Social Destruction?

[Aristoddler]

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.

[cmarie]

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.

[PoPpAScience]

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.

[cmarie]

Originally Posted by PoPpAScience

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?

[PoPpAScience]

Originally Posted by cmarie

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.

[cmarie]

Originally Posted by PoPpAScience

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?

[Fido]

Originally Posted by PoPpAScience

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.

[Seeker]

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!

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Seeker

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!

[can't sit still]

Originally Posted by PoPpAScience

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