How did our culture change through the 20th century?

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smndtupidisaftr

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Specifically I am talking about Western culture and the dramatic changes in morals, values, etc. I’m sure that you all know what exactly I have in mind even if I can’t express it very clearly. How did everything change? Were things much better in the past in terms of how people lived and interacted with each other? I’d like some perspective from those who know more about it.

Personally, there’s much that I can’t stand, and I feel disconnected from most people because of it. The standards or interaction seem so barbaric and depraved. Cordiality and genuineness are almost to be eschewed as a rule. Instead, coarseness of language is vulgarity of subject matter is to be expected. Thus, outside of close friends and family, I have trouble getting along with people and I’m mostly labeled as anti-social.

How does everyone else feel about it? How were things in the past, for instance what could you expect from meeting someone for the first time? And how do you deal with a culture that seems to hate everything that is beautiful?
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
Specifically I am talking about Western culture and the dramatic changes in morals, values, etc. I’m sure that you all know what exactly I have in mind even if I can’t express it very clearly. How did everything change? Were things much better in the past in terms of how people lived and interacted with each other? I’d like some perspective from those who know more about it.
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If you ask an African American older than 60 who grew up i the South I am sure he or she would have some perspective to share with you.
 
I’m not saying that things were perfect, far from it, but I would like some insight into how everyday life was different then versus now.
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
I’m not saying that things were perfect, far from it, but I would like some insight into how everyday life was different then versus now.
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television has had a tremendous influence. You don’t even have to go back to Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds; the first season of Gilligan’s Island saw no exposure of navals. Solidly for the past two decades, the top rated shows in America featured a constant litany of premarital sex (Cheers, friends, two and a half men), homosexual celebration (Will and Grace) and it has never ended. Economic situations have forced families toward 2 incomes; the TV and non-nuclear family frivolities have become companions for children. In the last decade, school sports have demanded greater time expenditures pushing quality family time and taking the place of Church activities.

The results seem to be that the children are being raised by someone other than parents (ie. schools, electronics, popular culture). Instead of the children entering into the lives of their parents (chores and activity), the parents are left to enter into the lives of the children (supporting sports or clubs). The former raises children to responsible adult standards; the latter can tend to make use of parents (car pool, volunteers, fundraisers) for the children, producing young adults who believe that life revolves around them.
 
Families used to eat dinner together…now everyone is busy and the parents and kids eat dinner alone.

Sex was always a quiet topic that was, for the most part, kept between the sanctity and the dignity of the married couple…now it is mainstream media…even impurity is promoted almost in regards to the evils of pornography, contraception, and abortion

Drugs have skyrocketed- a product of the hippie movement

People have no respect for life- euthanasia and, again, abortion

People are freeloaders- no more American dream- the house, the yard, the wife, the kids, the dog, the steady lifelong job, and the white picket fence- gone; now, the American dream is to rely on welfare forever as a livelihood

Morals have decreased- liberalism has taken over- the acceptance of the unacceptable

Parenting is for the most part bad- parents just don’t say “no”- they give their kids technology at too young an age and they become addicted

People don’t have any respect for the classics- music, art, and literature

Schools don’t focus on teaching the person and educating the mind, body, and spirit- only preparing them for standardized tests so that they can get higher scores and more money

Many people do not respect authority, life, Christian values, or following the ways of the Lord in modern society.

Finally, society has become increasingly and unfortunately very secularized.

It has been a turn for the worst, but if we Catholics preserve the ways of the One, True Faith given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ, then maybe we can try to turn some stuff around.

