Feeling pessimistic about modern society

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Lately, I have been feeling that maybe our society really is in decline like many of the fundamentalist types have been saying for a while, although for very different reasons. What struck me this time was something that happened at work recently. I work in a public library and enjoy helping people find whatever it is they are needing. However, one time, in the late afternoon, early evening, we had the usual mob of school kids and parents trying to finish up whatever they were working on. Most of the people in the library were cooperative and got off the computers when their time was up. However one lady (read self absorbed witch) was taking advantage of the system. She would sign up and have her children sign up, so that when her time was up she would simply move over to where one of her kids were, bump them and continue whatever she was doing.

Essentially, she was spending the whole time on the computers while the others would patiently get off, then wait for their turn. When I approached her and told her that she could not do this and needed to wait like everone else, she gets huffy and says she has to do this for her baby’s paper (ignoring the fact that “baby” should do her own damn work!!) When I told her that we have several parents (and some students) needing to use the computers, she said that she only cared about her kids and could not care less about anyone else.

This last comment is what stood out to me. Granted I live in a large city (Houston) however, to me this points out the main problem with our society. No on cares for anyone else but themselves!!! There is no longer a sense of community. Its what I need right now, screw everyone else. There is no longer a sense of societal good. When my parents were young, neighbors helped, looked out for and even dispensed some discipline to theirs and others children, and it was exceptable. Now however, if you ask a child to please be quiet in the library, parents act as if you have taken them out back and beat them! Heaven forbid a child today be told NO!!!

Why is this happening. In my opinion there are two main contributing factors. The first is our overall affluence. People are continually moving around for more money, better lifestyle or whatever and do not stay anywhere long enough to develope community ties. Why have meaningful relationships with people, if you or they may move in a couple of years or so. With this constant change there is no room for a stable and cohesive community.

Next is dependence on the automobile as the only “acceptable” mode of transportation.(primarily in the US) Communities are gated and more segregated than they were at the beginning of the 20th century.

When I was growing up in the mid-late 1970’s sidewalks were rarely seen. Even today, most of the places I have lived have not had any sidewalks nearby. Later, I learned that while many planners did intend to install sidewalks, “community” groups and actively fought against them. There reasoning was to keep out the undesirables (read people who do not look like me). This makes no sense to me. If I were an “undesirable” I would think that a community with sidewalks is a place to avoid, because most likely local people would be using them. They would go to the store, friends, meetings, etc. and would get to know their neighborhood and neighbors. If I were a crook I would go to the places without sidewalks because there would be less chance to be seen, since people would be less likely to be out walking around, in my opinion.

Also, because of single use planning, there is no place to walk to anyway, so why bother. If any of us children wanted to go anywhere, we had to be driven. Bicycling was unsafe outside the immediate area. There were no buses or train systems to use and everything was too far to walk to.

As we got older and some of our neigborhood friends moved away and were not “replaced” with kids our own age, we became more and more prisoners inside our house in front of the TV. For any type of activity, whether it was baseball, cub scouts, we would be driven out of our neigborhoods and mix with other neigborhood kids for a few hours, then return to our suburban “prison” until the next week.

There was no sense of freedom. there was no taking our bikes out for an adventure and too explore because there was nothing worth exploring that was close enough or safe enough. Only more of the same dull neigborhoods. Instead we rode to the 7-11, got baseball cards and candy and went back home. The swimming pool, baseball/soccer/football field were too far away and had to cross a few dangerous roads and intersections to get to.

This is a strong factor, I believe, in the alienation many people feel today. Overall times are better than they have ever been yet people are increasingly lonely, depressed and feel no need to suppress their anger or other negative feelings at will.

Why is it that the recent school shootings have been in more middle class, white neighborhoods, rather than the poor black or hispanic areas? Why is it that the “good” white children seem to have so much more rage and hate than the blacks and others who have been historically kept as “outsiders” of US society until fairly recently?
Could part of it be that we as a society do not no where we belong outside of our families. Have we lost are sense of “community” and replaced it with the cold pseudo-community of TV, internet and possessions.

Elvis Presley seems to be a good example of where it looks like we are heading. He had everything a person could want out of life, except for a true friend to smack him on the head when he needed it. I feel society is in the “fat Elvis” stage.

It reminds me of the t-shirt that says “he who dies with the most toys wins”, but if he has no one to share it with, its hollow and meaningless.

