Social Destruction?

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Has anyone noticed that in the past 20 years, we've changed so much, that we've created a generation gap within our own generation?

I'm 31 years old, and can easily jump the gap between my age and those that are older than myself by any number of years. Some of my best friends are much older than myself, in fact.
The same goes for when I was 21 years old. Many people my age that I have asked, feel the same way as I do about this.

During the mid-eighties, there was a great deal of talk in the media to close the generation gap, so that we could connect to our older generations living around us, and vice versa.

Since then, although the gap between those born in the 70's has become easier to cross with the baby boomers for us, the gap between the 20-somethings and the 30-somethings has widened dramatically.

I'm not suggesting that the 30-somethings and the 20-somethings do not get along...I'm suggesting that the times have changed so drastic since the internet rose to heights in the 90's, that the two age groups have segregated themselves without even realizing it.

The teen generation is easier for the 30-somethings to reach now, than the 20-something crowd in fact.
I grew up with Pong, Atari, Nintendo in 1985, and then an onslaught of consoles after that. The 20-somethings had less involvement in the genre, since they missed the creative steps involved in reaching the plateau of evolution that video games has become. They simply cannot appreciate where it came from, since they were born after the first Nintendo hit the market...video games had at that point already grown beyond what we knew as children.
The teen gen is a little different, since they came about in the 90's when the internet was becoming large, and have a certain appreciation for what it is. Therefore they can relate more to the genre we grew up with.

Even if you never grew up playing video games, there are certain things that were around that you would recognize and have some fond memories of. I'm using cartoons for example, because there are so many easy ones to spot these days: Transformers, GI Joe, Batman, Spiderman, Underdog (movie coming soon), Alvin and the Chipmunks, Smurfs...etc.
The 20 crowd had their thing, but it wasn't the same.
Retro-fitting our kids with cartoons and pop culture from our childhoods is giving us a way to connect, that we don't have with the 20 crowd.

The 20 crowd is set in limbo, between a generation that can coexist with anyone but them, and teens that can't exist with anyone but themselves and the 30 crowd.

I hope the 20 crowd has lots of kids, and they're as close to them as we are with ours, and our parents.

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@Aristoddler,

I think you may be on to something here. Very interesting.

I am in my late 30's, and my best friend is in her early 50's. I have friends from all age groups.

My kids watch Boomerang, which shows primarily cartoons from when I was growing up. And they love it. Scooby Doo, Looney Toons, Tom & Jerry and of course, Underdog.

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@cmarie phil,

The greatest social destruction I've noticed, while I've been driving every inch of Canada and the US , is the absence of children playing outside. Compared to my childhood, I find it shocking to be able to leave my home right now and not see one child outside. I've notice this for the last 10 years everywhere I've been. I personally see this as a sign of a failed society.

3 Replies

@PoPpAScience,

PoPpAScience wrote:

The greatest social destruction I've noticed, while I've been driving every inch of Canada and the US , is the absence of children playing outside. Compared to my childhood, I find it shocking to be able to leave my home right now and not see one child outside. I've notice this for the last 10 years everywhere I've been. I personally see this as a sign of a failed society.

I agree with you here! It is a shame. My kids spend lots of time playing outside. They need lots of fresh air and exercise. We all do!

I love it when I check on them and see one of them sitting in the grass just studying the clouds, or flowers, or talking to themselves. Inside of the house there is always stimulation from the tv and phone and stuff everywhere.

When I lived in an unsafe area though, the kids could not be out without me, they were younger then too. But I think a lot of parents are afraid to let their kids play outside. I am not sure.

PoPaScience, Why do you think this is a sign of a failed society?

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@cmarie phil,

cmarie wrote:

PoPaScience, Why do you think this is a sign of a failed society?

The main reason is in the word "society". When I was a kid the streets, backyards, parks, ect... where filled with kids interrelating with each other. But the most important thing that I feel is missing now is the relating of the kids to other parents. This relating between other parents lead to a better understanding of relationships from different perspectives, and leads to better social skills.
The saddest part and proof of a failed society is, the fact that if the kids did start roaming the streets again, the predators would fill our grave yards with their mutilated bodies. Not to mention those that would fall victim to the cars driven by the new speed demons trying to spend their money as quickly as possible.