May God bless you all! 🙂
 
I believe that the growth in media has led us to take a very dim view of our world. Every horror of the globe, every war, famine, flood, earthquake, riot, revolt, and rebellion is brought to us from a politically tinged outlet, whether it is CNN. Fox, or the Arab outlets.
In the old living of little villages of say, America or the UK, where travel to another village on horseback was a day’s ride, we often learnt little of the world. Indeed this led to the varied accents of language within a very small geographic area. If you look at Australia a very young country of only two hundreds years (barring the aborigines), we see very little difference in accent in a country the size of Europe.
A clear view of this century shows a western culture decayed by two world wars, that dismantled government and culture across Europe. However, we also see the destruction of slavery across most of the civilized world, child labour abolished in Europe, the UK and parts of America; and the failed attempts to take on poverty through the combined efforts of countries in the establishment of the UN, for what it is worth.
The world was not like Downton Abbey for most people. This century has seen the growth of the middle class, now even in India and China where the difference between the very wealthy and the poor were most extreme. We only see the fall in the middle class in countries under great economic strain such as America.
No, I don’t think the world has got worse, however, it has got faster. There is little time for the old niceties and calling cards, of “at homes” and opening doors. We have lost grace in the speed of our living.
This can be exampled in looking at the old tv shows, such as the police shows. There the chief would say lets go, they would all take their hats and head to the lift then we were all amazed at how easy they got their parking space as we see them drive up, get out, slam the doors and walk resolutely to their quarry. Now the chief normally Gibbs says lets go, and they take their guns and are instantly there (unless there is a fight as to whom will drive.) Speed of action is found throughout our lives driving us to instantaneous gratification. What ever happened to lay-bys as a form of purchasing? This is increasing stress and leading to over reaction in personal dealings from fights with the wife to shooting someone for throwing popcorn.
We can’t go back, but we can give ourselves more time when we get home, by formally eating together, praying together, and closing the computer. The world is actually a better place for the majority than it has ever been in the history of man. We just need the time to smell the roses.
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
Specifically I am talking about Western culture and the dramatic changes in morals, values, etc. I’m sure that you all know what exactly I have in mind even if I can’t express it very clearly. How did everything change? Were things much better in the past in terms of how people lived and interacted with each other? I’d like some perspective from those who know more about it.

Personally, there’s much that I can’t stand, and I feel disconnected from most people because of it. The standards or interaction seem so barbaric and depraved. Cordiality and genuineness are almost to be eschewed as a rule. Instead, coarseness of language is vulgarity of subject matter is to be expected. Thus, outside of close friends and family, I have trouble getting along with people and I’m mostly labeled as anti-social.

How does everyone else feel about it? How were things in the past, for instance what could you expect from meeting someone for the first time? And how do you deal with a culture that seems to hate everything that is beautiful?
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Growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s, our governments and media reflected and respected Christianity. That’s why our coins have “In God We Trust” on them. Kids were taught to respect their parents, themselves and their neighbors, young and old. There were standards we were all taught that were reinforced by our schools, our Churches (no, we did not all go the same ones) and by our neighbors. You addressed adults you knew as "Hello Mister or Missus So and So, and strangers as Sir, Miss or Ma’am. You said “please,” “Thank you,” “excuse me,” and “nice to meet you.” You also said you were sorry and had an appropriate sense of guilt and shame because you knew when you did right and wrong. It was taught to kids: don’t do this, don’t use these words. I was told to stay away from the ‘bad kids’ who stole things. I mean, you said hello and were polite, but you didn’t call them names or think you were better. Sure, it wasn’t perfect - we had crime and all the rest but we did not lock our doors at night. If a neighbor needed help, other neighbors would come and help, expecting nothing for their time except the satisfaction of knowing that people could be good to each other.

We respecting our governments more, as well as the media. I recall reading beautiful editorials about the birth of Jesus around Christmas. We knew other things were going on that were wrong, but such things were private and none of our business. Divorce was rare, abortion was very rare and there was a rule about sex: No sex until marriage. Period.

By the mid-1960s, groups were forming and radicals, anarchists and Hippies were telling us things like: “You Catholics think sex is dirty. All you do is listen to the Pope. Why don’t you think for yourselves?” Translation: “We want you to live like we do and you make us uncomfortable with all of your rules that most of you actually follow!” “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” “Do whatever you want. You don’t have to listen to anybody! Dress like us. Act like us. Live with and have sex with your girlfriend. Smoke dope! You don’t need rules, or standards or self-discipline or sin or shame or guilt, just listen to us!”

At the time, we thought most of these people would disappear or just go off their own and leave us alone. So, what happened?

1960 The FDA approves the birth control pill for sale by prescription. Most women did not want it. My mother did not want or need it.

