The general decline in standards today

[HoosierDaddy]

I think it also may be that how in today's social structure, we have a few generations of parents that have to both work, have been given too many "guidelines" as to what they can and cannot do regarding discipline, and in part, some families actually live their life for their "children", rather than to be a loving happy married couple that instead of allowing the children to be the boss and run life, will put the spouse above all else and give a child a positive role to follow.

In reading about what teachers have to put up with, I could not do the job they do and give them credit for the tolerance they have. In school in my day, the last thing you wanted was for Mom or Dad to be called that you did something wrong in school. Today, it seems parents will desire to blame the teachers for what their brats may do. I raised my children to be fully accountable for what they do and was fairly lucky they learned to be respectful and helpful to adults and especially teachers. Lord knows if I was a teacher, I would beyond a doubt be in jail for lambasting some smart mouthed aggressive child and/or parent.

I totally think things are far from as proper as they used to be. A current "theme" is, if the glove fits, LIE about it! Deny what you can and blame anyone else whenever possible. It is more than what the T.V. programs have forwarded into our lives. As a group socially, we have allowed it to happen. The " Don't spank your kids", all of it is what we have allowed to take place.

Absolutely...couldn't have said it better....!
HD

 

[PoohBang]

okay, I see where this mob stands.
I'll not give an opposing view point.
You're right everyone. It was so much better when "everyone" knew their place, and we could all beat our kids into submission.

 

[rue]

Don't be testy, it's just an opinion

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I don't wear rose colored glasses. I come from a family that all sorts of problems during the 'golden era', but even those people admit that it was better then. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but your kids could play in the yard, people talked to one another and the world was run by adults, not children.

Many today would rather wear blinders..which contributes to the radical permissiveness causing this rapid decline. That is the problem.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

okay, I see where this mob stands.
I'll not give an opposing view point.
You're right everyone. It was so much better when "everyone" knew their place, and we could all beat our kids into submission.

I think as for beating a child into submission is not where it is at, so to speak. There is a difference between spanking and a beating. Just as there is a difference between not allowing a child to do "whatever" or to cave into demands that may not be for "anyone's" best interest.

 

[Patrick Hall]

I'm as suspicious of narratives of decline as I am of narratives of progress. Whether the Golden Era was golden depends entirely on who and where one was as he or she lived it. And how can we quantify decline or progress? There are as many answers to that question as there are historians who try to answer it. Such debates seem hopelessly subjective to me, on either side.

 

[Miss Golightly]

I saw this poster for the first time the other day - a real sign of the times we are living in. Imagine that this problem is so rife that a poster has to be printed up:

Seriously - I mean - spitting? That has to be one of the scummiest things you can do.

 

[Stray Cat]

I saw this poster for the first time the other day - a real sign of the times we are living in.

Why in the WORLD would anyone spit on a member of the staff? ..or on anybody else?!
Nasty...

 

[LoveMyHats2]

I'm as suspicious of narratives of decline as I am of narratives of progress. Whether the Golden Era was golden depends entirely on who and where one was as he or she lived it. And how can we quantify decline or progress? There are as many answers to that question as there are historians who try to answer it. Such debates seem hopelessly subjective to me, on either side.

A saying my Great Grandfather used many times, Mugwhump...don't be a MugWhump. There is no real fence sitting in life, you are on one side or the other, but you can say you have some concerns about the debate and all that is being addressed here. If you review that yes, horrific crime has been around for years, (Leopold and Loeb) or (Linbergh Baby KidNapping) and it was nationally viewed, how many times per year was such events back then as opposed to daily now? Things have become a "norm" in the news that we have someone killing their Parents, Children, blowing up classmates at school, etc,. etc. and as such I think it is a clear process to come to a level of belief that there is indeed, a clear breakdown in how we are socially.

 

[kamikat]

Yes those crimes occured back then, in fact since the earliest recordings of man's beginning.
However, the number of them has increased, the intensity of them has increased, and the number of those concerned about the crimes has decreased.
It's not so much romanticising as it is an observation by many on here, some of which have studied the "golden age" and realized this.
Yeah I'd love to think that in the next 10 years people will murder, rape, rob, steal, and who knows what else LESS, but they won't.
Allowing the tv to teach instead of the parent, has resulted in a society concerned about "me" and not their neighbor.
This IMHO has become the root of what we face today, a decline in standards.

Are you sure all these crimes have increased? According to FBI statistics, violent crime is actually down. In many large cities, the most active period of violent crime was during the 60's and 70's.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Too bad ineptitude can't be considered a crime.

 

[JimWagner]

If you review that yes, horrific crime has been around for years, (Leopold and Loeb) or (Linbergh Baby KidNapping) and it was nationally viewed, how many times per year was such events back then as opposed to daily now?

That's really more the consequence of nearly instantaneous tv coverage and an illusion of immediacy. When the news of some crime in some little town halfway across the country is presented to you as if it happened right outside your door it's natural to react to it. Hear that sort of thing constantly and you develop that feeling that the world is unraveling. The truth is that stuff and more has always gone on - you just didn't use to even hear about it unless you lived there. And maybe not even then.

Sure, in the "golden age" you heard about the really big crimes like the Lindbergh kidnapping, but how about other kidnappings? The non-celebrity ones? And most of the kidnappings you hear about today are really by a parent who's on the losing end of a custody battle. That didn't even used to be called a kidnapping.

When the tv news departments became part of the entertainment divisions and more about sensationalizing everything so they could keep your attention through the commercials and news stories that were commercials you really began hearing about things that never used to go beyond local news outlets.

