts to about $4.21 an hour?

Where do you think any of us can find to live on that amoount???

Does that make you want to take action?

[LiberalLoner]

58. Yes, it does. Food stamps are a pitiful joke too, people starve on those.

And I do care about the disabled and the retired - I think everyone should have a decent place to live, everyone should have their basic needs met. There is no excuse why we can't do that as a country.

[William Z. Foster]

68. solidarity

I picked your post to respond to because you seemed to be the most open-minded and compassionate, not to refute anything you are saying.

Charity is not the answer - although I am glad that people want to give and to help.

The same forces and pressures, the same attitudes and mentality that cause people to be turned people out on the street and make them homeless are all around us every day and impact the lives of all of us. We must stand in solidarity -= mist seer ourselves as one with - those less fortunate. The very things we have been trained to think we must do to look after ourselves and keep ourselves from being desperate are the things that cause homelessness - be clever, look out for number one, make the right moves, save for a rainy day, get the right job, think the right thoughts, kiss the asses of those with more perceived status, play the game.

Charity is divisive - the givers and the takers are on opposite poles of the social equation, with the giver presumed to be superior - in status and wealth, and when they give then also morally superior. There is also an illusion that something has been done, and that is true to an extent, but not when it comes at the price of ignoring and denying the real problem, as it most often the case.

Charity is a pleasant past time for wealthy. We stand together and we fight and we share whatever we have.

We must face reality - we are all at risk and a heartbeat away from being homeless ourselves - we must stand in solidarity - "they" are "us" - and we must fight.

Housing for all - period. Nothing less. It will take a fight.

No more waffling "oh gee the problem is so complex, and Congress blah blah blah, and those Blue Dogs, and I guess people are just greedy and selfish, and the you know how people are, and I do what I can, but I just don't know, I mean I do care and it is awful, but this just seems like the way it is, and what can we really do, I give what I can, and I vote for progressive candidates, I mean I am open to suggestions and am willing to help..."

We are all in it together. We fight. Nothing less will do.

[LiberalLoner]

69. Yes. I've always understood that it could very well be me next. I hate that

there are almost no more unions, and working life is hell for many people. I know that we are all in it together - I vote Democratic, sign petitions, call my congress critters on issues...none of it seems to do any good so far.

I think it's going to literally have to be fighting back on the streets. I think what is happening to us is what happened to Argentina before, and we will end up like Mexico or Haiti or any of those countries with a tiny super-elite and the rest of us absolute paupers.

I'm watching a trainwreck, I'm seeing what is happening and I do understand where we are headed, and feel absolutely powerless to prevent it.

[county worker]

34. I try to give a shit. I give money to homeless people when they ask.

[Dappleganger]

55. We give meals, not money.

Money goes to agencies who are in direct, daily contact w/the homeless and know their story. If it's just someone close by then it's a meal or a sack of clothing.

We can't just pass them by. :(

[bobbolink]

57. What would it take to get you interested in working on the....

HOUSING SHORTAGE?

[LiberalLoner]

59. Look how they are talking about eliminating SS and disability and everything else - the push

is on to completely eliminate any safety nets that are left, pitiful as they are.

And this happens even when we vote Democratic.

What are we supposed to do? I'm not asking to be a smartass, I'm honestly wondering what on earth we can do that would actually be effective.

[X_Digger]

27. During the great depression..

.. my great grandfather's garden fed a lot of neighbors.

But at the same time, he was a justice of the peace in a rural area and spent a lot of time chasing down criminals.

I think some folks have a rosy view filled with nostalgia (which is not just related to the great depression) about how people 'used to be'.

[LiberalLoner]

29. I don't exactly have a rosy view of the past...just noticing that in my lifetime things

have become meaner and people seem to think it's cool to be a bully. I don't remember it being that way when I was a kid, so much. I'm pushing 50 now. I'm just saying I've seen a big change in our culture over the decades I've been alive. More consumerism, less idealism.

[X_Digger]

31. I didn't mean to suggest you do..

.. just that it's a general trend.

