The general decline in standards today

[Chas]

Well, I work in a psychiatric ward, have been doing this for 20+ years, and have worked as a nurse in detox units as well. I have seen death and come into contact with situations and cases that typify the very worst that human beings can dish out to themselves and others. No lie- some of the stuff I have heard, read and seen are nuttier and nastier than anything a scriptwriter can dream up. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

What I discovered in my early 40's was that I was confronted with a choice: either let the bast**ds grind me down and become embittered, angry and cynical, or to become an optimist. I deliberately chose OPTIMIST. Don't get me wrong - I'm no Pollyanna; I know all too well what rottenness dwells in the human psyche. But it was either that or live the rest of my life unhappy and something of a sad case.

There were no "good old days". Anybody who believes that there was is sadly misinformed or chooses to live with rose-colored celluloid glasses on. The world has always harbored extreme awfulness. We are just more aware of it and are made aware of it much quicker than "back in the day". You do, however, have a choice as to how you confront said awfulness.

Be a "half-full" or "half-empty" sort of cat. Lizzie seems to me to be a "Half Empty" sort.

Her choice.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

i get at least one or two people openly commenting on the smell in the shop. Not to my face either, i mean asking me why it might smell is another matter. Now if that were children wrinkling up their noses and what have you, well, i could take that, but grown ups who should know better, openly and loudly saying "ew it smells all musty in here", well, words fail me. (For the record it's a 15th century wine cellar with a well outside, no amount of potpourri or Glade is going to shift the musty)!

Are the people complaining about the musty smell tourists or local Brits?

In a way -- though I don't excuse it -- I expect such remarks from "Dummer Amerikaner" who aren't used to surroundings that are centuries-old. However, it would surprise me coming from people who have lived most of their lives among such a richly historic environment.

 

[Chas]

Well, there are whiners and crybabies, sad sacks and malcontents everywhere. In every country, town and city.

In the words of Tony Soprano, "whaddyagonnado?"

 

[C-dot]

Customers also feel they have carte blanche to openly voice their distate over the merchandise loudly and in a very uncouth manner, which again really irks me...

Amen, sister. If I don't like something I see in a shop, I simply don't buy it. I don't feel the need whatsoever to exclaim "THIS STUFF IS CRAP/THEY CHARGE WAY TOO MUCH FOR THIS/I HATE THIS STUFF." I'm a retail veteran too and I've seen it all...

My biggest gripe is that people let their children scream, roam freely, and pillage public places. As a child, I never dared throw a tantrum or touch anything I wasn't allowed to, because my mother would have raised hell. People seem afraid to speak up, too. Working at Sephora, a couple came in with their young children, who proceeded to run into people and grab at all the make-up samples. Envisioning the smeared lipstick and smashed powders, I politely asked their mother to please keep them from touching things. When this didn't help and the kids became more raucous, I *told* their mother that any destroyed merchandise would be added to her bill. She suddenly decided to discipline them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were no "good old days". Anybody who believes that there was is sadly misinformed or chooses to live with rose-colored celluloid glasses on. The world has always harbored extreme awfulness. We are just more aware of it and are made aware of it much quicker than "back in the day". You do, however, have a choice as to how you confront said awfulness.

Be a "half-full" or "half-empty" sort of cat. Lizzie seems to me to be a "Half Empty" sort.

Actually, I think the glass got spilled.

All I can say about your earlier points is that I look at the world outside my door, as it is now, and compare it to the world I lived in as recently as twenty years ago. There has always been evil, vice, crime, corruption, sleaze, and filth -- but up until very recently we got very very little of it *here.* Now it's here, in bucketfuls,and it's getting worse with every passing year. It's not because "I hear more about it now," either -- twenty years ago, I was a reporter, and there was very little going on I didn't hear about. I know how many murders I covered in the fifteen years I reported news, and I know that within the past ten years, we've had twice as many. I saw the meth lab next door -- after growing up in a town where I didn't even know what pot was.

If people find it comforting to believe that the world hasn't changed, that's certainly *their* choice -- but I think as time goes on it's going to be increasingly difficult for thinking people to do that. The evidence is mounting every day.

 

[C-dot]

If people find it comforting to believe that the world hasn't changed, that's certainly *their* choice -- but I think as time goes on it's going to be increasingly difficult for thinking people to do that. The evidence is mounting every day.

I share this viewpoint (although its solidly rooted in fact.) I prefer to call it "realism" as opposed to "pessimism."

 

[Tomasso]

There were no "good old days". Anybody who believes that there was is sadly misinformed or chooses to live with rose-colored celluloid glasses on. The world has always harbored extreme awfulness. We are just more aware of it and are made aware of it much quicker than "back in the day".

