When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

What then becomes the cohort experiencing not food lines but food stamps, not homelessness but unpaid mortgages and wars with unseen caskets.

They call that time an "unraveling", when social conditions are getting ever worse towards the crisis at a fourth turning. Four different social conditions separated by four turnings, each giving rise to one of the four archetypal cohorts, each cohort playing it's part to drive society towards the next turning. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[dcarrigg]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I sincerely hope they're correct, but don't see how it can happen. Manners, courtesy, civic virtues... table manners, study hard and learn all you can, earn your money honestly, don't litter, don't lie, steal, hit people or curse... all of this and more used to be instilled in people in the early years of their childhood by parents and community expectations. It was taught by example, it was taught at the dinner table, it was taught in schools and churches. It was reinforced in the media.

I don't think that such a golden age ever existed:

Manners = Get to the back of the bus, Rosa
Courtesy = Ty Cobb
Civic Virtues = Protest cross-city school bussing
Table Manners = Elitist British nonsense
Study Hard and Learn All You Can = Work on the farm and be illiterate
Don't Litter = Pre-Nixon (hence pre-EPA) carcinogenic industrial pollutants
Earn Your Money Honestly = Teapot Dome
Don't Lie = I am not a crook
Don't Steal = Lucky Luciano
Don't Hit People = General Patton
Don't Curse = Anyone named on the list above who happened to be speaking

We now have children desensitized to violence growing up from several generations of broken families, overworked and uninvolved parents, and unmarried welfare mothers who cannot teach their children what they never experienced and learned themselves. Parents who's only example of civic behavior is the Jerry Springer type talk shows. The mob violence we are witnessing at Black Fridays and this Memorial Day, for example, is becoming the normal behavior of our society.

How, specifically, does this get turned around?

Do you really want to go back? I'd doubt it would be desirable even if it were possible. This is not to say that things are perfect now, but the 'good ol' days' of politeness were always on some level a myth.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

They call that time an "unraveling", when social conditions are getting ever worse towards the crisis at a fourth turning. Four different social conditions separated by four turnings, each giving rise to one of the four archetypal cohorts, each cohort playing it's part to drive society towards the next turning. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I think I was looking for something more specific, like will my nephew be taking care of me if I get Alzheimer's later in life.

Aside from undulating hemlines, I tend to think of social trends as evolutionary: Abolitionism, Suffrage, Gay Rights, particularly in the face of expanding scientific knowledge and increasing self awareness. I doubt there's a corset elastic enough to draw that back. It sounds more like mood swings than social trend cycles.

[charliebrown]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I think I agree with you in principle. The great olden days is heavily distorted by nostalgia. I don't know how we got on the fourth turning book, but some of the events that you picked out may be at other generational nadirs. There has always been jerks and thieves and malcontents.

I was in the park yesterday with my 5 year old son. There was a group of a dozen teenage girls hanging out. The mouths on them were like truckers or sailors. I have to apologize here to truckers and sailors. (My grandfather was a trucker and my uncle a sailor) Neither cursed very often, and they were fine strong men. My son does not hear language like that, so I did not have to leave. If I was with my older son, I would have had to intervene or leave, as he would have picked up on it.

Shiny does have a point, social cohesion from my perspective seems to be heading down, and we have not reached the nadir yet. I am from the "nomad" generation?? I was born in the 60's and have only seen society on the downtrend line.
When I talk to my Greatest Generation friends (world war II boys) . They are disgusted by what they see, but they have a thing called hope, that gets them by. The nomad generation is not so hopeful.

And that is really what I think the essence of what Shiny and I are missing. We want a society where people are more connected. I don't care how many shiny beads I have. Sometimes the world just seems cruel and lonely.

[shiny!]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I don't think that such a golden age ever existed:

Manners = Get to the back of the bus, Rosa
Courtesy = Ty Cobb
Civic Virtues = Protest cross-city school bussing
Table Manners = Elitist British nonsense
Study Hard and Learn All You Can = Work on the farm and be illiterate
Don't Litter = Pre-Nixon (hence pre-EPA) carcinogenic industrial pollutants
Earn Your Money Honestly = Teapot Dome
Don't Lie = I am not a crook
Don't Steal = Lucky Luciano
Don't Hit People = General Patton
Don't Curse = Anyone named on the list above who happened to be speaking



Do you really want to go back? I'd doubt it would be desirable even if it were possible. This is not to say that things are perfect now, but the 'good ol' days' of politeness were always on some level a myth.

