A couple months ago, my wife & I were having one of our increasingly rare religious discusions - we've learned is usually best to let sleeping dogs lie.

In this discussion my wife mentioned the TSCC idea that the world is getting more and more wicked.

I told her I disagreed.

She was surprised and asked why.

I gave her a few examples of why the world is becomming a better, less evil place in my opinion. For example: In this country 200 years ago blacks were slaves. 100 years ago they were free but in many ways treated worse than slaves. 40 years ago segregation still existed. Today we still have a long way to go but we've come so far that a black president is possible.

It was an eye opener for her, I think.

Do you have any thoughts on whether the world is getting to be a better place or worse? Examples?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 09:42AM by ronas.

When a famine occurs in the world, the world responds, perhaps too late, too little, BUT WE TRY.

We have international organizations that are trying to vaccinate people in third world countries for infectious and preventable diseases.

We have a place to go and talk about our disagreements before we start wars, and in many cases we avoid conflict.

In America we are trying to provide health care for everyone.

Kids in school are taught not to bully (believe me it was worse when I was young!).

We try to address discrimination.

Stuff is getting better all the time (a quote from a movie!)...

The world is going in both directions....

We are getting better in many good ways but there are also more creative ways to murder, steal, fraud, and lie/misrepresent. There will always be both sides of the evil/good argument.

I'm not convinced that this is a developing problem. Yes, there have always been cheaters, murderers and liars. However, there are also a lot more pervasive forms of communication. Just because we read about more of these things in the news doesn't mean that their prequency is increasing. On the contrary, I think that greater exposure and raising of awareness are actually decreasing them as an overall percentage.

My TBM dad once asked me if I thought things were deteriorating rapidly in the world, or if maybe we just have better access to information. I was pleased that he could even consider the possibility that we just have better access to information, so I laid that case out for him. I cited all kinds of now-defunct civilizations (the Romans come to mind) that rose and fell and finally just sort of evolved into something else as other people came to power. There was all manner of sin, corruption, scandal -- and light and love and good things too -- since the dawn of mankind. We just hear about children starving in Africa these days. 50 years ago, you might catch wind of news like that if you were a dedicated newspaper reader, maybe. (Depends on which paper you read.) These days, you can't walk through an airport, restaurant, or some other public space without catching a glimpse of Headline News. There's a TV monitor in the lobby at the Florida Department of Education. They usually have it tuned to Fox News whenever I go in there for a meeting. You can't ESCAPE the news. Dad finally conceded that I was probably right and if the world was going to hell in a handbasket, we actually probably arrived a looooong time ago.

That was always one of those things that stuck out for me when I was TBM. Wait--it is getting worse? The 1970s were much better than the 1960s--and the 1980s. My 1990s weren't that great, but I think most people were doing well in the 1990s.

How about WWII or WWI? The depression?

Just because things like sex abuse, etc., are talked about more now, did we think they weren't happening before now?

...the world is changing. Some people resist change. They had things the way they liked it and now it's just... different, less familiar. And, to them, that equals bad.

I think a lot of how people view evilness has to do with the media. Whereas when I was young, we basically only heard about crime in and around Detroit, with a smattering of world crises, we now almost instantly know if there was a drive-by in, say, Timbuktu. Combine speedy telecommunications with the media's penchant to sensationalize and exploit evil, then, naturally, we are all more inundated with it than in the past.

So, we hear more and more about evil in the world because the media can find it almost instantaneously and report it likewise.

Just my $.02

Ron

I've also had this converstation. In the western US, things were much worse 100 or so years ago. The Native American genocide comes to mind. Not to mention the vices that came with the booms and busts or mining, timber, oil and gas, etc. which had completely unregulated prostitution and vice of all sorts. Nobody reported domestic violence or incest. Bar brawls might have gotten you a night in jail and a fine, but it was hardly a tracked statistic. It was just a way of life.

Oh, and don't forget that you could buy opium everywhere in patent medicines. Coca Cola had cocaine in it. And you could order morphine and cocaine, as well as your hypodermic needles from your Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs. Delivered right to your house in a plain wrapper. I don't remember what the estimates concerning addiction in America were for the Post-civil war to WWI era is, but it was staggeringly high. Ever wonder why the families in some of those old pictures look so gaunt? Many were junkies.