I agree. There's always been a certain percentage of the population who were bad actors but with world population skyrocketing there are simply more and more of their ilk roaming around...........with the magnifying effect of 24/7 coverage of their misdeeds leading to Helena Handbag syndrome.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interestingly, our local population dropped by nearly 1/8th between 1990 and 2010, yet the crime rate is substantially higher. And most interesting of all, our town saw a dramatic demographic shift during that same span, from a working-class economy to a gentrified service economy, so along with the escalating violence and the out-of-control drugs, we've had a substantial increase in white-collar yuppie-type crime. That suggests to me there's something at work here other than the too-many-bugs-in-a-box phenomenon.

That said, I do agree there are too many people in the world. And I fear nature will eventually find a way to correct that.

 

[Miss sofia]

Hey i'm not peering at life through rose tinted spectacles, i agree with both Chas and Tommassos' points of view, my glass is half full for sure, i mean for every cretin who comes through my door, there is usually at least double the amount of customers who restore my faith in humanity by being an utter delight. Perhaps it is that is just more of the rude blighters roaming around these days. But i have actually noticed a decrease in the volume of tourists and shoppers in the last ten years and a rise in general uncouth behaviour. I shall go and have a hear-starter and ponder this for a bit.

VC. Brunswick - sadly it's the Brits who seem to be the troublemakers. Most of the tourists, including hordes of Americans are utterly charming and polite. The musty smell is actually the rotting carcass of the last impudent guttersnipe i bricked up alive under the floorboards - oops rumbled!

C-Dot - I hear you! Actually i have no fear in discipling children who act up in my shop, although i have a small play area which helps and a Sicilian death stare which seems to scare most of them into submission.

 

[lolly_loisides]

I'm also of the glass half full persuasion, and if that doesn't make me one of the "thinking people" (nice dig Lizzie) then so be it. There is too much good in the world to write civilization off completely.

I guess some people take delight in misanthropy. There is plenty of evidence of that in this thread.

 

[Pompidou]

Actually, I think the glass got spilled.

All I can say about your earlier points is that I look at the world outside my door, as it is now, and compare it to the world I lived in as recently as twenty years ago. There has always been evil, vice, crime, corruption, sleaze, and filth -- but up until very recently we got very very little of it *here.* Now it's here, in bucketfuls,and it's getting worse with every passing year. It's not because "I hear more about it now," either -- twenty years ago, I was a reporter, and there was very little going on I didn't hear about. I know how many murders I covered in the fifteen years I reported news, and I know that within the past ten years, we've had twice as many. I saw the meth lab next door -- after growing up in a town where I didn't even know what pot was.

If people find it comforting to believe that the world hasn't changed, that's certainly *their* choice -- but I think as time goes on it's going to be increasingly difficult for thinking people to do that. The evidence is mounting every day.

"Thinking people" have been wrong about the end of the world for the last 2,000 years. Do you want to consider yourself one of them and pass the torch one more generation?

 

[LizzieMaine]

All I can do is repeat what I said. If it comforts people to feel that nothing has changed, to keep repeating Coue-like that "every day in every way the world is getting better and better," then by all means continue. We all need ways to get thru the night.

But I don't think the evidence supports that conclusion. And I think that as time goes on, it'll become increasingly difficult for thinking people -- people who are honest with themselves -- to keep convincing themselves otherwise.

I was going to throw in Ambrose Bierce's definition of an optimist, but that's what Google is for.

 

[Pompidou]

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States to see a bunch of graphs showing crime rates on a general decline. If anything, things are getting better. I'd dig up an article showing the progress of science and technology, but, that's what Google is for. Minorities are continuing to break down barriers and glass ceilings over time as we speak. I'd say that's always a good thing. If the world is going down the toilet because your small town isn't 40 years behind anymore, that's hardly proper justification for doomsaying.

 

[C-dot]

I guess some people take delight in misanthropy. There is plenty of evidence of that in this thread.

It takes all kinds... Seriously! The world would be completely unbalanced if we didn't have misanthropics, optimists, and everyone in-between.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States to see a bunch of graphs showing crime rates on a general decline. If anything, things are getting better.

Be wary of statistics. So much depends on the variables used: What information is included and excluded, who is gathering the information, what groups of people are used, what types of information is used...

That said, be just as wary of sources. It doesn't take much to become a Wikipedia editor or contributor, which is probably why it is not an acceptable source to cite for essays in any post-secondary institution.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I could point out statistics showing that the prison population is at an all-time high (especially among minorities), that the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it's been since the 1890s, that the rate of functional illiteracy is spiking, that people seem to be going out of their way to find newer and more poisonous ways to drug themselves into some sort of oblivious haze -- but yeah, every day in every way, the world is getting better and better.