1966 The viciously anti-family organization, the National Organization for Women is founded.

1967 In the name of “freedom,” some Catholic institutions of higher learning break their ties with the Church.

catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm

Time magazine runs a cover story about The Pill. It promises freedom from fear. Fear of what? Babies.

content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843551,00.html

1968 Pope Paul VI sees what is going and though the majority of his advisers urge him to relax the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control, he reaffirms it in Humanae Vitae and warns of an increase in promiscuity if his words are not heeded. There were dissidents in the Church as well. Here was the reaction at the time:

"Within 24 hours, in an event unprecedented in the history of the Church, more than 200 dissenting theologians signed a full-page ad in The New York Times in protest. Not only did they declare their disagreement with encyclical’s teaching; they went one step further, far beyond their authority as theologians, and actually encouraged dissent among the lay faithful.

"They asserted the following: “Therefore, as Roman Catholic theologians, conscious of our duty and our limitations, we conclude that spouses may responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed necessary to preserve and foster the values and sacredness of marriage.”

continued…
 
1969 Dr. Bernard Nathanson co-founds NARAL, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. Most of us young people had no idea what methods they would use. Later, Dr, Nathanson would realize the error of his ways and tell us what was done to advance the cause of killing life in the womb.

catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/articles-and-addresses/an-ex-abortionist-speaks/

1970s To my astonishment, porn Adult Bookstores open across the country, along with strip clubs and topless bars. This took planning and millions of dollars and hiring expensive lawyers to tell us ‘religious nuts’ to shut up. They had the First Amendment right to do all this. Just several years prior, the worst you could legally do was buy Playboy which had pictures of nude and semi-nude women, and some ‘girlie’ magazines sold behind the counter at some liquor stores which had the same, but now what was meant to be totally private was literally in your face - graphic, gynecological sex acts performed by prostitutes. But it was OK, because it was legal. We were lied to. THE planned addictions occurred. These places became the new opium dens.

Feminist icon, Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine. Yes, that’s where that ugly, divisive word comes from. The radicals loved to have sex with anybody, profanity is A-OK and they love porn. Ms. was Playboy for women. And a type of Class warfare started: women were the eternal victims or potential victims of men. Men were evil. Men ran everything, including the Church. Distrust your husband because he is going to leave you, or abuse you and kick you to the curb and leave you with the kids. DON"T LISTEN TO ANY MAN. Get a career. Get power. Who needs to sit at home and raise kids? If you want kids, just dump them in daycare, and when they’re old enough, give them a key, and when they’re 18 - out of the house. Gloria Steinem: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

That type of wrong brainwashing created fertile ground for No-Fault Divorce in the 1980s. The kids are upset (no, I’m not talking about abuse) - so what? Lawyers ran ads like this in the newspaper: “No kids? $75 and you’re out. Call 800-DIVORCE.” Did anyone ask for this? Did the people ask for this? No. We were taken down the wrong path. ‘Here, you don’t need a reason anymore. You don’t need to work it out. Take the easy way.’

1973 The Supreme Court, not the people, decides it’s OK to kill babies in the womb. People begin to do it. At first, they are ashamed but later, it becomes just something you do. People become meaner, coarser and ‘not your neighbor’ because it’s all about what I want. I feel betrayed by all this. And as time passes, movies and TV shows become more and more like them. Dirty, filthy, shameless, dysfunctional and no sin.

“Hey man, if it feels good, do it.”

1980s The wonder of Cable TV? No, porn on cable. By the mid-1980s, it’s about half good and half bad, but after that - into the abyss.

I gradually shut myself off from the culture. I didn’t need to hear George Michael yelling “I Want Your Sex” on the radio. I used to love TV but it was getting worse and worse, so that went away for the most part.

Movies? I might see one or two a year.

I have to openly reject everything they want us to love. I have friends who don’t watch TV.

“Our” culture was infiltrated by their culture where there is no right or wrong, just dysfunctionality and darkness. Beauty in art? Who needs it? Just throw paint against the canvas. Plant some pipes in a flower pot. Turn junk into art and call nothing something.

Peace,
Ed
 
Think earlier,

After years of pressure and secular usage, contraception was accepted in “some” cases by the Anglican Church in 1930. Soon after the floodgates burst throughout Protestant circles and sex was separated from both its unitive and procreative purposes across wide parts of our society. “Free” sex led to the sexual revolution mentioned by previous posters. Sex without the expectation of procreation led to greater demand for legalized abortion and that dam broke in '73.

Now we have a culture obsessed with sex and death.
 
The trajectory and pace of everything was increased. Better medicine and healthcare, a super abundance of learning available. Harder and faster moral decline as well.
 