I have a bad feeling that we are in trouble and it will only get worse, that it may be too late, and noone is willing to do what it takes to begin to fix things.

I truly hope I am wrong.

2

In my opinion. Society is not going down the tubes. Not at all. To be sure, many of your concerns are real concerns and important ones. But that curious animal known as society is tough to get rid of. It has never died, and I see no reason why it will.

First of all, we shouldn’t look back on previous generations through a rose-colored mist. Life was not all fun and games, with friends and neighbors always willing to pitch in and help out. I’ve actually heard some very different descriptions of life “back in the 50’s” from different people. We should watch out for the media trying to pass off false images of what life was like in the 50’s. My father tells me that in his high school, there were numerous gangs and incidents of violence were common. This is entirely different from what I experienced growing up, and my school was one of those enormous suburban structures that supposedly spawns troubled and misguided teens.

It’s not. The media focuses more attention on violence among white children, but that doesn’t mean more of it is happening. The enitre “youth violence” trend is largely a media creation. You can count the fatal shooting incidents in schools this years on the fingers of one hand. I wouldn’t state that our society is doomed because of this.

This much is certain. By any traditional measuring stick, we are better off than any society ever has been at any time in history. We have more wealth, more education, and better health than anybody would have imagined possible a few generations ago. We have less racism and other forms of unnecessary discrimination than ever before (of course I’m aware that we still have some, but the important thing is that it’s decreasing.)

Yet the thought that “money can’t buy happiness” lurks in the back of our minds. It almost seems that people can’t just enjoy affluence; almost everybody in America insists on feeling troubled or guilty about something. Either everybody is becoming alienated and lonely, or we’re going down a moral sewer, or we’re destroying the environment, or something else threatens the long-term safety of our society. It’s almost as if it’s human nature to always hold a pessimistic viewpoint about the future. Throughout history, you can pull up quotes by various people who insisted that all of society was doomed to certain destruction, but they proved to be wrong.

I maintain that suburb-dwellers are not actually unahppy right know. It seems to be that most people are relatively happy right now, that they have friends and family to communicate with. And what exactly is wrong with spending some time at home, watching TV or using the net? Haven’t some internet communities sprung up that actually allow the users to develop long-term and meaningful friendships? If you don’t believe me, check this very message board.

3

In a way, I agree with both of you.

Chimaera is right that there is a sense of disconnect with the neighborhoods. We as a society do move more than ever. We follow the work. Businesses are not as loyal to their employees as they used to be and therefore we tend to jump ship when something better comes along. I disagree that things like sidewalks make a difference. Where I grew up (outside of Houston by the way) the nearest sidewalk to my neighborhood was three miles away. But everyone on our block knew each other and were friends and worked together on community projects. When we moved there, we were the “new” family for five years. When I graduated and moved out, the newest family on the block had been there for seven years. Most had been the for more than twenty.
Now there are four families that were there when I left. (Including mine)
Houston has always been a special case in this regard because of the very large influx of out of state immigrants following the work. The population of the greater Houston area has more than tripled in the last forty years. (Census says 1960 was about 900,000. Current is about 3.2 million.)

ITR is correct in that we are better off than we used to be. But there is a change in what we consider our friends and neighbors. We are friends with people in groups and organisations that we belong to. No longer are our friends those that we grow up with. My current friends are those people that I work together with. We are spread across the city geographicaly. Because of this, we do get those who are rude and disconnect from the neighbors. Like the lady in the library. She wouldn’t have dared to act like that at her church, or club, or whatever gruop she is a member of. Because she would have been conected to them. We as a society are going through a reoganization of how we relate to others and it is taking time to settle out.
It will get better.

4

I think I’d tend to separate out the functions of ‘society’ and ‘community’ to address this. I think they are very heavily entwined but to get at some possible answers, I’d need to think about how those two have changed themselves and in relation to each other.

Important factors that I think are relevant (and changed in recent years) are the concept and role of ‘family’ (changed beyond recognition since the 60’s), the increasing pressure and amount of work and not recognising ‘consumerism’ for what it actually is. I also suspect the media – tv and film / movies, predominately – have played a disproportionate role in influencing attitudes.

Actually, I’d also e-mail a Mod and ask that the thread be moved to (maybe) GQ. You might get a better response there. Just an idea.

5

I think I meant to say GD not GQ. Sorry!