The general decline in standards today

[jamespowers]

It wasn't just me. And I'm not sure what reaction you expected. You started this with "I blame the hippie culture for nearly all the ills of society today", and when called on it responded with accusing people of "ignoring the heart of the issue and keying in on the word ‘hippie’". Then rather than admitting you may have used a little hyperbole in the first place, you pulled out your martyr card, insulted the intellgence of those who called you out, and tried to claim the intellectual high road. Sorry, you don't get it.

I think everyone agrees with your basic principle about civics and personal interaction, and it's not that we're too stupid or too brainwashed to think on your level, it's that you've framed it in the most offensive way possible.

And way to keep the discussion above name calling and insulting intelligence.



Discuss the argument on its merit and not what you infer it to be.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

It wasn't just me. And I'm not sure what reaction you expected. You started this with "I blame the hippie culture for nearly all the ills of society today", and when called on it responded with accusing people of "ignoring the heart of the issue and keying in on the word ‘hippie’". Then rather than admitting you may have used a little hyperbole in the first place, you pulled out your martyr card, insulted the intellgence of those who called you out, and tried to claim the intellectual high road. Sorry, you don't get it.

I think everyone agrees with your basic principle about civics and personal interaction, and it's not that we're too stupid or too brainwashed to think on your level, it's that you've framed it in the most offensive way possible.

Wow...pretty bitter diatribe there HH. Making it quite personal....:eusa_doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

It is interesting to note that the only people you are allowed to legally hit are children.

As I say, I think there's a place for a slap or a cuff once in a while, if it's needed to get a small child's attention. But all this ritualized bend-over-the-knee-and-whip-the-kid stuff that people talk about isn't healthy for anyone, parent or child, and it speaks more of latent sadism than it does healthy parenting. Sure it might have been a part of some of our childhoods, but what did it really teach anyone? Someone who you think loves you can violently turn on you at any moment because of something your mind isn't fully developed enough to understand?

This kind of thing reminds me of the sort of people who think you can "discipline" a pet by hitting it. The pet doesn't have the intellectual capacity to understand "hey, crapping on the floor is bad, and my master loves me enough to rub my nose in it so I won't do it again." All it really learns is fear-aversion. If a kid grows up scared their parent is going to hit them any time they get out of line they might "respect" that parent out of a sense of fear, and that doing anything to provoke their parent's violence is wrong, but are they going to truly feel loved or respected themselves?

I know as soon as I finish from this we'll hear from the "I Was Raised In The Fifties And My Daddy Beat Me With a Razor Strap When I Done Wrong and He Was Right To Do It" crowd, but seriously. I was beaten regularly until I was eighteen. The night I graduated from high school my mother threw a plate of spaghetti at me because of some stupid thing, and I had tomato sauce all over my clothes when I walked up to get my diploma. I didn't learn a damn thing from being beaten other than to deeply mistrust any "authority figure" who claimed to have my best interests at heart.

It took me a long time to forgive my mother, but I have. But I haven't *forgotten,* and I bet that under all the "I got beat and it did me good" stuff all the rest of you good ole boys can remember feeling that same sense of betrayal.

 

[jamespowers]

It took me a long time to forgive my mother, but I have. But I haven't *forgotten,* and I bet that under all the "I got beat and it did me good" stuff all the rest of you good ole boys can remember feeling that same sense of betrayal.

Nope. Not a bit and now that I have my own children I understand even more what my parents went through and thank them for being that lenient. lol lol

 

[HudsonHawk]

Wow...pretty bitter diatribe there HH. Making it quite personal....:eusa_doh:

There's nothing bitter or personal about it, I'm simply explaining why he got the reaction he did.

 

[jamespowers]

There's nothing bitter or personal about it, I'm simply explaining why he got the reaction he did.

From you.

 

[HudsonHawk]

This kind of thing reminds me of the sort of people who think you can "discipline" a pet by hitting it. The pet doesn't have the intellectual capacity to understand "hey, crapping on the floor is bad, and my master loves me enough to rub my nose in it so I won't do it again." All it really learns is fear-aversion.

This brings up another hot button for me, as I have a soft spot for animals, and I'm one who believe there are no bad pets, only bad owners.

