[that_girl_there]

When we've got five-years-olds cussing and describing sexual acts in explicit detail you know that something is profoundly wrong nowadays.

From this point in, I stopped taking you seriously. Exaggerate much?

And I love how you threw in "Liberal" to your rant. I'm sure no one on the right, especially not people like Rob Ford, could ever be accused of being rude.

You old foggies can reminisce about the good old days all you want. Doady and I and our 20-something friends will continue picking up the mess created by generations past, which by the way is the worst mess given to any generation in history. Climate change! Man, I bet you boomers are glad you're getting to old to have to deal with that one.

Hey, you guys are old - remember that song "we didn't start the fire?" Maybe you should listen to it sometime. But not too loudly, wouldn't want to disturb the neighbours...

With this post, I'm just done being serious here. Because clearly the many intelligent, logical posts aren't enough to change the minds of stubborn old people. Better get your shotgun and your rocking chair to keep us young'uns off your lawn.

 

[Fresh Start]

^ How do you know for sure that I'm not in my twenties?

 

[GenerationW]

Maybe 25 years from now I'll look back at this time and think it was a lot more wholesome than the stuff going on by 2035.

Probably, since I plan to run naked in the streets every day if I'm still alive then.

 

[that_girl_there]

^ How do you know for sure that I'm not in my twenties?

Because you comment about life "a decade ago" and if you were my age, your opinion of what things were like a decade ago would be skewed by the fact that you were quite young.

 

[Tewder]

You old foggies can reminisce about the good old days all you want. Doady and I and our 20-something friends will continue picking up the mess created by generations past, which by the way is the worst mess given to any generation in history.

Pick up the mess? I thought we'd already established that people of your generation don't 'pick up' anything?

 

[tkip]

Time out....

Pick up the mess? I thought we'd already established that people of your generation don't 'pick up' anything?

Funny comment... Seriously though....

It wasn't my intent to pick fights with people and suggest that some here are personally responsible for what happens out there in society or for their generation for that matter. Nor was it my intention to offend people. And I should have made a stronger case for linking what I think is the weakening of morals and behaviour today with urban decay compared to when I was a younger person.

I explain things better in person than I do online through posts. It's just that I feel very strongly about this and I'm seeing patterns of behaviour that seem to be getting worse and it seems to also translate into how we as a society take care of our urban enviroment as well as conduct ourselves out in the streets...

The case here has been made for example of how badly a lot the people that head down to clubland act and I tend to agree. I just don't remember when I was that age and out with my friends clubbing, seeing that kind of..... attitude for want of a better word... It just seems more excessive now.....

So I'm going to tone down the rhetoric and leave this topic alone since I've more than made my point. And yes, when you are young, you see the world through a different filter.
Age and experiences tend to change you somewhat as the years go by....

And yeah, previous generations have made a mess of things but the new ones need to learn from this and not repeat things.

 

[Tewder]

I don't know that it's to do with an erosion of morals so much as a shifting of social norms and boundaries. What is socially acceptable today is so vastly different from what it was twenty, thirty, forty years ago etc., for both good and bad. Social consciousness has gone up, while civility has gone down. Go figure! I for one would love it if both were on the rise.

 

[tkip]

This is true.

Social consciousness has changed though I tend to think we've become somewhat too PC these days and social norms do shift. I think the big question and time will tell, is whether some norms now are really healthy and I think we're starting to see something of a backlash forming because of this. But absolutely civility has gone down. I would say way down and this is definitely one of my pet peeves.

And I don't necessarily blame the person for doing especially if it's a young person. Parents and the other adults kind of dropped the ball and many young people weren't taught and here we are.

 

[adma]

Don't forget another factor: the segmentation of society, compared to a generation or two ago. There's probably a bigger cultural gap btw/kids raised in the city and kids raised in the suburbs than there used to be--an urban/suburban-cultural version of "the big sort", one supposes. It's no longer the monoculture where kids and families everywhere grooved to the same music and gathered around to watch the same TV shows.

Under those circumstances. the "tribes" should be judged accordingly. (F'rinstance, it's probably a reasonable rule of thumb or Confucius-say proverb that girls raised in teardown McMansions are more likely to be shallow Heidi/Audrina wannabes than those raised in downtown hipster nabes.)

 

[UrbanFervour]

D ( it's probably a reasonable rule of thumb or Confucius-say proverb that girls raised in teardown McMansions are more likely to be shallow Heidi/Audrina wannabes than those raised in downtown hipster nabes.)

