[jawa]

I'm speaking from a US point of view, but all countries apply. Of course everything plays in together for the end product, but some of the key things I've noticed that have left an obvious and hazardous imprint on society are the unconditional respect for/fear of authority out of a result of anti-intellectualism, which in turn leads to consumerism, the end product.

Consumerism on its grander, current scale has destroyed the environment, destroyed lives, it continues to spur on the abuse of the weak (sweatshop workers, abused children, animals, etc.) and has left an overall negative impact on how we view individuality and human life.

If people would educate themselves and appreciate knowledge more, society would be far less keen on obeying anyone and everyone that tells them what to do.

What systems/concepts do you believe are most at fault for how society is?

[nowt]

Time.

Originally Posted by jawa To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I'm speaking from a US point of view, but all countries apply. Of course everything plays in together for the end product, but some of the key things I've noticed that have left an obvious and hazardous imprint on society are the unconditional respect for/fear of authority out of a result of anti-intellectualism, which in turn leads to consumerism, the end product. Consumerism on its grander, current scale has destroyed the environment, destroyed lives, it continues to spur on the abuse of the weak (sweatshop workers, abused children, animals, etc.) and has left an overall negative impact on how we view individuality and human life. If people would educate themselves and appreciate knowledge more, society would be far less keen on obeying anyone and everyone that tells them what to do. What systems/concepts do you believe are most at fault for how society is?

[FruitLoop]

The media and the police. They wouldn't have an industry if they stopped feeding each other.

[jawa]

	Originally Posted by FruitLoop To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The media and the police. They wouldn't have an industry if they stopped feeding each other.

Would you say they get away with it due to the populace's unwillingness to educate themselves and hold some sort of independence from them? People can easily avoid the media, but not so much with police. And yet, as you said, those two systems keep feeding into each other, which makes me hold the position that people choose, out of their own ignorance and/or apathy, to continue obeying the media and authority for no logical reason.

[Pika]

Start of Rant. I would submit that television has had the premier influence on the decline of participatory and genteel society. Since the advent of TV, people have become accustomed to passively being entertained with lowest common denominator pap rather than actively entertaining themselves. People prefer to passively watch TV rather than to actively participate in clubs, church, politics or other forms of involvement. There is a pervasive sense that there is no problem that can't be solved in an hour, with time out for commercials, if the right actors tackle it. News now consists of "visuals" rather than in-depth reporting and analysis that used to be provided in print journalism. Politicians now speak in TV-ready "sound bites" that may or may not be true rather than give honest answers to questions. Corporations influence programming through their effect on program sponsorship. PAC's influence the voters with TV adds featuring lies and half-truths and out of context quotes; the PAC with the most money usually wins the election. I could go on and on but to what end. To me, TV is the modern equivalent of the Roman Circus. To keep the masses in line, give them bread and circuses. I have never heard what I consider to be an informed opinion on any national issue from someone who gets their information from TV. Rant concluded.

[SarcasticVlad]

Definitely the media. Corruption is everywhere, always has been, but nowhere is it so destructive as it is in the media. And then there is the sensationalism in the media as well.
Every time I turn on the TV or read the newspapers I am being lied to.

[Thinker]

Perhaps the premise is flawed?

Society changes. The changes bring both good and bad outcomes.
Your premise suggests that there are more negative changes than positive.
I disagree.

I am from Australia and make the following comments:

	Originally Posted by jawa To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Of course everything plays in together for the end product, but some of the key things I've noticed that have left an obvious and hazardous imprint on society are the unconditional respect for/fear of authority out of a result of anti-intellectualism, which in turn leads to consumerism, the end product.

I haven't noticed a fear of "authority". Access to "authority" is a problem which is getting worse.

Consumerism isn't evil. It is a function of advancement....one which needs to be put into context. Efficient design and manufacturing processes, arbitraged labour costs (from China), efficient international transport systems have all contributed to a rapid escalation across the world in access to a wide selection of affordable products. Easy credit and internet based communications fuelled the fire during the last two decades.