But I guess I've pushed enough hot buttons before lunch for one day.

 

[HudsonHawk]

From you.

From others as well. Why he got the "ridding society of undesireables" comment, why he got the "blacks, homosexuals...and carpetbagges" comment. Why he got the "shoveling the driveway" comment. Reactions he seemed surprised and offended to receive.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Resorting to poor English and 'good ole boys'...what is that supposed to signify? How dumb we must be to dare disagree?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I am not quite sure that works as the WWII generation were overwhelmingly raised with corporal punishment---in the home, at school and with extended family. Yet they managed to staff a military with fawning, cringing victims and bullies. This was against some of the greatest military forces of all time too---and they won. :eeek:

Well, it's interesting to look at the women's magazines of the period from around 1910 to 1925 -- which recommended strongly *against* corporal punishment. There was a strong movement during this period toward a more psychologically-based approach to child-rearing, and while there were certainly plenty of "cut me a switch" parents during that period, especially in rural settings, public sentiment in general was moving away from that approach.

I don't think you can use a military setting as a healthy model for the real world. There was actually a lot of trouble with discipline in the preparation-era Army in 1940-41 -- it took the motivation of actually getting shot at to get a lot of the draftees to fall into line.

Patton and MacArthur might have been fine tacticians, but they were also the very living definition of vainglorious bullies. People like that have no place in society outside the military.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This brings up another hot button for me, as I have a soft spot for animals, and I'm one who believe there are no bad pets, only bad owners.

But I guess I've pushed enough hot buttons before lunch for one day.

That button can never be pushed too often. Show me a "bad dog" and I'll show you a POS dog owner. When I'm dictator, people who willfully abuse animals will be shot.

 

[HudsonHawk]

That button can never be pushed too often. Show me a "bad dog" and I'll show you a POS dog owner. When I'm dictator, people who willfully abuse animals will be shot.

'

Perhaps after I've had my tuna sandwich then.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

Up until I was 10 years old my parents used spanking - a swat on the behind to get my attention, never using anything but their hand - but then they wised up and realized that making me sit in a chair in the corner for 30 mins. to an hour to "think about" whatever I'd done was much more effective in getting my attention and their point across. I'd much rather have had the spanking and gone on my merry way than sit in that chair for any length of time. When I became a teenager they used grounding and taking privileges away, such as not being allowed to go to a football game or to the mall with my friends. I'm a believer that a swat on the behind in younger children to get their attention is okay, but my parents' most effective punishment was sitting in the chair, grounding, and taking away privileges. Just imagine taking away a kid's cell phone or computer now days and how that would definitely get them to think about committing any offense that might get their "lifeline" taken away again.

 

[Dennis Young]

Ok gang. No need to get into a flame war. He’s had his say, lets move on shall we? J


Lizzie, I think in your situation I’d probably feel as you do. Abuse is horrible. I also think I agree with you and Timewarp that when a kid is younger, a swat on the fanny can accomplish a lot. Of course I'm not advocating we beat a kid. I think if you bruise a kid, you should probably get fired if not outright go to jail. So we’re not too far apart on that I think. And as kids get older, perhaps detention or writing lines are more effective. I know I would have ‘HATED’ detention. The thought of staying after school or coming in on a weekend would have been plenty to deter me. J


Someone (and please forgive me because I cant remember) mentioned something about times have changed. I’ve heard that on tv and on other places on the net, groups, news articles. We all have to make allowances because times have changed.


My immediate thought is why? Why have times changed? And if it has changed, has it changed for the better? When it comes to respecting one another, I’d say not.
Forgive my lack of grammar but ya’ll would probably laugh if I told you that the perfect utopia in my view would be to look at life as it was on the Andy Griffith show. Yes, that was an idealized life and society most likely wasn’t that way.


But why shouldn’t it be? For every person regardless of race or whatever? People in Mayberry were, for the most part, genuinely nice to one another. They dealt with problems in a funny way (it was a sitcom) but usually in a family friendly manner.


Why does society have to be more like Blackboard Jungle and less like Andy Griffith?
　