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@PoPpAScience,

PoPpAScience wrote:

The main reason is in the word "society". When I was a kid the streets, backyards, parks, ect... where filled with kids interrelating with each other. But the most important thing that I feel is missing now is the relating of the kids to other parents. This relating between other parents lead to a better understanding of relationships from different perspectives, and leads to better social skills.
The saddest part and proof of a failed society is, the fact that if the kids did start roaming the streets again, the predators would fill our grave yards with their mutilated bodies. Not to mention those that would fall victim to the cars driven by the new speed demons trying to spend their money as quickly as possible.

I have never thought of the angle of kids mingling with other parents, thank you for pointing that out. The fabric of society is missing here, thereis a disconnect going on between people within their communities. In many places people do not know thier neighbors, and do not want to.

It is sad that there are so many predators, I think that is why many kids stay indoors. I knew a woman who would not ever let her son play outside for fear someone would snatch him. And she told him that too. I wonder sometimes how this now young man views the world. As a scary place?

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@PoPpAScience,

PoPpAScience wrote:

The greatest social destruction I've noticed, while I've been driving every inch of Canada and the US , is the absence of children playing outside. Compared to my childhood, I find it shocking to be able to leave my home right now and not see one child outside. I've notice this for the last 10 years everywhere I've been. I personally see this as a sign of a failed society.

You are absolutly correct. Go to the head of the class.

This is what law has done for us. This is after a thousand years of law laboring to break down community power. What strength has law if people are not afraid of their neighbors? People, if left to themselves could police themselves, guard their children, teach responsibility to the older for the younger, and discipline their own. What we get is more law brutalizing the very people it is meant to correct. It cures no one, and makes worse animals after than before. Law justifies itself with ever greater levels of need.

Here is an example of need: J.Edgar Hoover went every year to congress asking for ever greater levels of funding to combat communists when the American Communist Party was defunct for all practical purposes, and supported by the FBI. What he could count on was all the congressmen who supported him because they where victims of his secret surveilance, or feared the smear he was not above using without evidence, and they would get in line to give him money.

What does it take for communities to put some one in charge of watching the kids so they can get outside. In my small home town every kid feared every parent like his own. All made common cause against the delinquents among us. Each window was a port hole on a sea of trouble, and no one thought they were acting alone unless they could see no dwelling. Sure, we had our perverts and some bullies, a few cat torturers and petty criminals. No one ever planned a mass murder or a real injury to anyone. Damned little property damage was done. Many adventures were had, and everyone got out alive.

So, even today; what are the actual chances that kids playing with other kids are going to be snatched and lost for good? The chances are perhaps very small, and I have heard small as far as statistics go. But the fear is rife. Having law means having no power to directly defend your children or threaten anyone. Teachers have no power. Parents have no true power. Law and lawyers have power, but even now, unable to protect people, they consume a vast portion of our resources for no feeling of safety. The thing does not work.

The greatest danger is this: since no one actually has power over their own children, all children are in danger from other children. You see; children are protected by law, but are not subject to law, so they are a threat to everyone so soon as they learn their status. The situation is not natural, and is not conducive to the re-creation of society in the young. And society cannot be held together with threat or force, but must result ultimately from love, and there is little of that. So I agree. It is social destruction, community destruction and the destruction of nation so that the powers of law, police, prisons, and in the end, fear, can rule us.

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@Aristoddler,

America works as well as it does to the extent that we are free. It does not matter if you think you are a Divine being or a worm of the dust. We are free to think and do what ever we want. We are also personally responsibly for our thoughts and actions.

America fails when it does not hold us responsible for our actions and tell us it is someone else's fault.

Freedom and Personal Responsible are one and the same one can not be separated from the other. This is the essence of cause and effect.

Namaste!

1 Reply

@Seeker phil,

Seeker wrote:

America works as well as it does to the extent that we are free. It does not matter if you think you are a Divine being or a worm of the dust. We are free to think and do what ever we want. We are also personally responsibly for our thoughts and actions.

