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Originally Posted by JayJamJah
Very profound point for such a young person. What do you base this on?
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Again, from an American perspective, there are all these flag-waving people who chant inane slogans (mantras?) and keep talking about we have to "restore America to its former glory" and all that jazz. The problem is that they can never target a specific time, because it doesn't exist. Circa 1776? Sorry, women and blacks (and other groups) were basically non-citizens. Post Civil War? Nope, blacks are still (at best) third class citizens and women still don't have the right to vote (and Native Americans are still looked at as savages). 1964? Well, Vietnam's right around the corner, there are still minorities and groups that are directly or indirectly prosecuted (***s, you had to be 21 to vote, women still hadn't wholly embraced the whole "feminist" movement), and besides, most "patriots" seem to hate the 60's because (gasp!) people smoked pot and had sex.
I guess, in a nutshell, there's no one time that's really worth returning to. Sure, some things may have been better fifty years ago (families tended to be somewhat closer, crime wasn't as widespread, or at least not as publicized), but is that worth turning back decades of social reform and civil rights legislation? It may have been safer to walk the streets in the 1940's, but you know, back then you could kill an African-American in some states and not worry about serving time...
...and I'm certainly not one of those people who thinks that everything is rosy and fine as it is. There are plenty of problems with society (corporations, a government obsessed with Iraq, and even though domestic workers are protected, our companies exploit overseas workers, including children, to produce lower prices), but I don't think turning back the clock (whatever that means; how would that be done exactly?) is any solution.
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Originally Posted by The Unfan
The internet has created the most socially open collective in probably the history of the world. That alone is one of the biggest steps of social progression in history. All the conventional social structures have been tossed out the window and all is well. The internet has a certain aloofness and whimsy to it that I'm not even quite sure I fully understand but it is telling of something I've probably yet to fully understand.
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I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the Internet. I love the easily accessibility of information and the fact that many elitist barriers have been removed (does anyone really believe that traditional manners are natural? Hell no; they're a way of putting people in their place), but the Internet tends to dehumanize people and reduces conversation to a few hackneyed abbreviations. As a tool for sharing knowledge and insights it's invaluable, but as a means to social interaction...it's somewhat lacking.