　

 

[jamespowers]

Well, it's interesting to look at the women's magazines of the period from around 1910 to 1925 -- which recommended strongly *against* corporal punishment. There was a strong movement during this period toward a more psychologically-based approach to child-rearing, and while there were certainly plenty of "cut me a switch" parents during that period, especially in rural settings, public sentiment in general was moving away from that approach.

I don't think you can use a military setting as a healthy model for the real world. There was actually a lot of trouble with discipline in the preparation-era Army in 1940-41 -- it took the motivation of actually getting shot at to get a lot of the draftees to fall into line.

Patton and MacArthur might have been fine tacticians, but they were also the very living definition of vainglorious bullies. People like that have no place in society outside the military.

Those magazines were written by New York Socialites for New York Socialites. The rest of the country didn't put much stock in those magazines. Likely they were good for the recipes though.
Ok, let's use real life. Back then people were much more cordial to each other on a regular basis--regardless of corporal punishment. They had what we are largely missing today---respect. Through fear or cooercion.
"Having or showing too much pride in your abilities or achievements." Yes, the very definition of a military leader. He thinks he knows better than anyone else and therefore should lead. Yes those are the people who get to the front.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I grew up in a very Mayberry-like town, during the same era in which that show was in production. Mostly working-class, people worked on the docks or in small businesses, everybody knew everybody else. On the surface, very friendly, and for the most part everybody got along. There was a lot of sleazy small-town intrigue and backbiting, but that's always been the case in small towns. But it was generally a decent place to live.

But here's the thing -- there were still bad kids. There was a family on the other side of our block, the O'Briens. They had six kids who were absolute hell raisers, and not in a cute, adorable mischief kind of way. They were dangerous, violent little hoodlums, and we were all terrifed of them. They'd steal, they'd vandalize, they'd shoot your animals with their BB guns, they'd shoot *you* with their BB guns, and nobody ever stepped in and did anything about it. Their parents beat them regularly, for all we knew -- the father was a drunk, and known to be a violent one -- but if he did it just made them worse. When they got older they got into drugs, and one by one, they dropped out of school. That was how the schools handled "troublemakers" in those days -- they basically just encouraged them to drop out. By the time you got into high school most of the hellions had already been filtered out of the system and tossed on society's trash pile. Let them be somebody else's problem, the school district said, and then wondered why their names kept turning up in the court news. Nobody ever tried to actually *help* them. They just figured "out of sight, out of mind."

Another example. My best friend as a child lived across the street from us. Her father was the town police chief, but he was no Sherriff Andy. He was a cold, distant man who didn't seem to have any time for anything but his job, which mostly involved strutting around in a uniform and polishing his gun. Her mother was a thin-lipped, pinch-faced frosted-haired social climber who hated my guts because I was the "wrong kind of people" for her child to be associated with, and she tried very hard to keep us apart. She didn't like her daughter much, either, and my strongest memory of her is her yelling at her child "keep your clammy hands off me!" My friend, for her part, was miserably sad and unhappy, and we'd often sit in a tree out back and make our plans to run away. We never did, but we always wanted to.

As you say, you only saw a certain angle on TV. The real world was, and has always been, a lot more complicated.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Why does society have to be more like Blackboard Jungle and less like Andy Griffith?

Because people are selfish by human nature. People are competitive by nature. Self preservation is a powerful instinct. And don't get me started on the biggest reason people think they are somehow superior and/or need to "save" others. It's hard enough to get consensus among 9 people. Among 900,000,000?

And I'm not saying it has to be that, I'm just saying that is and it will never change.

 

[Dennis Young]

Wow...talk about timing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...betrayed-facial-expressions-claims-study.html

 

[jamespowers]

From others as well. Why he got the "ridding society of undesireables" comment, why he got the "blacks, homosexuals...and carpetbagges" comment. Why he got the "shoveling the driveway" comment. Reactions he seemed surprised and offended to receive.

Yes, yes, we all like red herrings and straw men.
Now back the regularly scheduled programing.

 

[Dennis Young]

Yes, you’ll get that in every town. (My town was a lot like Mayberry too). J
Interesting to note you mentioned that ‘Nobody ever tried to actually *help* them.’
Seems to me that’s where a school program like I mentioned might have served them well. J