Seaworth'sShipmate Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 When my grandmother was growing up, America was a very different place than it is now. People went to church, never said swear words, loved the American flag, and didn't have the internet or trashy tv. Things were better back then. I think we can all agree the moral climate of the USA has declined significantly. My question is. What happened? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 When my grandmother was growing up, America was a very different place than it is now. People went to church, never said swear words, loved the American flag, and didn't have the internet or trashy tv. Things were better back then. I think we can all agree the moral climate of the USA has declined significantly. My question is. What happened? Nah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NestorMakhnosLovechild Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Ah yes, the good old days. When men could beat their wives with impunity and the police turned a blind eye and the law didn't recognize marital rape. When Blacks in many parts of the country lived under a terrorist regime, supported by the local authorities, where they could be beaten and killed at will and disenfranchised at the ballot box. When when gays and lesbians could be arrested for having consensual sex in their own homes, and many states prohibited interracial marriage. Yes, I think we can all agree that the moral climate of the USA has declined significantly since those times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The guy from the Vale Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 What Nestor said. Also, complaining about the lewd young generation has been a thing since at least 330BC, when Aristotle complained about the Athenian youth in his day and age. Somehow, we've managed so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelli Fury Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Yeah, I mean segregation was awesome. There weren't women all over mucking up the workplace demanding equal pay or the right to divorce. The lgbt community still had to hide. Japanese Americans had internment camps. Native children were taken from their parents and put in boarding schools by the government to forcibly reeducate them. Employers and housing could still legally discriminate by race and religion. It was a very pure and moral time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IamMe90 Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I read a story once about a guy reading a letter out loud that criticized the way kids had no respect anymore, dressed inappropriately, and listened to trashy music. At the end of the story the letter turns out to have been written by Thomas Jefferson or something like that. The point of the story is that every generation is more or less horrified by the behavior and values of its immediate successive generation. I'm willing to bet that when your grandmother was growing up, your great-grandmother hated the way she spoke, dressed, acted, and generally conducted her life. It's a timeless story.Yeah, I always think it's pretty fucking weird and creepy though when someone in our/my generation (eg OP) actually feels the same way. Then again, it's unclear whether he's serious, or just a perpetual, not-very-funny troll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Expected LordArryn as the OP. Completely unsurprised. Excuse me while I go cover my seductively bare ankles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mlle. Zabzie Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 When my grandmother was growing up, America was a very different place than it is now. People went to church, never said swear words, loved the American flag, and didn't have the internet or trashy tv. Things were better back then. I think we can all agree the moral climate of the USA has declined significantly. My question is. What happened? I'll take the troll bait. When my grandmother was born, half the US population couldn't vote by law. Another huge percentage couldn't vote because, you know, racism. That same percentage couldn't shop in the same stores, sit where they wanted on busses and had to go to separate schools. People were shackled together in marriages because divorce wasn't readily available. Pregnancy still ended up in death more often than you'd like to think. Tuberculosis was rampant; Spanish flu killed millions; polio crippled more. While there wasn't an internet and "trashy tv" there were plenty of trashy movies with stars with lives that were just as scandalous as today. US Weekly had its equivalents. People were excluded from educational opportunities and jobs over skin color or sex. We were isolationist and jingoistic. So what happened is that as a country we became more tolerant and accepting of our neighbors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I agree with Zabzie but I think that's not the primary 'what happened' but rather a consequence of it. What happened is all the people who you don't think deserved basic human rights and dignity, who don't deserve the chance to pursue happiness the way they wanted it instead of the way some old white guy decided to interpret an 1800 year old book, decided enough was enough and demanded their equality. And they are slowly getting it, despite the howling of people like you who want to preserve their own position as automatically privileged above others.Sincerely,A polyamorous transgender lesbian who is going to destroy marriage by... Getting married? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 A warning to those who romanticize the olden days too much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 When my grandmother was growing up, America was a very different place than it is now. People went to church, never said swear words, loved the American flag, and didn't have the internet or trashy tv. Things were better back then. I think we can all agree the moral climate of the USA has declined significantly. My question is. What happened? I am a churchgoer myself. I also don't use so-called "four letter words" and one of the things about this discussion board i have the hardest time with is how freely people use the "f" word. But to use church-going, swearing, flag-loving, and trashy TV as one's definition of "moral decline" is focusing on the irrelevant. Any "moral decline" over the past is manifested in the greed, violence, and indifference which leads to actual harm to one's fellow humans. What you have mentioned are so minor next to those that calling them indications of "moral climate" seems like focusing on the molehill rather than the mountain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 My grandmother always likes to tell me about the good old days and then proceed to admit that she's jealous of the things I get to do. Like have a baby on my own whereas she was date raped, forced to go to a pregnant girls home and then had the child ripped from her arms whether she wanted to place it for adoption or not. Actually, two of my grandmothers had out of wedock pregnancies and were forced to do this very thing. Great time that was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ummester Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 I'm not a Yank - but I think that although you guys have more equality between different social types ie: ethnic, sexual orientation and so on, you now have a far greater divide between financial classes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Civility Reigns Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 A warning to those who romanticize the olden days too much Face it. The 90's were just better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelli Fury Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 My grandmother got ripped from her parents by the government to have the Indian beaten out of her by nuns in a boarding school until she was 19. Then she married a worthless piece of shit who beat her kids and couldn't get a job that paid enough to leave him and support them. But yeah, the trashy tv we have now is a whole lot worse than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnionAhaiReborn Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 But Kirk Cameron hadn't even been born back then, so I'd say it's a wash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Littlefingers In The Air Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Oh, you know, the very rich got richer and started putting more money into the political process to completely rig elections and deny every single American the basic right all human beings should have. Actually, nothing's changed. We're all subjugated by the 1%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Pounce FTW Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 While I wouldn't go so far as to say things were better in the good ol' days, there is no denying that we have lost many values as we gain other things. Having said that, I have to echo Mlle. Zabzie: there were many, many problems in the U.S. 70 years ago. Inequality and disease are just some of those. Still, there was a stronger sense of community and more people were interested in at least appearing to do the right thing. Today we have begun to address many of the inequalities but aren't nearly as far as we should be, especially with ageism, and communities are disintegrating all around us. People aren't being as hypocritical as our grandparent's era, which is a plus, but as a result, there are less visible acts of good happening around us. People don't want to get involved and are more concerned with self interests. So I'm sure grandparents do believe things were better and, yes, there were some strengths and positives in that era. But overall, it was not a happy memory for all of us. And even if we are better off in many areas today, not to mention the amazing gains we've made in technology and science, it's come at a very high cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The guy from the Vale Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Oh, you know, the very rich got richer and started putting more money into the political process to completely rig elections and deny every single American the basic right all human beings should have. Actually, nothing's changed. We're all subjugated by the 1%. Didn't they basically do that 90 years ago during the Gilded Age, too? All that's changed is that there's no widespread organized pushback - yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebla Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 Yeah, back in the old days my grandparents had to go to "Mexican" stores and weren't allowed in "whites only" stores. My dad was not allowed to go to a white barbershop. My uncle and dad told me how when they went to the movies an usher would point to the stairs and say, "Mexicans in the balcony". Yep...the 50's, those were the days. We left it to Beaver. Father knew Best. And the blacks, Mexicans, gays, and women knew their place. :thumbsup: :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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