The past was not perfect; I never said it was. There was indeed graft and corruption, and -isms abounded. But just because it wasn't perfect doesn't mean it wasn't better than now in a lot of ways. Your list is mostly a list of famous people committing bad acts; it doesn't show what life was like for the average person. Even with racism (which we fought in the civil rights movement), before Johnson's "Great Society" the majority of black families had two parents and they tried to get ahead. The vast majority of people in those times were honest, polite, good citizens.

I grew up in San Antonio, TX, one of the country's "friendliest cities". I don't know what it's like now, but when I lived there up until the early 80's, you could talk to strangers and they would smile and be friendly right back.

I'll give you an example of social cohesion:

When I was a child in the 60's the mayor started a citywide campaign to stop littering. Speakers went to schools, talked to the kids about littering, handed out litter bags to give to our parents to put in our cars. The parents did it. There were contests to make up anti-littering slogans. Attractive trash cans went up on every street corner, and people stopped littering. I mean, the streets were immaculate! If you saw a piece of litter you picked it up to throw away. If you dropped a piece of litter your friends chastised you!

Not littering became a part of San Antonio's culture and we became the country's cleanest city. What we had was a sense of civic pride that we all shared, regardless of race or economic status. Nowdays a campaign like that would be met with jeers and cynicism.

We have lost our innocence, individually and collectively, and I mourn that loss.

[dcarrigg]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Not littering became a part of San Antonio's culture and we became the country's cleanest city. What we had was a sense of civic pride that we all shared, regardless of race or economic status. Nowdays a campaign like that would be met with jeers and cynicism.

We have lost our innocence, individually and collectively, and I mourn that loss.

But conversely, NYC almost certainly has less litter and trouble and more civic pride now than at that time. The US homicide rate in 1968 was higher than 2008. Other violent crime rates have gone up, but back in the 1960s assault and rape were not defined and prosecuted as extensively as they are now. Hitting children at home, in school, on the team etc. was not really an arrestable offense - 'date rape' was no crime.

Innocence was alive and well on television, but not on the streets. So far as civic pride and civil society goes, you do have a point. People congregated more and were part of more groups. That has to some extent been replaced by forums like this - which is not an equal substitution.

And maybe things were a bit different in the south (I have no personal or familial experience with it), but the Watts riots, NYC riots, the 1967 Roxbury riot in Boston, etc. etc. were all real things. They happened in ordinary neighborhoods with ordinary people.

Innocence, if there ever were any, was lost in the Garden of Eden. Images and accounts of smut and violence are at least as old as history. Look to the Epic of Gilgamesh if you doubt me.

[Kadriana]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I think I agree with you in principle. The great olden days is heavily distorted by nostalgia. I don't know how we got on the fourth turning book, but some of the events that you picked out may be at other generational nadirs. There has always been jerks and thieves and malcontents.

I was in the park yesterday with my 5 year old son. There was a group of a dozen teenage girls hanging out. The mouths on them were like truckers or sailors. I have to apologize here to truckers and sailors. (My grandfather was a trucker and my uncle a sailor) Neither cursed very often, and they were fine strong men. My son does not hear language like that, so I did not have to leave. If I was with my older son, I would have had to intervene or leave, as he would have picked up on it.

Shiny does have a point, social cohesion from my perspective seems to be heading down, and we have not reached the nadir yet. I am from the "nomad" generation?? I was born in the 60's and have only seen society on the downtrend line.
When I talk to my Greatest Generation friends (world war II boys) . They are disgusted by what they see, but they have a thing called hope, that gets them by. The nomad generation is not so hopeful.

And that is really what I think the essence of what Shiny and I are missing. We want a society where people are more connected. I don't care how many shiny beads I have. Sometimes the world just seems cruel and lonely.

I can see an economic crisis pushing people back together. The housing crisis is making it harder to move so people are actually staying in their neighborhoods instead of moving every couple of years. I know I am going to my local grocery store a lot more since it's cheaper due to rising gas prices. My husband and I have been going to the local pub instead of driving 30 minutes to a restaurant like we normally would. My brother-in-law ended up moving back home and getting a job locally where he has some support. When you're forced to stay in a smaller area, you naturally get to know people better because you see the same people over and over again. I have a much easier time correcting someone's child when I know their parents than if they were a complete stranger's child.