Timeless wisdom, that... But be kind and spare tkip from exposure to the Hills (if he hasn't already been infected). It might be a cause for him to abandon all hope.

 

[Tewder]

Under those circumstances. the "tribes" should be judged accordingly. (F'rinstance, it's probably a reasonable rule of thumb or Confucius-say proverb that girls raised in teardown McMansions are more likely to be shallow Heidi/Audrina wannabes than those raised in downtown hipster nabes.)

... and yet just who is really being raised in these downtown hipster nabes?... which is sort of the issue too, namely a culture of self-absorbed thirty/forty-something year old vacuous poseurs who are more interested in ipads and $400.00 jeans etc. than things like community, family and all the crap of the past we disparage so?

 

[tkip]

Don't forget another factor: the segmentation of society, compared to a generation or two ago.

Actually, you made a very important point.

The segmentation of our society is indeed underway and has been for some time. Familes are scattered and there is less contact and connection between family members now in the modern world. This probably began with the invention of the nuclear family which said only the parents and children coniststed of the family unit and completely ignored the other family members.

From what I understand this social construct was created to weaken families since families form communities and communities can band together and challenge governing powers.

Also there is the compartization of society.

With every member having their own tv, their own bath spaces, their own entertainment areas, their own eating areas separated from other family members. To be blunt, family members don't interact and socialize with each other as they did in the past.

This is not a good thing.

Interesting point about "tribes".

My older sister lives in a very small town in Alberta. And she commented on the actions of the people here in Toronto, especially downtown Toronto and that it was completely different from how people including her own children behaved back home. She wasn't impressed for the most part with how people behaved here.

So there would appear to be some difference in the behaviour of people living in large urban centres and smaller communities possibly less affected by the social changes occuring in the cities.

I should have made a stronger effort to convey that my usage of the term urban decay reflected a connection with moral decay in that shifting norms for once unacceptable social behaviour in public with manners for example, has resulted in far dirtier streets and less civil and courteous people compared to the past.

As for The Hills? Never watched. Watching bored, pretentious people that all look alike isn't my thing....

 

[taal]

Alright, how about we start a new thread to address general degradation of society as a whole ... if that's what we're talking about, can't quite tell anymore. And while we're at, we can close this thread for good.

 

[tkip]

Maybe...

Then my work is complete. Dance puppets, dance!

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I deal with a lot of people and property and I can say with great confidence that very few people below the age of 25 regardless of culture or socio-economic level are capable of managing their own waste. That means keeping their personal space clean, taking out the garbage, recycling, managing their own bodily fluids etc. Even though this is simple and self-evident I thought I would point it out because there is a large gap between the projection of ourselves and the reality of how people actually live. The question however is is this something that is in decline? To me the evidence tends to be the opposite. I find that young people are far more concious of these things then in the past, even if they lack the maturity to be able to consistently match their knowlege of what to do with real life actions. A young person is far more likely for instance to understand recycling and push for recycling options, even if they lack the consistency to remember to take the recycling out on the appropriate day. In contrast it is older people, the population in the city say 45 and old that, if they are not already militant about their standards of cleanliness, who are most likely to not care about littering, recycling, keeping their space clean, dumping garbage etc. I almost guarantee you that if you ever see someone dumping garbage it is a resident of this city 45 or older who lived here during this fictitious "golden era" that we somehow have lost.

Many young people dump garbage, and this based on seeing plenty of it happen. Add in the large percentage of Torontonians who did not live here in the golden era and you're looking at a clear majority of dumpers. There seems to be no equivalent in Toronto culture to 'when in Rome...'

Young people today are certainly less conscious of these things than they were a few decades ago and a big reason is that they are growing up in a world with virtually no real consequences to anything they do. There's no shunning in our society, and very rarely will someone yell at you or grumble at you or stare you down. Any problem can be solved with science, or money, or warm fuzzies and good intentions, or a lawyer, or medicine, or social network website initiatives, so there's no need for you to worry about your behaviour. There's zero fear that litter can lead to the kind of urban decay that would personally affect them, or lead to dire environmental affects. There's few reasons today for a young person to not litter - if there's even a garbage can nearby, that is - and without reasons or pressure there's little hope of turning anti-littering behaviour into a sort of urban instinct and ensuring that people know better today than they did 30 years ago (to ensure that people know better 30 years from now than today). Sure, many can buy green to do their part for the environment and help fight global warming, but that's about it and as specific as it gets for most. There are some militant young people, though...some eco-activists and a few people who do berate friends and family and strangers for littering and a few people who demand cleanliness (OCD starts at a young age, after all).