Thank you for all of the responses, especially the one from edwest. Fantastically informative.
 
smndtupidisaftr said:
Were things much better in the past in terms of how people lived and interacted with each other?
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No, they weren’t. Wife abuse was winked at, and the woman expected to “make the marriage work.” The physical and sexual abuse of children was hushed up, and not dealt with in any open way, if at all. Racial bigotry was rampant, not only against blacks, but also against Hispanics and persons of East Asian origin. Things began to slowly change after WWII, but didn’t dramatically change until the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Has there also been an increase in vulgarity and promiscuity, along with all of the attendant social ills? Yes. However, don’t fall into the mistake of thinking that “things were so much better back then.” They were different times, which suffered from different forms of immorality.
 
It has long seemed to me that the true guru of cultural moral decline in the U.S. was Hugh Hefner. For a cultural change to happen, people have to be open to acceptance of it. Hefner started out with a garden-variety sleazy “girlie” magazine, but converted it into a monthly gospel of self indulgence little short of outright narcissism. Illicent sex was “advertized” as “cool”, as “sophisticated” as the sort of thing the man who also drives a Maserati and drinks only the finest scotch does. And men were told incessantly that “hey guys, women want to live the same way” when, in truth, few did. Women too, men were told, want to consume all of the good things in life, and sexual license is one of those things. The woman is a “playmate”; that is, a willing consumption item; an attenuated person; a sometime thing like last year’s high end stereo set.

An entire generation of men were brought to believing it, in whole or in part. If a man wanted to be sophisticated and suave, he wanted to at least consume the latest things, and Playboy told him what they were, page after page after page. Naturally, that also required money and spending it on oneself. This coincided with an explosion of industrial capability to produce those very things, or at least cheaper versions of “the best”.

And, of course, when Vatican II SEEMED to “loosen the strings” on self-indulgence and moral dissent, it fit right in. All of a sudden, and very quickly, courses in Catholic schools changed drastically. From seriously teaching the teachings of the Church regarding faith and morals, they suddenly became more sociological. It didn’t matter if you were otherwise licentious if you “loved your fellow man”. But the latter really was more just a feeling than a radical call to action; more or less equivalent to good manners and knowing what opinions were socially acceptable.

Well, and the truly “cool” guy could do some of the more “uptown” drugs (in moderation, of course), and that was cool too.

Hefnerism preceded the even more self-indulgent Hippiedom, but it was the natural parent of it, and the latter followed closely on the heels of the former. Interestingly, Hippiedom, its attendant sexual license and drug use was initially a middle and upper class phenomenon, but the rest of society got into it quickly enough.

And so we have abortion on demand, massive contraceptive use, widespread media degradation of women, celebration of perversion, increasing acceptance of drug use, and very large scale licentiousness, all combined with an extraordinary degree of consumerism.

And so very many (but certainly not all) of our priests and religious either condoned it or were silent about it. And many still are.

Indisputably past eras had their peculiar faults; their sins. Nothing is truly new under the sun, as the bible says. But there really was a change, and I was old enough to remember exactly when it happened. It was like one class in school was one way, with the primary goals being to sufficiently succeed in life to marry a good woman and raise a family, and the very next one really was out hunting the “playmate” and thinking a Jaguar convertible and the best single malt scotch (as examples) were the objects of existence.

And a lot of “good” girls turned into “playmates” too. I don’t know why they did. Possibly they felt it was demanded of them so insistently that they had no choices. It happened suddenly and astonishingly, but there was a lot of emotional price to pay. Undoubtedly many men and women have outgrown that, but it has cast long shadows among their children.

We all think of the cultural change as gradual, but it really wasn’t. It just took longer for it to permeate so much of society. And Hefner, I believe, paved the way. He was a genius, really. He saw a society that had suddenly become much more prosperous; one that could afford self-indulgence, and he sold self-indulgence every way there was to sell it.

And we bought.
 
Technology led to productivity… led to urbanization… led to interdependence (shared infrastructure like electricity, networks) led to leisure time and disposable income.

Idle hands do the devils work.

Prior to 1930 70% of Americans lived in a rural setting (or small towns). Families worked together. Children were part of the family labor force. Extended families were common. Lots of children, cousins, Aunts Uncles, etc. People governed themselves. Social outliers were ostracized.