[flintlock]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I don't think that such a golden age ever existed:

Manners = Get to the back of the bus, Rosa
Courtesy = Ty Cobb
Civic Virtues = Protest cross-city school bussing
Table Manners = Elitist British nonsense
Study Hard and Learn All You Can = Work on the farm and be illiterate
Don't Litter = Pre-Nixon (hence pre-EPA) carcinogenic industrial pollutants
Earn Your Money Honestly = Teapot Dome
Don't Lie = I am not a crook
Don't Steal = Lucky Luciano
Don't Hit People = General Patton
Don't Curse = Anyone named on the list above who happened to be speaking



Do you really want to go back? I'd doubt it would be desirable even if it were possible. This is not to say that things are perfect now, but the 'good ol' days' of politeness were always on some level a myth.

I have to disagree a little here. Nobody said things were perfect back then. And certainly in all parts of the world, and for some people, they were not even polite as now, but the world my grandparents lived in was so polite and genteel, it was like a different world. I remember my grandmother taking me around shopping with her back in the 60s in a rural mountain town. It was almost formal. She'd introduce me to the bag boy at the grocery, the mailman, everyone knew everyone it seemed. Even the seedy types said "yes mam and no mam" to her. ( She was the elementary school teacher, so everyone knew her.) It was considered impolite to pass someone on the street and not at least acknowledge them with a hello or tip of the hat. Even people you didn't know. My grandma's town was not that far from being like Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show. It was corny but true. The South was definitely different in terms of manners, etc than today. Night and day different. But of course we still had our issues.

If you have ever met and really talked to someone from the WWII generation, those born in the 20s or so. They lived totally different lives. Honor and reputation meant something. Their word was their bond. Not all of course, but for most. People certainly cared about what their reputation was.

A lot of the breakdown with society has to do with the mobility we have. People who don't think they'll be living in the same town for more than a few years tend not to care about building a reputation, or real friendships, or meaningful relationships. The corporate culture to some degree has torn up America as we knew it. People don't put down roots, really get to know each other. And its a lot easier to flip someone a bird in traffic when you are not recognized and won't have to face the guy in church on Sunday. I could never get away with anything. Someone would see me and tell my Dad and there would be hell to pay.

But of course you are correct. We all remember the good things and not the bad. There were certainly times in history when people treated each other much worse. Ask a victim of Hitler, or some Roman centurion. I just remember my childhood as a time when people were much more civil. Some of that is just growing up in a small town I suppose.

Some of the rules of manners and civility go back to the time when people settled conflicts themselves, the law was days away at best, and conflicts could routinely escalate into bloody fights, even death. Its probably the origination of the handshake. The handshake showed someone you were not armed. Manners were a way to convey that you were not looking for trouble, and wanted to put a potential adversary at ease. Some today have a false sense of security because they know violence is no longer tolerated as a way of settling problems, and so feel no need to behave in a disarming way. Others are just assholes.

[jtabeb]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Technically, I would say it was in 1999.

Oil and gold both bottomed and started a reversal of a multi-decadal trend against paper assets. Also, this was the year of the original movie "THE MATRIX", by far the best in the series (it was all down hill after that). It also happened to be the year the movie "Fight Club" was released. And, to top it off, it was the title of a seminal Prince song.

Proof positive, 1999, mark it zero, dude from here on out.

[shiny!]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Manners were a way to convey that you were not looking for trouble, and wanted to put a potential adversary at ease. Some today have a false sense of security because they know violence is no longer tolerated as a way of settling problems, and so feel no need to behave in a disarming way. Others are just assholes.

That's a very astute insight. Many of my late husband's Special Ed. students behaved outrageously, secure in their knowledge that their parents never disciplined them and their teacher was not allowed to touch them. They'd actually get in his face and yell, "You can't touch me!"

The sad thing for these kids is when they go out in the real world and get in the face of the wrong person... someone who won't hesitate to slit their throat. This actually happened to one of his 10th graders many years ago in Culver City. The boy antagonized a street bum who killed him.

[flintlock]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Its too bad that some people have to learn the hard way.

[dcarrigg]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Some of that is just growing up in a small town I suppose.

Yeah, I grew up more of a northern city boy. Nobody was sir or madam. I even don't recall those in my family born in the early 1920s calling anybody mister or sir or miss, etc. In fact, I prefer this. There is a certain je ne sais quoi to everybody calling each other by first names as equals.

I think that a lot of the manners going away complaint is probably more noticeable in rural parts of the country - and maybe cities in the south because of cultural differences.