I'm reminded of the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode on nostalgia.

I grew up in just above abject poverty, and there was a heck of a lot of meanness & bullying where I lived. (And a lot of folks bending over backwards to help each other.)

I do agree that people have become.. I don't know.. jaded? more pragmatic? more cynical?

[LiberalLoner]

32. More alienated, less connected to others? Something...something is different...n/t

[X_Digger]

38. Well.. I'd consider myself more connected..

.. but not necessarily to people close (geographically) to me. So maybe my connections are broader yet shallower.

[county worker]

30. My dad worked for NCR during the depression. They gave every employee soup as they went home.

My dad shared what he got with this brother. The lived in the upstairs room of a motorcycle shop in Dayton Ohio.

[LiberalLoner]

33. Wow....I used to live near Dayton, I mean for a few years I lived near Dayton. Nice area but the

winters were awfully gloomy - there were days I sure missed sunshine. Nice people though. Good people.

[county worker]

37. I was born and raised there. Moved to CA in the 80's

[doc03]

35. People feel that is the government's job

to help people. Most people think people get unemployment, food stamps, welfare, disability pensions, meals on wheels, rent subsidies etc.

[warren pease]

36. Then, people rallied to resist foreclosures; now they line up to buy them for pennies on the buck...

Here's the lead paragraph from a Barbara Ehrenreich article in the 1/23/09 edition of The Nation.

Early one morning in July 1933, the police had evicted John Sparanga and his family from a home on Cleveland’s east side. Sparanga had lost his job and fallen behind on mortgage payments. The bank had foreclosed. A grassroots “home defense” organization, which had managed to forestall the eviction on three occasions, put out the call, and 10,000 people — mainly working-class immigrants from Southern and Central Europe — soon gathered, withstanding wave after wave of police tear gas, clubbings and bullets, “vowing not to leave until John Sparanga back in his home.”

Here's the entire article

Now, swarms of real estate vultures close in on the bare bones of the former homeowner, looking for their next great deal. And the universe sheds another tear for our lost humanity.


wp

Edited to add link to the article.

[Brickbat]

50. Bank auctions on foreclosed farms were sometimes met with "penny auctions" or "nickel auctions,"

wherein no one in the crowd bid above a penny or a nickel for the goods, equipment, house and land that came out of the foreclosure auction. The bank got little to nothing, and everyone was able to sacrifice a little bit in order to give the person back his home and belongings. Results varied, of course.

[Hekate]

39. We like to think that, but I am not entirely sure. Mom's stories were not warm and fuzzy at all

The Dust Bowl certainly had an affect on an entire region's ability to feed itself, but poverty in other areas had the same effect.

For too many families, good food was scarce enough during the Great Depression that a huge number of young men got rejected for the draft in the 1940s for things like rickets and other deficiency diseases.

The KKK rose up in all its hate -- they needed to blame somebody, and the Jews, Catholics, and African-Americans were handy. Catholics weren't exempt from misdirected bile: there was Father Coughlin on the radio spewing about the Jews.

Hekate

[LiberalLoner]

42. That's true, there were always the evil people...n/t

[greencharlie]

40. YES... you're right. Welcome to the 21st Century... have you seen the new iPAD? I gotta' get one.

:sarcasm:

[AnArmyVeteran]

44. Compare the depression era people buying a chicken for their neighbors, to right wingers of today...

Right wingers are stocking up on guns and ammo. They couldn't care less about other people. They openly despise the poor or anyone who isn't pure white. For some strange reason they worship the rich and corporations like they are their gods. And right wingers use religion as a weapon, and certainly don't give a damn about what Jesus taught.

In tough times in the past people did help one another. But right wingers seem primed to use their newly acquired guns to take what they want from others.

