Aphorism #1 Everything is at its Acme;

[Admin]

Aphorism #1 Everything is at its Acme;

especially the art of making one's way in the world. There is more required nowadays to make a single wise man than formerly to make Seven Sages, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person than was required with a whole people in former times.

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[Jane Jane]

I think perhaps it may have been easier at one time, or seemed easier at any rate because of the rules and expectations society laid down so that all in a society would adhere and the persons that made it their study and worked hard were noticed and thereby elevated and honored and sought out.
But as society became more fragmented, people who formerly were knit together by race and religion and such were now scattered and intermarried and their offspring had not the same degree of respect for one or the other if any. So the outcome, the crop yielded by these changes results in insolence, lack of respect and apathy.