Oh yeah, and mom and grandma would go to the doctor to be treated for "hysteria". Such treatment consisted of the good doctor manipulating them to orgasm. Doctors complained so much about how much work this was to do all day long (can you say carpal tunnel?), that they invented the for runners to todays vibrators. These could also be ordered from sears and monkey wards.


The fact of the matter is, the "good old days", that our politicians and religious leaders romanticize never existed.

Your post just sparked another thought.

The treatment of the mentally ill.

It used to be that they would just put them away in an asylum for life...

Well, not really. My mother was manic-depressive and they did everything short of a frontal lobotomy. Shock, ice bath, lithium.....

Just sayin'...

Ron

100 years ago, a woman had no rights. She could be raped within her own marriage. She could not own property. She could not vote. She could not be married and have children and still work. If a woman became a teacher, that was fine until she got married. Married women were not allowed to be teachers.

50 years ago, a woman could vote and hold down a job. She could still be raped in her marriage and she could inherit property, but only from a man. I had a 5th grade teacher (this was only 30 years ago) who was a single woman trying to buy a house. She got a call during the school day and came back to the classroom in tears: her financing had been denied despite awesome credit, because she was a single woman. She couldn't buy property without a man.

9 years ago, I bought a house on my own, without a man. I can vote and I can choose to work or I can choose to stay at home and make babies. Or I can choose to do both. I am protected from rape within marriage and have recourse in the event of rape outside of marriage. I am not limited in my choices as my grandmother was.

Also, attitudes toward child abuse are wildly different from even just 30 years ago. I posted this on another message board:

When I was a kid, I saw Bad News Bears -- the one with Walter Matthau and that hottie Jackie Earle Haley (and Tatum O'Neal IIRC). Of course, a few years ago there was a Billy Bob Thornton version. (Tangent: How cool would the remake have been if Jackie Earl Haley had played the part of Mr. Buttermaker?) Anyway, naturally, I thought I should watch the remake for comparison. I had to go back and watch the Matthau version again shortly after that.

For the most part, the movies were the same. Same exact plot, only the 2005 version was softened up quite a bit. For example, there was far less bullying of the fat kid and girls being on the team was so not a big deal. In the 1976 version, everyone including the adults, were horribly cruel to the fat kid and there was this big *gasp* reveal when it turned out that Tatum O'Neal's character was *gasp* a girl. Who could play ball. *gasp*

The part that made me gasp was near the end. Mr. Buttermaker, in both movies, had been in his grumpy way coaching without giving much of a @#$%& and had sort of mentally turned the corner where he started actually caring if the kids won the game. One of the dorky kids made some error and, in the 2005 version, Buttermaker just yelled at him and the parents on the sidelines were quick to rush in and set his ass back a step. In the 1976 version, Buttermaker actually hit the kid, knocked him on his ass and the parents on the sidelines just stood there. They made it clear the 1976 Buttermaker had crossed the line by hitting the kid, but nobody said or did anything. There was another *gasp* silence, dirty looks were shot at Mr. Buttermaker and cut to the next scene. In the 1976 version, Buttermaker talks with the team later and sort of comes close to hinting at an apology for his behavior, but he doesn't, really. In the 2005 version, Buttermaker makes a point of giving a nice, flowery apology and they all kiss and make up and go play their big championship game.

To me, the contrast between the two different versions of the same movie illustrate what you're talking about. Because, while I was watching the 1976 version, I related to being a kid that age in that era (because I was a kid that age in that era). And I really enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane and just as I was getting all nostalgic for the "good old days," I was sharply reminded how, in the 1970s, hitting kids was not the big deal it is today. In 2012, Buttermaker would have gone to jail and the parents of all the kids would have personally sued him for emotional distress and og knows what else, while they hustled their precious snowflakes into therapy for the PTSD (and everyone on the losing team gets consolation trophies). In 1976, Buttermaker got a couple dirty looks, everyone shrugged and moved on. Even though I am not a fan the nanny state helicopter-parent world we live in now, having grown up in an era where nobody batted an eye at child abuse, I have to call this progress. It is better for kids now than it was for kids in the 70s. At least when it comes to taking a beat down at Little League.

Nice commentary, 'zilla!