[old mark]

47. It depends on who and where you were. Some people in the last great depression

were treated terribly and squeezed for their last possible cent of money and their last ounce of physical strength to make money for the rich. My grandfather worked on a railroad and was considered fortunate to have a sandwich for lunch every day-2 pieces of bread spread with lard-and every once in a while an apple or even an orange (a rare thing in those days). People literally had nothing but what they wore, and these people had been employed by big companies or had owned small businesses only a short time before.

I have no doubt that hard times bring out the good in some people, but they bring out the evil in others...


mark

[Lerkfish]

49. the basic structure is very different now. Back then, you had truck farms, canning

and people had more land around their houses. Now we are more concentrated in cities, and even if you wanted to give someone a shade tree to sleep under, or odd jobs to do around the family farm, you couldn't.

[troubledamerican]

62. This thread is the concept behind the book "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler

His book is summarized best in his essay for Rolling Stone (404 on Rolling Stone website, but available here):
http://trinimansblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/riveting-article-from-rolling-stone.html

Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.

I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.

The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.

The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities' problems. Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of twentieth-century industrialism.

Check out his book
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Emergency-Converging-Catastrophes-Twenty-First/dp/0802142494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273200138&sr=8-1


Check out his website
http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/02/were-weimar.html

[LiberalLoner]

70. Great reply! I've read that book and have read his blog for several years now. My only

criticism of Kunstler is that he keeps making predictions like, "by August we will have blood flowing in the streets and heads being chopped off in the Hamptons" and so far his specific predictions like that have not come to pass. But his broader view of what is happening and what is likely to happen in the future seems spot on.

[npk]

64. Part of it has to do with the fact that during the Great Depression

People knew their neighbors. And when I say knew, I don't mean knew their names, I mean people knew them on a very personal level. And this was true for entire neighborhoods to a large degree. So when people were experiencing hard times, their neighbors and people who lived in their community had an emotional connection to that person's suffering or hardship. Communities would have no choice but to pull together, because each person had a stake, to some degree, in the other person wellbeing. Whether it was only because their child would play with another child in that family, and that bond would lead to generosity toward that neighbor. People also knew that if they turned their back on their neighbor then word would get around fast.

Today though people tend to move around the country so much, that most people don't really get to know their neighbors, and if they do, it's usually only by name, and there really isn't much of a history or connection. We have become a transient population. We go wherever the jobs are. People nowadays don't die in the same town that they grew up in. In some cases people don't even die in the same state that they were born in. It's easy to ignore your neighbor and people who live around you when you don't know them and you have nothing invested in one another. Even today, in cases where you have a strong, tight-knit community, it's usually the exception and not the rule.

My sister was telling me a story the other day about how so many of the kids in the neighborhood don't even play with other kids in the neighborhood anymore. That often parents have to drive their kids to another community to play with their friend's, because the kids have at some point moved and rarely do they bother to make new friends in their current neighborhood.

[moondust]

65. Dog-eat-dog capitalism creates a lot of selfish assholes.

I think it has gotten much worse over the past 30 years of predominantly right wing economics.

[LiberalLoner]

71. I do too. n/t

[KonaKane]

67. We are not the same society. And that is not a good thing.

I believe that decades of privilege and entitlement, as well as the soothing creature comforts we have become accustomed to, have pretty much robbed the humanity from us. While there are a few exceptions, for the most part we are a society of mean the likes of which I have not seen before.

[KharmaTrain]

72. A Residual Of The Immigrant Societies...

As others have noted here, this country didn't have the economic safety net that it does today and much of the social services were done by private entities. Many of these were Immigrant Society and settlement houses that catered to one ethnic group or another. Our urban make-up was far different then as well as many enclaves and neighborhoods spoke different languages and these societies handle much of the work in helping the large number of immigrants assimilate.

The Depression would change the focus of many of these groups from immigrants (whose numbers had tapered off in the 20s) to the many unemployed. One didn't turn to the government, they turned to those in their societies and many times this was a family member or neighbor. Today we're more spread out and the government has replace many of these societies as the source of assistance during economic hard times. Also bad times hit different people in different ways. Thus while many of us suffer, we do so more personally and in our own ways as compared to 80 years ago.