This wave of consumerism is slowing (in the developed world) now, with inflationary labour rates in China (and the rest of developing Asia), difficult access to credit, high unemployment rates etc etc. The problem is now that consumerism is creeping through the developing world.

	Consumerism on its grander, current scale has destroyed the environment, destroyed lives, it continues to spur on the abuse of the weak (sweatshop workers, abused children, animals, etc.) and has left an overall negative impact on how we view individuality and human life.

If we go back to the 60's and 70's environmental degradation across the US and Europe was far worse in some areas. The development of Environmental law has provided a basis for cleaner progress. We still have a long way to go, but the incremental steps are forwards rather than backwards. The economic pendulum tends to swing one way during recession and progress is slower.

I agree there are problems with "abuse of the weak", but in reality we have come a long way. News about these problems flows quickly these days...they were hidden 20, 30 and 40 years ago. Bringing people out of poverty can be the solution, but it is a difficult problem which has layers of complexity.

	If people would educate themselves and appreciate knowledge more, society would be far less keen on obeying anyone and everyone that tells them what to do.

Education is a difficult process. There are parts of society which don't value education. How do you instil a value when that cultural group may reject the valuation proposition?

	What systems/concepts do you believe are most at fault for how society is?

I believe the internet has the potential to move society forward quicker than it has in the past. Of course not everyone has access to the internet, or speaks english (the most common language on the internet - translation services are still not 100%). Just take a look at this forum. There are topics here which summarise the thoughts of many people....many of these topics (pre-internet) were just not discussed, or if they were, it was one-to-one with a friend, and the advice may have been skewed or biased, leading the person to the wrong choices. Access to information is a huge step forward.....the problem is in filtering the right information from the wrong information....

I ask.....is it better to stop advancing....or do we continue to move forwards and deal with the negative aspects of advancement?

I believe we're moving forward very positively.

[LifesEcstasy]

The belief that no matter what, it's all someone else's fault. The one thing I see as the cause of conflict everywhere is an individual's tendency to take little to no responsibility for any situation they find themselves in.

You can pick any subject, at any level and it's still 'not my fault'. Victim thinking is the one thing society educates others in and then continually reinforces it throughout life. No wonder most people lead lives of frustration and desperation.

[JTG]

People are the degradation of society. Society is always running just fine until people fuck it up

[invicta]

What degradation? There have been, and always will be social problems of one kind or another, and in several areas, such as there being less violent crime, and less teen pregnancy than in those blessed 1950s, things have in fact improved considerably.

[Nostalgia]

Human nature, we are flawed creatures to begin with. We will always be at the mercies of our primordial desires and emotions.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." - Shakespeare

[darniem]

Not just one thing...

Greed. It's a byproduct of our capitalism. I also blame certain strains of Christianity that have promoted any sort of prosperity gospel: "You know God loves you because you have better stuff than anyone else." This led to the idea that you have to work super duper hard to make loads of money and acquire material wealth to "prove" to yourself, your church, and society that you were saved...which also lead to the Protestant Work ethic which is why Americans have such notorious work habits which raises many issues about mental and physical well being.

Education. It's just awful. At least public education in most places. It's been undermined by school sports. If Billy can throw, catch, push, or block it doesn't matter if he is as illiterate at a brick, pass him! Billy's contibution to society will depend on if he ever makes the big leagues, and statistically, he won't...he'll just be taking up minimum wage jobs and sapping the welfare system because he once showed a potential for a job that he was likely never going to occupy and all the educational skills were abandoned for sports.

Apart from that, we don't teach our children to learn for the sake of gaining knowledge, but to learn to pasts tests and to eventually land a career. My cousins make fun of me for studying the humanities and not learning a trade. I respect their career choices (someone needs to do those jobs), but they know nothing of history, ethics, literature, philosophy, or languages (unless it's for business purposes). We've completely abandoned the liberal arts because it isn't "useful." And that brings me to the next problem...

Utility. Everything has to be "useful." Generation Y and the one after it are being brought up to consider something's worth based on what it does for them. That's being transfered to people. "Is this person useful to me? No? Screw 'em." I don't know what others think of that attitude, but it scares the hell out of me. I might be old fashioned but I think every person has a non-negotiable worth by virtue of them being alive. Apart from people, this attitude of usefulness makes some do only the bare minimum to get by in life, because that's all they have to do. It's made Americans selfish and lazy.