America fails when it does not hold us responsible for our actions and tell us it is someone else's fault.

Freedom and Personal Responsible are one and the same one can not be separated from the other. This is the essence of cause and effect.

Namaste!

You do not know freedom. We don't usually know what we are not taught, and we are not taught about other societies or the evolution of our own.

Let me give you an example. In tribal times everyone accepted group responsibility. For that reason their was great pressure put on all people to behave in a certain fashion outside of their group and community. Only inside the group with the unqualified support of family and friends could one be free. Out side of the group, every person had to behave in such a fashion as to bring credit and honor upon the home group, and this is the point of ethics. If one screwed up outside of the group, revenge would be visited upon any one of the group that the injured party could lay hands on. Today we would say that this is not fair. Its not fair, right, that some one of your group might suffer for some crime you commited? That is past.

Or is it? We say blacks are individuals and must suffer individually for their mistakes. Fair enough since the black community has no more control over its own than the white has over theirs. But we punish them all. We all inflict group punishment with prejudice, biggotry, and preference. How is this fair since none in any community really has the ability to protect or police their own?

As far as America not holding us responsible for our actions consider this. Our children are often raised by tv. Outside of the home they often do not have parental supervision. If they are put upon they do not have to work it out; no fist fights, no fair fights, and no punches in the nose, no making of deals, and no pledges of honor. But they find they have rights. A parent cannot discipline. And yet this life and time demand discipline as no primitive time ever did. But law breaks the power of the parent to inflict punishment. Considering in my time that every child knew he was loved who did get beat to death for every major screw up; what has the parent of today got as an aid? All we can do is berate our children to coax them on the straight path. All we have to show love is commodities. And if they screw up, they cannot be straightened up, but the law will slap their paw and say bad puppy until they find their course set toward life in jail. It is a parent's job to keep their kids straight. It is the parents job because the whole community has been removed from their power over their own children. This is an unnatural situation.

Who has power? That is whose fault it is; and that is: The law. But does the law bear our children and tuck them in at night? If the law wants to parent my children let them join right on in. Other wise, until they show they can do anything right they should leave alone what has been shown to work. It is not the fault of parents or children that children go wrong. Parenting is a full time job, but one that has been made secondary to the need, caused on purpose, to work for pitiful poor wages. Work demands the energy that child raising requires. You tell me it is not some ones fault. I will tell you any parent is damned lucky to raise children up well. Between law, which seeks only its own increasing power, and television selling misery over all you will never ever afford, and bosses asking why they ain't getting your very best effort it is a wonder any kid turns out okay!

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@PoPpAScience,

PoPpAScience wrote:

The greatest social destruction I've noticed, while I've been driving every inch of Canada and the US , is the absence of children playing outside, I personally see this as a sign of a failed society.

I agree completely. We invented air conditioning and got rid of the front porch. Since we don't know our neighbors, we don't trust them. Kids have lots of energy but we keep them cooped up inside, We pump them up with high fructose corn syrup, They're so wound up that the school refuses admittance unless they're on Ritalin.

We feed them food loaded with additives and then discover that they can't concentrate. We vaccinate them and then wonder why autism is on the rise. We don't allow them to see nudity or pornography because the "experts" say that this will influence them.

We allow them to see endless violence on TV because the "experts" say that this won't influence them. We can show them endless murder and mayhem, but we could go to jail if we show them a picture of a couple making love. What message does this send to kids?

30,000 kids under 5 die every day. It's a rough planet for kids.
Dan

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@cant sit still,

can't sit still wrote:

I agree completely. We invented air conditioning and got rid of the front porch. Since we don't know our neighbors, we don't trust them. Kids have lots of energy but we keep them cooped up inside, We pump them up with high fructose corn syrup, They're so wound up that the school refuses admittance unless they're on Ritalin.

We feed them food loaded with additives and then discover that they can't concentrate. We vaccinate them and then wonder why autism is on the rise. We don't allow them to see nudity or pornography because the "experts" say that this will influence them.

We allow them to see endless violence on TV because the "experts" say that this won't influence them. We can show them endless murder and mayhem, but we could go to jail if we show them a picture of a couple making love. What message does this send to kids?

