I love the societal decay arguments. Can someone point out to me which decade was the one where societal order, justice and happiness reigned supreme? Just so I can have some context to compare it today and thus see how things have decayed. Which days were the good old days?
Society changes, some riots and looting overseas or even here at home are not enough for me to determine that society is decaying at the same inevitable rate as my 43 year old body, which is another topic entirely.
I remember hearing that during the Hurricane Katrina looting that society has decayed. Excuse me but I’ll trade you that looting for some 1950’s racial hangings for voting or dating out of your race. Maybe some church burnings if you’d prefer, maybe acceptable domestic violence, same general geographic region. Our decayed society is in the middle of a war with Muslim countries and here at home, maybe a slur here and there, maybe a rare act of vandalism might occur. But I seem to recall in the idyllic days of yesteryear we put Japanese people in camps for nothing other than being Japanese and nobody said much, I doubt that would fly today in our “decayed” society.
The world is a better place today, by almost every measure with one exception, religious people are losing ground and will continue to do so. White male Christians who want everyone else to live like they want them to are not getting their way (I say this as a white male, formerly Christian). Gone are the days when church and state, or even church and society are as one. For some that is troubling. Not far in the future, policy, laws and societal norms will have nothing to with churches. I’m not even what most would consider a liberal, but call me kooky for thinking that I recall something about this when the formation of this country is taught. Gays will one day marry, people will divorce when they are unhappy, adults will have sex with each other for no other reason than it is fun. People of different races and backgrounds will do as they please, live the lives they want and with those they want to. They will attend the schools they want, have the careers they want and nothing will be unattainable, nothing off limits based on race, creed or color (where have I read that before? and do not for a minute say it used to be better, because that is bullshit, the good old days, weren’t always that good). Ask a woman who was an adult in the 1940’s or 1950’s how great it was to choose to be a housewife, a teacher or a nurse, but not much else. What a grand society it was for them. Maybe they were better mothers, but was it better, for them? For the first time since this crazy notion of freedom was proposed more than 200 years ago, we’re actually getting close to the original plan, where individuals choose their path, not other people. If that is decay, bring it on!
