Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
In the days to which you refer, manure had to spread on the land by hand, it was know in England as muck spreading. With modern technology it can be spread much wider and thicker in a much shorter time. Moreover, I don't buy into the theory that the sins of the fathers will automatically be visited onto the sons; what happened in former times has little or no relevance within the context of today where a paradigm shift in technology is fundamentally altering people's attitudes in ways that have heretofore been impossible.
What is absurd about your statement that the past is irrelevant is that your diatribe concerning the decline of Western culture is wholly dependent upon comparing the present with the past.
But I always return to my own experience when discussing this subject and I can categorically state that when I was at school none of the things mentioned as being today's norm would have happened. And that people generally were more considerate in their dealings with each other. Now if you are telling me that it's not true or that I have imagined it, then I have to tell you, and anybody else who may be interested, that you are wrong.
How valid a proof is the personal experience of one individual? I grew up in a middle-class/upper-middle-class community in the wealthiest nation in the world. I attended a school that was virtually all WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). There were one or two Jews in my school, but none of us knew they were Jewish. There were virtually no Hispanics, no Blacks, no Catholics, no Asians. A great many things that I witness in public schools today never occurred in my school... as far as I know. Even so, drugs were most certainly prevalent. Students smoked pot in the bathrooms and on the bus. Students snorted cocaine or did LSD in the back of class. Even those who weren't using could tell you who was and who was dealing.
As JCamillo points out, drug use is far older than you let on. Opium dens existed throughout the slums of London in the 19th century. Figures such as DeQuincy and Coleridge seriously damaged their careers as a result of such abuse. In America from the 1920s on cocaine and marijuana etc... were is use throughout all the large urban centers. Most of the great jazz musicians were using one or the other... and many even wrote songs about it.
It wouldn't take much effort to research the history of drug abuse... and alcohol abuse as well as the history of violence and gangs and highway robbery etc... across Europe in past centuries.
Yes... there are certain forms of antisocial behavior that are more prevalent today than in the past. When I was a child we never saw Blacks or Hispanics or the poor in the stores or restaurants we frequented. Neither would a child have been permitted unaccompanied by a parent. Anti-social behavior would not have been tolerated by the proprietors. Nor would the news of such have been reported in the news. The studios that managed actors and actresses and popular performers made it clear as to what sort of public behavior was expected. Transgressions would be covered up (the studios made it clear to the press that revealing unflattering details about their contract players would result in a blacklisting of that press. By the same token... actors or actresses that proved a repeated problem would be equally blacklisted. The dirty laundry was not aired in public. This has changed... but you are sadly mistaken if you assume the behavior itself was far more high-minded and moral in the past.
As I and others have suggested, those who have been announcing doomsday have been around forever. In most instances, I have found that they actually relish the notion of being proven right because they exhibit an almost Puritanical desire to see those who do not live up to their moral standards punished. There is also a sense that such individuals cannot face change... actually fear it. We see the problem in the US with the Neo-Cons who would have us return to the 19th century, eliminate workers rights, build a wall along the Texas/Mexico border to keep all those "darkies" out that are diluting the population of "true Americans, ban gay rights in the name of preserving traditional marriage (because had it not been illegal I most certainly would dump the wife and run out and find a hunky guy right now:rolleyes::crazy:) etc...