30,000 kids under 5 die every day. It's a rough planet for kids.
Dan

You have such a good point... It's common now for what's accepted as basic rules of life to completely contradict itself, and I think this is yet another kind of social destruction. Most people think nothing of it, so it gets worse and worse. The kids don't go outside, they sit, they're constantly overstimulated with having music, tv, the computer, and homework going on at the same time, not doing a good job with any of it. Over half the kids of my school have "ADD", which I believe is overdiagnosed and basic lifestyle changes could fix it. Most children don't even know there's any different way of living then what they do now. Teenagers could take responsibility in the past, why is it that expectations are dropping quickly and children are getting away with so much more? Maybe that's making the world a less safe place in itself when no morals are cultivated from the start.

How do you change a society so corrupted as ours?

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@Aristoddler,

I was 20 this year, I have a few friends at Uni my age, but frankly I find most people my age irresponsible, people at Uni seem to be too preoccupied with drinking and sex, I've been told it's my problem though- 'a 40 year old trapped in a 20 year olds body' is the phrase usually coined, but that's rubbish I challenge anyone to be more immature and childish than me. I relate more to I an aged (70+) alcoholic called Max who drinks at the pub I work at. He tells the best stories and always gives me something to think about, weather he tries or not.

Dan.

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@de budding,

There are two opposing forces in culture that are universal, evolution and romanticism both of which are viewed through the egocentric eye. What we see as "destruction" is simply the evolution of culture adapting to new stimuli and new technology through the romantic eye of "when life was good". When we say the world is going to hell in handbasket, its simply us raging against the inherently senseless evolution of culture. Much like biological evolution, cultural/social evolution has no real direction, and this worries us as adults because it may differ radically from how we acted and how the world was duriing our socially formative years, and as humans we prefer to think of life as ordered somehow, especially the parts of life in which we think humanity has agency to choose. The simple fact is that agency to choose is only operative within the realm of the possibilities a person/culture percieves.

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@GoshisDead,

Goshisdead, I can't argue with your assertation that the 2 controlling forces are evolution and romanticism... though I don't agree. The issue that looks very bad indeed is that we've "evolved" to a stage where we've created a society that we can't tolerate.

The Commerce Dept reports that there are 19 murders and 17,000 assaults in the American workplace every week. That's just what's reported. We have millions who can't [or won't] cope without anti-depressants. 1% of our pop in the US is in jail or prison.

The native-born pop is falling in developed countries. I see too many people who only want to live for today. They don't want to be burdened by kids. In the US we spend 107% of our income. We want to have fun,,, and let the devil take tomorrow. In Ireland , they spent 160% of their income.
We work harder and earn less. We vote for reforms and get more war.
I've had people tell me that the world is too screwed up to bring in kids.
Many people fall further into apathy as they feel that they are losing more and more control of their own lives.

As our technology becomes more and more powerful, it becomes a fearsomely powerful "force multiplier" in the hands of the evil. What will happen on the day when guns are taken from the police and put in the mandibles of battle robots? As the force multipliers concentrate more and more power in the hands of a small group, what will happen to the human spirit?
If you've seen the movie "Brazil", imagine bringing kids into a dystopia Brazil (film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Obviously, power corrupts. Also, power attracts the corrupt. Runaway greed and corruption seem to be the byword of the decade. They have always been there but technology has given them enormous new power.
Half of Ohio and 10% of America is on food stamps. Our debt is 370% of our GDP. There just isn't any confidence in a happy future in America.

Party On while you still can afford it!!!

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@Aristoddler,

Quote:

Obviously, power corrupts. Also, power attracts the corrupt. Runaway greed and corruption seem to be the byword of the decade. They have always been there but technology has given them enormous new power.
Half of Ohio and 10% of America is on food stamps. Our debt is 370% of our GDP. There just isn't any confidence in a happy future in America.

Indeed it is true that the future of America is grim. A great awakening is certainly needed. The more these problems are actualized the more likely it will be that people will be willing to act. However, we must hope that it is not too late.