You have been manipulated. For profit.

 

[sheeplady]

As far as the child abductions and sexual abuse, I think that part of what has happened is that we now have a culture of fear that actually makes many children more vunerable. The woman in the yard behind me won't let her grandchild (10 years old) out in the yard to play unless she or the child's mother AND the family dogs are outside with her. Other children can't come in the yard, because one of the dogs is vicious to strangers, and the grandmother won't put him inside. The child cannot go into other people's yards. So the poor girl (who lived here for 2 years) is isolated from the neighborhood kids. The neighborhood kids tried to make friends with this girl for an entire summer, but eventually gave up, as the girl can't leave her yard and they can't come in. This woman is not the only parent I've met like this.

The rest of the neighborhood kids run all over and have a close knit social network of parents and other children. If someone approaches one of these young girls (who always run in a group of about 5-7), they are going to scream to high heaven, and tell everybody in the whole neighborhood. Meanwhile, the poor girl behind me doesn't have that network because of her grandmother's fear. She's isolated- and that is exactly the kind of child that sexual molestors and abductors target, because it is easier to gain an isolated child's trust and manipulate them.

The vast majority of child victims are abducted by or sexually abused by family members and/or people close to the child, because these people have the child's trust (and the parents' trust as well). The fear that leads to this isolation is actually putting children at risk, which just leads to more fear when something happens.

 

[Patrick Hall]

There is no real fence sitting in life, you are on one side or the other, but you can say you have some concerns about the debate and all that is being addressed here.

I am an Anglican my friend! We make a religion out of dogged fence-sitting! I have no concerns with the debate actually - people are most welcome to see things as progressing or declining, and there is plenty of evidence for both positions! Which is my point. Society has always been simultaneously progressing or declining depending on where you stand. If it weren't that way, there'd be nothing to debate about. I'm all for debate, as long as we acknowledge at the outset that the purpose of the conversation is the conversation, and not the answers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Statistics can be misleading. The violent crime rate in America in 1960 was about 0.25 per million, and peaked in the early 90s at just under 2 per million. It's declined since then, and is now at about 1.25 per million. It's lower than it was in 1990, but it's still much higher than it was in 1960. So whether the world now is "better" or "worse" might depend to a considerable extent on where your initial point of reference is. Maybe in 2060 we'll be back to 1960 levels, but I kind of doubt it.

There's a lot more to "the general decline in standards" than crime. The general stupefaction of mass culture since the end of World War 2, and especially since 1980, is another very significant decline.

 

[Edward]

I'm as suspicious of narratives of decline as I am of narratives of progress. Whether the Golden Era was golden depends entirely on who and where one was as he or she lived it. And how can we quantify decline or progress? There are as many answers to that question as there are historians who try to answer it. Such debates seem hopelessly subjective to me, on either side.

Quite. As I have said many times before, it's no coincidence that the average gathering of vintage fans of the so-called "Golden Age" is very much dominated by (if not exclusively) those who are white, middle-class, and 'Christian'.

That's really more the consequence of nearly instantaneous tv coverage and an illusion of immediacy. When the news of some crime in some little town halfway across the country is presented to you as if it happened right outside your door it's natural to react to it. Hear that sort of thing constantly and you develop that feeling that the world is unraveling. The truth is that stuff and more has always gone on - you just didn't use to even hear about it unless you lived there. And maybe not even then.

Sure, in the "golden age" you heard about the really big crimes like the Lindbergh kidnapping, but how about other kidnappings? The non-celebrity ones? And most of the kidnappings you hear about today are really by a parent who's on the losing end of a custody battle. That didn't even used to be called a kidnapping.

When the tv news departments became part of the entertainment divisions and more about sensationalizing everything so they could keep your attention through the commercials and news stories that were commercials you really began hearing about things that never used to go beyond local news outlets.

You have been manipulated. For profit.

Yes, 24 x7 news coverage has a lot to do with it, along with manufactured outrage. The "War on Christmas" meme as we see it in the UK every year is an excellent example of that, with the same old myths (most notably Birmingham and "Winterval") being peddled year in, year out.

 

[Patrick Hall]

Yes, 24 x7 news coverage has a lot to do with it, along with manufactured outrage.

"Manufactured outrage" indeed. To me, one of the most distasteful elements of our culture is the relentless hunger for scandal and the never-ending succession of media-ordained villains who perpetrate it. The media is entirely complicit in feeding us both scandal and villains who we can feel morally justified in hating. Because - without villainy to be outraged about, how would we spend our time?

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Yes this is very true, much of the Media/News is more a sales of things to the public rather than to merely relay what takes place or to tell of an event without a spin on it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Such abuses existed in the Era -- any media historian knows who Bernarr Macfadden was -- but the difference between then and now is that Bernarr MacFadden didn't own the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, and his own broadcasting network. Today, Macfaddenism is no longer a fringe movement in the media. It's very much the mainstream.

And if people can't see evidence of a deep, dark cultural decline in that, well, they just ain't lookin'.

 

[Ianthepilot]

Statistics can be misread so easily, and there is so many variables that you just can't account for, so looking at crime rates won't really get you anywhere fast.
I do agree with Lizzie Maine about decline, though. I think that as a culture, everything's become so globalized and sensationalized that the situation has become volatile and tense. Add that to a perceived lack of hope for the future that the public seems to hold, and it's hard to say that we've gone anywhere but down as a people. People just don't seem to care anymore, like they've already started to give up about it all. Am I wrong?