I don’t want to pick on JohnT because I don’t really know him. But the way I interpreted the exchange was that Aeschines was lamenting the very trends JohnT was extolling. I guess to a certain extent, I am observing the same things Aeschines is. There seems to be this trend towards rejecting or tearing down traditional trusted institutions such as government, education, work, marriage, relationships in favor of something more transactional and temporary.
That 900 contacts to 1 life partner ratio does seem to make sense in a sort of Malcolm Gladwell way.
Yes, and I also think that people are seeing through the myths surrounding such institutions and are understandably frustrated and dejected.
E.g., there were extremely powerful myths about romantic love and marriage as well as tremendous social pressure to comply with some pretty restrictive rules about relationships. So people were pumped up with false information while at the same time lacking modern information about sexuality, domestic violence, interpersonal dynamics (such as passive-aggressive behavior), and much more.
Now extrapolate this to everything. In the 1950s, people had a childish understanding of American history and the government. Hell, even in the 1970s I was still growing up with George Washington and the cherry tree, the hagiography of “great presidents,” all that horseshit (I am not saying that some presidents were not great, but we got the propaganda version of things).
So the “scales falling from our eyes” is part of it, and I can’t say that wising up isn’t a good thing. But it’s stuff other than that as well, such as a lack of hope in the future.
But what do you prefer, to blissfully live in ignorance and under the illusion of idylls that never existed or to be aware of the facts (and thus hardships) of life and learn to live with them?
Yeah, I think msmith537’s depiction of a “trend towards rejecting or tearing down traditional trusted institutions such as government, education, work, marriage, relationships in favor of something more transactional and temporary” is missing at least half the picture.
While many people are shedding old illusions about “traditional trusted institutions”, and many others are throwing ongoing temper tantrums because such institutions are no longer as biased in favor of the tantrum-throwers as they used to be, there is a lot of societal energy toward making such institutions better.
One political party has turned hatred and distrust of government into its own PR clown show, true, but the other has doubled down on the importance of good governance and the rule of just law. And this is reflecting the re-engagement of younger people with politics:
Similarly, while education in general is being targeted by politically calculated campaigns of distrust and disparagement, and undermined by the pandemic and by the ongoing “corporatization” of academia with its focus on branding and money, many students and educators, and parents, are being galvanized to fight back.
While the workforce is getting disenchanted with corporate practices that exploit them under the guise of “independence” and “choice”, there are burgeoning movements for workers’ rights and better jobs. Support for unions is higher than it’s been for nearly 60 years.
While it’s true that marriage rates are falling, divorce rates among the married are also falling. Meanwhile, the trend toward more honesty and acceptance for diverse forms of marriage, from same-sex marriage to ethical nonmonogamy, continues. It may be that society is moving toward a new norm of fewer but better marriages, rather than societal expectations of near-universal marriage as part of rigid gender roles.
I continue to think that most of the people romanticizing a past of “traditional trusted institutions” and lamenting their decay were probably among the overall beneficiaries of those institutions’ fundamental unfairness. If we want Americans—and not only the Americans in privileged majoritized groups this time, but Americans in general—to regain their earlier trust in our social institutions, then it’s on us to rebuild those institutions in a form more worthy of trust.
I’m not disputing the OP’s claim to be seeing, or feeling, a lot of “frustration” and “dejection” about the current state of affairs, but I think there’s also a lot of positive energy for better alternatives. Any better alternatives won’t be built in a day, of course, and there will be plenty of frustration and dejection all along the way.