1 Reply

@Drewry,

Drewry wrote:

Indeed it is true that the future of America is grim. A great awakening is certainly needed. The more these problems are actualized the more likely it will be that people will be willing to act. However, we must hope that it is not too late.

When people are shocked out of their hope there is hope for change, for revolution. When people are slowly dragged down to despair about their futures, to blame themselves for their failure, or to look upon their suffering as an act of God, dumb luck, or inexorable fate; then they become demoralized, and they settle back into their situation and look at destruction coming at them like their turn in the gas chambre, always paralyzed, unable to resist.

What is happening is inevitable. Societies are born, live, florish, and decline. There is nothing strange about that, but something very strange at how many go down with the ship who are unable to see any future without the current form of relationship. Think about society. Form new relationships. Find what is common to all working relationships, and use that as the basis of a new form of society.

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@Aristoddler,

On this subject, Interesting Book, Jared Diamond's Collapse. It is grim when people screw themselves out of existence. I wonder what the person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island was thinking and if he thought, "hey in 20 years a common epithet will be to say, your mother tastes bad"

As a reply to the above: You take the good with the bad. Work place violence is up. Of course it is more people are working in offices,warehouses, and not in agricultural settings. Crime rate has risen throughout history when population density increases. But arts, technology, science, law, and order have too. Medical advances have come far enough to aleviate people from depression, so people take advantage of it. People Realize that if they had kids, they wouldn't be good parents, isn't that a good thing? See all this is value based opinion based on whether one has a tendency to be romantic or progresive. Either way the evolution is going to happen, the world will change, world power will shift, morals will evolve and so on.

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@Aristoddler,

Man, I read through this thread, and though I think you guys have really hit the mark on alot of social changes, I do however think you over estimate the time in which these changes have occured. I'm 19, going on 20 in October, and the changes between when i was a kid and my younger brother who's 8, going on 9 in June are rediculous. The time some of you were talking about around page 1 of this thread were in the 80's... I wasn't born until 1988. I remember growing up with Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles and a whole mess of other cartoons; Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and the, for the time, amazing N64. That only takes me up to being about 9 or 10. I remember playing out side in my neighborhood with other kids and little to no parental supervison. We were never worried about getting taken away or anything, and it doesn't seem like our parents were either. My brother on the other hand is never outside, or when he is, its with mum or dad. The only real "outside play time" he gets is at lunch and recess. So based on that, I think its been a much more rapid degration of society than some might realize. I love my technology, like anyone my age, but there are aspects of pop culture that are absolutely appauling.
Getting away from childhood memories, today's pop culture just aggrivates me. You see how people dress, what they listen to and even what they do for recreation and not only is it a huge shift from the 70's, 80's and even 90's; but I would argue that it is a definate degration.

1 Reply

@Rasputini,

Rasputini, obviously society evolves. We're facing problems that are essentially,,, new. We live our lives faster and faster. We've grown more iunsular. As we become more immersed in electronic entertainment, we lose our interest and ability in interpersonal interaction. Society is fast losing it's cohesiveness.
The fragmentation is showing up in crime figures, dissatisfaction, depression and disease.
As GOV and the banks steal more and more, we work longer to compensate. The family suffers.
It would be great if we could simply turn things around. The spectre of poverty, the stress and general unhappiness are not going to change by themselves.
What does it take to make people feel secure and happy????
Dan

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@Aristoddler,

Well there's no denying society evolves. All I'm suggesting is that its happening much more rapidly than the other posts suggest. Though I think i disagree with your statement on society losing its cohesivenes. I dont think its a matter of losing it; its more a matter of it changing. Instead of people getting together and socializing, its increasingly happening in situations like this one right here: online chat rooms. I suppose you could argue this is a lose of cohesion, but it's still social interaction on some level or other.
For me its not so much the change in social interaction that bothers me, its the change in 1) pop culture and 2) the shift in how kids are growing up. Again, just in the last 10 years from when i was growing up and my brother now, there are HUGE differences in what our parents allowed us to do, as well as what we do. Actually, the more I think about it the more I see an emphasis on over acheiving rather than letting a kid be a kid. Something has undergone a huge change in a very short amount of time.

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