I still remember the first time I met a girl from Georgia. She was a bit older than I and fresh up for college. She referred to herself as a debutante. I had not the foggiest idea of what that was. When she told me, it made no sense to me. It still doesn't. But as far as I'm concerned, polite society is no place for an Irishman anyhow. Pomp and pageantry are best left to the Anglo-Saxons - and even then, not so much the yankee variety. I showed her the other side of the tracks (where locals hung out). It probably made just as little made sense to her, it probably seemed crude, but there was (and still is) loyalty and honor there. It just doesn't wear white gloves.

[bart]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

"Past the point of no return"... yes.

And many dates can be defended - 2000 and dot com horse puckey, 1960 and Ike's comments on the military/industrial complex, 1971 and the gold standard relative monetary stability exit, 9/11 and encroaching fascism, lots more too... and I for one will be happy never to return to any of those.

Social cycles wise, we're sadly far from the bottom and hope is in short supply - we're still at the very best 2 steps back and .1 steps forward... and there's also a thread that EJ put up years ago about gloom/doom issues and resolutions over the decades that might provide a modicum of hope and historical perspective - and what's ahead ain't exactly pretty.


As far as the general manners area, I prefer the area of civility for focus since its much broader and much more encompassing.

civil (sîv´el) adjective
Abbr. civ.
1.Of, relating to, or befitting a citizen or citizens: civil duties.
2.Of or relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state: civil society; the civil branches of government.
3.Of ordinary citizens or ordinary community life as distinguished from the military or the ecclesiastical: civil authorities.
4.Of or in accordance with organized society; civilized.
5.Sufficiently observing or befitting accepted social usages; not rude: a civil reply. See synonyms at polite.
6.Being in accordance with or denoting legally recognized divisions of time: a civil year.
7.Law. Relating to the rights of private individuals and legal proceedings concerning these rights as distinguished from criminal, military, or international regulations or proceedings.

[Middle English, from Latin cėvėlis, from cėvis, citizen.]
- civ´illy adverb

[shiny!]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

"Past the point of no return"... yes.

And many dates can be defended - 2000 and dot com horse puckey, 1960 and Ike's comments on the military/industrial complex, 1971 and the gold standard relative monetary stability exit, 9/11 and encroaching fascism, lots more too... and I for one will be happy never to return to any of those.

Social cycles wise, we're sadly far from the bottom and hope is in short supply - we're still at the very best 2 steps back and .1 steps forward... and there's also a thread that EJ put up years ago about gloom/doom issues and resolutions over the decades that might provide a modicum of hope and historical perspective - and what's ahead ain't exactly pretty.


As far as the general manners area, I prefer the area of civility for focus since its much broader and much more encompassing.

In our Information Age, things seem to move and change at the speed of light compared to even a generation ago. But human civility is something that is indoctrinated into children (or not) and cannot be changed overnight. I have seen a deliberate dumbing down of culture and glorification of debauchery brought to us courtesy of our corporate overlords.

I began to worry when I saw Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, which glorified ostentation and selfishness. Figured it was going to make average people dissatisfied with the lives they had by living within their means. IMO, this helped pave the way for the Age of Consumption.

Then there was The Jerry Springer Show. I couldn't believe that people actually enjoyed watching such behavior until I worked for a woman who had the TV in the office turned on to that show, and every other one like it. She actually yelled and cheered to that cr*p.

After that, Taco Bell introduced their "Duh-Huh" commercials, with "Duh-Huh" splattered all over their menus. Well, now we have an proudly ignorant, greedy and selfish, violent "Duh-Huh" society, and IMO it's going to be bloody.

This won't be the first time barbarianism rules. Barbarianism is probably the norm for humans, not the exception. From the time of the Renaissance in the West we slowly grew out of it, grew better. Not perfect, but better. It took a long time to go from bear baiting to the Humane Society. Now we're rolling backwards and it seems to be speeding up.

We won't return to a civil society overnight. It depends on parents and families and a culture of compassion and decency. I think it's going to take many generations to undo the hell that's been created.

[flintlock]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

There has always been a very thin veneer of civilization covering all people. How they behave in a crisis is a good indicator of their true character. So far I have seen good just as much as bad behavior due to this economy. Families coming together. Friends lending a hand. Its not all bad news. If nothing else it has given some people pause to think about what is really important, and to count our blessings. When times are all good, we tend to take things for granted.