But I'm not going to, because I'm not trying to *convince* anybody. All I'm doing is interpreting what I see -- if you want to disagree, go ahead. If it makes you feel better, never let it be said I denied someone their pleasure. I'm a grouch, but I'm not mean.

 

[Pompidou]

It takes all kinds... Seriously! The world would be completely unbalanced if we didn't have misanthropics, optimists, and everyone in-between.



Be wary of statistics. So much depends on the variables used: What information is included and excluded, who is gathering the information, what groups of people are used, what types of information is used...

That said, be just as wary of sources. It doesn't take much to become a Wikipedia editor or contributor, which is probably why it is not an acceptable source to cite for essays in any post-secondary institution.

Definitely be wary. If it were a single graph, I wouldn't have bothered, but it's a bunch of graphs, all showing a similar trend of improvement. Considering the same graphs showed a marked rise in the beginning of the periods charted before the current decade plus of significant improvement, I'd say, for at least the information used to compile the graphs, it was consistent throughout. Things were good, got bad, and have returned/are returning to good. It doesn't seem far fetched, especially when roughly mirrored in a dozen different sources.

 

[Pompidou]

Well, I could point out statistics showing that the prison population is at an all-time high (especially among minorities), that the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it's been since the 1890s, that the rate of functional illiteracy is spiking, that people seem to be going out of their way to find newer and more poisonous ways to drug themselves into some sort of oblivious haze -- but yeah, every day in every way, the world is getting better and better.

But I'm not going to, because I'm not trying to *convince* anybody. All I'm doing is interpreting what I see -- if you want to disagree, go ahead. If it makes you feel better, never let it be said I denied someone their pleasure. I'm a grouch, but I'm not mean.

Then it might best be said that things are on average about the same. Some areas of life have been improving. Others have been declining. All in all, life is going on. One thing the graphs show better than just trends is that all our metrics have peaks and valleys over time. If we were to graph the metrics of our existence, it'd probably look a lot like a oscilloscope measuring a room of crowded conversation. Overlapping, independent, improvements and declines that tend to balance out over time. I'd never claim everything in life is always improving, but that by and large, we'll get by. For example, the early 90s were the highest ever crime rate in US history. We were forced to deal with it. The crime rates dropped. We might not be good at handling problems preemptively, but eventually, we do handle our biggest problems. When our illiteracy statistic drops too low for comfort, for example, measures will pass.

 

[Mojito]

I think it's a bit of both. There are many ways in which the world has improved for some communities...the obvious one is for groups of people that experienced discrimination. I think I've related the story here before about my friend who is part indigenous Australian, and the fact that even within her childhood she met family members her father wouldn't acknowledge were related because they were Aboriginal. It is almost beyond comprehension to us now that, until comparatively recently, Australian Aboriginals were not inclouded in the census.

Many of my feelings on the subject are derived from my mother, who has a very clear eyed view of the past. She grew up in a small country town. Revisiting it later with a friend, they walked down the main street and were able to identify a terrible and/or scandalous even that had happened in almost every house. She worked as an RN in the 50s and 60s in NY, Houston and Sydney, and saw a lot of what life was really like. In some instances, yes - she would say certain things have changed for the worse - Kings Cross in Sydney was always a flashpoint for crime (she met the notorious Tilly Devine when she was in hospital for treatment) and drugs had always been an issue, but with the arrival of harder drugs in the 60s it deteriorated even further. My father, a Sydney journalist at the same period, agrees with her.

On the other hand, she remembers what it was like to be a young woman who faced certain boundaries to her career progress because of her gender (my grandmother also carried these frustrations with her to the end of her life). She is a Catholic with very strong ideas about social justice, and while she grew up with a father who administered charity as the local contact for St Vincent de Paul, she saw that instincts for charity and compassion were not extended equally to all.

Some areas are gentrified, some get run down...we make social contacts online we couldn't have made before, but often it is at the cost of connections with the communities we actually live in (even when I was growing up with all knew our neighbours...now, we know almost no one who lives around us).

In general, I would much rather live now than fifty years ago, when someone of my gender and place in the social strata would only have enjoyed the career and lifestyle I enjoy in the face of obstacles and social disapproval. But that doesn't mean that everything now is better, or that there aren't certain attitudes and responsibilities we could learn from the past.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I look at it on a much more personal basis. I never had to worry about drugged-up home-invading thugs before. Now I do. That's not a better world.

 

[scooter]

As for statistics, i'll say what my dear old grandma told me, "figures lie and liars figure."