Black and White thinking. While I won't argue that the INTJ forum is teeming with "outside the box" thinkers, the rest of America seems to believe there are only two sides to everything. I don't think it is good for a society to only see two (and fiercely opposing) sides to any given issue, but that's what seems to be the case for the most part. Sure makes tolerance, understanding, and critical thinking veeeeery difficult.

There's other stuff but I'm drinking wine and can't be arsed to finish. see, I used a British term. Aren't I cultured? :-p

[RandomLurker]

Extraverts.

[Equinox]

Selfishness and over-acceptance of things that are bad by labeling them as "different."

[Subgenius]

Church of the SubGenius.

[owly]

Religion and the belief in deities and other supernatural, nonexistent, imaginary garbage.

[vowsEntente]

Degradation is the natural condition of society. Nothing is perpetually good but requires constant input to keep it that way, like energy to motion. Since all humans are essentially motivated by the same things and they rarely learn from history, the state of a society must be attributed to its inheritance, in terms of geography, technology, traditions, etc., and not its generational components.

[Pingo]

Insecurity.

[TheWanderer]

Corporations and corrupt/incompetent governments (Regan: I know what would be a good idea, deregulate everything, including the safety controls on the economy. I'm sure nothing bad will happen later on)

[Paji eh Wong]

Logical positivism and materialism. The belief that social life can be measured, managed, predicted and controlled. Also, discounting the unseen as unimportant and the objectification of human beings.

Institutionalization. People are shoe-horned to fit into institutions, instead of the other way around. They become robbed of personal responsibility.

Angst. Life has no real meaning beyond what we assign to it. Most people will never get close to thinking for themselves, and so they are in great pain.

Speed and connectivity. Society moves at a faster pace than ever before, and information travels faster. Maybe individuals are beginning to see patterns, and don't like what they see.

I am still fundamentally optimistic.

OP you might like The Bed of Proscutes by Nassim Taleb.

[Bonamona]

Imperialism and humiliation

[Sk8ordude]

While technology has informed those who seek it, technology is also responsible for the anti-intellectualism of the masses. People dont have to think anymore, they can just plug into the various forms of media and have it done for them. Then again the masses have always needed somebody else to do their thinking for them.

The lives of the masses are more comfortable in the 1st world, when the government is fucking up, people are still eating. The corruption of the system is no longer a immediate crisis for the majority of people so there is no need to riot and make it a life and death thing.

Lastly people and society operate in predictable ways, the government has teams of the best and the brightest to program the masses through the media.

[Tactical Panda]

Time and people.

[pure potential]

Fear. Lack of trust. Doubt in personal potential. The last two can be tied back into fear.

[themuzicman]

Originally Posted by jawa To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I'm speaking from a US point of view, but all countries apply. Of course everything plays in together for the end product, but some of the key things I've noticed that have left an obvious and hazardous imprint on society are the unconditional respect for/fear of authority out of a result of anti-intellectualism, which in turn leads to consumerism, the end product. Consumerism on its grander, current scale has destroyed the environment, destroyed lives, it continues to spur on the abuse of the weak (sweatshop workers, abused children, animals, etc.) and has left an overall negative impact on how we view individuality and human life. If people would educate themselves and appreciate knowledge more, society would be far less keen on obeying anyone and everyone that tells them what to do. What systems/concepts do you believe are most at fault for how society is?

I think I'd be a bit more general and say that the disconnect between the depression/WWII generation and the baby boomers with respect to values and valuing others has a significant part to play. The baby boomers received the benefits of the prosperity that their parents brought about, but this also created a very selfish attitude, such that the baby boomers are called the "me" generation, and rightly so.

This leads to all kinds of issues from consumerism to using government, taxing the rich, and escalating debt to create "feel good" programs, so baby boomers can feel like they're "doing something" without actually contributing anything themselves.

It's led to very high divorce rates, high levels of drug use, 1 million+ abortions every year, and any number of other social problems.