Tell your wife that the age of information and transparency is making it hard for all institutions with something to hide to keep them hidden. Raise your eyebrows and repeat "All. Institutions. With something to hide."

dogzilla, you are both wise and articulate. I'm glad you uncussed me out.

;>)

Kisses, darling.

In 1982 I worked at Nordstrom. I couldn't have a credit card there because I was a woman. I could only get one if my father or husband co signed. It was the same when I bought my car. They did everything they could to prevent women from being able to get credit.

Ask her what percentage of the world's population die in wars today compared with any other period in the history of civilization. Also ask her if she prefers todays forms of government over any other in history. In the US we're pretty used to our freedoms, but other places, particularly in northern Africa right now, are just sorting their freedoms out.

If she's a TBM, her views on the wickedness of the world probably revolve around expression of sex. If so, ask her if she thinks people are any hornier now than they have been in the past, and if so, why? The more logical explanation for increased expression of sex is that people are starting to no longer feel repressed or subjugated in expressing it.

The list is so long in other matters as well, particularly with scientific progress, medical/health advancement, environmental awareness, and even recent enormous advances in fields such as child development and anxiety disorders. If the world is getting more wicked, it sure is producing some great fruits of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 11:25AM by kimball.

You hit one of my thoughts squarley on the head.

To many TBMs I think their definition of wickedness is narrowly confied to the loosening of sexual mores. (Which in my view, in many ways is an improvement.)

rather than in some other era, when it would have been standard to be subjugated, abused and controlled.

The human race is much more civilized than it ever has been.

Of COURSE there are still problems. But people are becoming more and more aware of them, and trying to relieve suffering and injustice around the world.

The internet puts the world of information and the arts at almost anyone's fingertips. And as I see it, communication and information are the enemies of tyranny and oppression.

It is a rejection of modernity and a conviction that things were somehow better in a non-existent glorious past.

Here in the states virtually no one looks back more than 5 years, let alone past their own generation, and the result is a very skewed vision of history. All this lamenting over things becoming "more wicked" is total nonsense. It's just the effect of people identifying too much with the particular time in the 50s and 60s when the United States was experiencing prosperity unknown up to that time. That prosperity came about only by means of the planets lining up in a certain way, not by acts of God, not by obedience to God's commandments or obedience to LDS authorities. Yet too many people think that that prosperity was meant to endure forever based on what Americans did at that point in time.

Anyone my age can remember when we felt that nuclear power was a great, virtuous, and harmless thing. We were all supposed to be living off of nuclear power, even having our own nuclear power in our basement. We were going to have a colony on the moon, and trips into space would be common for you and your next door neighbor. And hover cars and rocket packs. But reality sets in and we realize that even the Space Shuttle is too expensive to operate, let alone having people on the moon. Nuclear power is not so benign as we hoped, and we find ourselves still using the same old crap we always used. The worst part is that the economy faded, and the United States are becoming increasingly irrelevant as other nations find their games.

People who are old as some of us are remember when we had to sit back and watch loved ones die of diseases that are now curable. We see that women and African-Americans can compete better in the work place, especially in the government and in the military. A lot of injustices are gone, and others are being broken down. When seen in the large context of a living society, anyone can see that it is a better place to live now. It does, however, mean that the Leave It To Beaver lifestyle is gone forever. Screw "Leave It To Beaver." All hail "Modern Family." Unfortunately, the self-enslavement of conservative religious "values" makes it impossible to accept that people portrayed in Modern Family have it better than Jerry Mathers et al.

What people don't seem to realize is that eventually even the United States will fracture and come apart. The question is not whether it will happen, but when and how, and whether or not it will involve violence and civil war. There is no model in history of a society that does not eventually fracture. When it happens, religious people everywhere will be unhinged and blaming it on the lack of morals and not following the commandments of God. But the cause will be the same as with all other collapses--it will all be about economics. We can't and won't be able to control the other countries and societies upon which our nation is delicately balanced, like Saudi Arabia, for instance, or any of the main producers of our foreign-derived oil. That's just how it is and how it always has been. No use blaming non-believers for it. But more than anything, as the US begin to slip into economic and political chaos, the religious nut-jobs will come out of the woodwork and there will be great wailing and such.