After WW2 there was a false economy (no global competition) and the middle class proliferated because it was easier to share the wealth when there was no competition. (A large middle class is an exception not the rule.) There was a free run of nearly unbridled growth and wealth creation until the early 70’s (hmm, wonder why) when OPEC, Watergate, Vietnam… dare I say Roe vs Wade, brought it all crashing down and we haven’t really recovered ever since. We’re still being sold/told the same stuff they were saying 40 years ago…

The world is way different now, the middle class is shrinking back to a more historically “normal” level (as much as I hate to admit it).

We need leaders who have a vision and a strategy to achieve it. When’s the last time you heard a politician talk in plain realistic terms? Our politicians talk either about very specific minutia or in meaningless platitudes. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are we going to get there?

Rocket science.
 
migueltojose said:
Technology led to productivity… led to urbanization… led to interdependence (shared infrastructure like electricity, networks) led to leisure time and disposable income.

Idle hands do the devils work.

Prior to 1930 70% of Americans lived in a rural setting (or small towns). Families worked together. Children were part of the family labor force. Extended families were common. Lots of children, cousins, Aunts Uncles, etc. People governed themselves. Social outliers were ostracized.

After WW2 there was a false economy (no global competition) and the middle class proliferated because it was easier to share the wealth when there was no competition. (A large middle class is an exception not the rule.) There was a free run of nearly unbridled growth and wealth creation until the early 70’s (hmm, wonder why) when OPEC, Watergate, Vietnam… dare I say Roe vs Wade, brought it all crashing down and we haven’t really recovered ever since. We’re still being sold/told the same stuff they were saying 40 years ago…

The world is way different now, the middle class is shrinking back to a more historically “normal” level (as much as I hate to admit it).

We need leaders who have a vision and a strategy to achieve it. When’s the last time you heard a politician talk in plain realistic terms? Our politicians talk either about very specific minutia or in meaningless platitudes. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are we going to get there?

Rocket science.
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Untrue. This was all a carefully planned and coordinated attack on the Catholic Church and the family. Politics, schmolotics. These infiltrators, both inside and outside the Church, scattered the flock - as planned.

Listen to Pope Francis. Be a Catholic in word and deed, otherwise, it’s just words. For each one of us who hears and obeys is one less person who is silent. Don’t be silent. Proclaim the truth and shut out the so-called mainstream media.

Peace,
Ed
 
migueltojose said:
Technology led to productivity… led to urbanization… led to interdependence (shared infrastructure like electricity, networks) led to leisure time and disposable income.

Idle hands do the devils work.

Prior to 1930 70% of Americans lived in a rural setting (or small towns). Families worked together. Children were part of the family labor force. Extended families were common. Lots of children, cousins, Aunts Uncles, etc. People governed themselves. Social outliers were ostracized.

After WW2 there was a false economy (no global competition) and the middle class proliferated because it was easier to share the wealth when there was no competition. (A large middle class is an exception not the rule.) There was a free run of nearly unbridled growth and wealth creation until the early 70’s (hmm, wonder why) when OPEC, Watergate, Vietnam… dare I say Roe vs Wade, brought it all crashing down and we haven’t really recovered ever since. We’re still being sold/told the same stuff they were saying 40 years ago…

The world is way different now, the middle class is shrinking back to a more historically “normal” level (as much as I hate to admit it).

We need leaders who have a vision and a strategy to achieve it. When’s the last time you heard a politician talk in plain realistic terms? Our politicians talk either about very specific minutia or in meaningless platitudes. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are we going to get there?

Rocket science.
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Additionally I would add the effect of technology on commercial media… sex sells… is rather obvious. There seems to be no end to how far we will go with it. Not a big fan of censorship. I am a fan of peititions and boycotts. Let the market speak. It’s about supply and demand. Reduce the demand, reduce the supply. Again… rocket science…

Additional comments related to western sociology… regarding Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow which sounded great when I first heard it in grade school… but in practice, recent history suggests that rather than aspiring to the higher needs… self esteem, self actualization, agape love, transcendence… it seems we (a simple majority anyway) will stay on the lower end of the pyramid and gorge ourselves, literally and figuratively, to satisfy the lower needs only bigger… bigger houses, better cars, nicer clothes, more sex (sans love) and again… obviously… more and more food and drink (and other substances)… to the point of obesity. Sinful. (Pride, Sloth, Greed, Lust, Gluttony) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Sloth
 
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