No, the topic I wrote is correct. It’s Not ‘have we lost our values as in what materials we deemed valuable prior to now, but rather, in this day and age how valuable are we....as humans? And maybe, to some degree, have our moral and ethical values diminished toward each other? It may be just me but it seems as though we have lost track of each other as people and are beginning to see each other as mere bodies with little or no significance other than a political or medical statistic or worse, someone who is just taking up space? Dunno. Maybe it is just as simple as the fact that I’m getting older but it just feels like the love for humanity is slowly leaving us as a society. I see more hatred than I have ever seen before. I see more greed than ever before and most certainly, I see more disingenuous concern for the general human welfare from those who we have chosen to be our leaders and medical practitioners. Again.....dunno. As I wrote before, it’s probably just me, getting old.
Hard so say. For one thing, before the internet age we didn't get a front-row seat to all the hatred in the world.
Yeah, that’s probably a large part of it. It just seems as though a large swath of people have lost any real respect for themselves and others as well. So much passion about stupid things and not enough about the things that can make us all better off as well as just better in general.
I think it's just the cycle of life. I'm sure our parents thought the world was going to hell and worried about our future, but somehow we made our way through. I'll admit that my focus in life is my family and circle of friends; I don't have any high ideals about saving society. I was raised with a work ethic and to take responsibility for myself, and I hope I was able to pass those values to my children. Other than that, I feel impatience for people in general, particularly whiners who don't want to pull their own weight and feel that they "deserve" a handout. (And I mean able-bodied, mentally sound individuals... not the handicapped.) To a large degree, the disintegration of morals and the breakdown of family has been a huge factor in all the lost souls today. This may not be the direction you meant for your thread to take, but I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I have no pre-conceived notions about saving humanity. In my opinion society needs to save itself.
To be truthful, I’m not sure which direction the thread should go. The basic thought came to me whilst reading about some collectibles that used to have some worth but now have little or no value. Strange but the article sparked a vein of thought that included our own worth yesteryear versus today and then progressed (or digressed) to the adage about a chain being only as strong as its weakest link. Then, I started asking myself if even the weakest links in society were stronger in our past than the strongest links of today? Indeed, is the chain of mankind rusting away and getting weaker?
I believe that humans are resilient; look how far we've come. Life will go on, even flourish, long after our time is expired. After all... "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
The reason we have lost or our values have changed because we are fed daily hate and fear. So we find ourselves reacting at everything. Fear of ailments,certain ethnic groups, or just people who thing different than us. We have been programed to act like that from our education on to the daily input from the media.
Did we ever have any value to begin with? Seems like the planet would be better off without humans to tell you the truth. God created an Eden, but after he created Adam and Eve, their offspring made a mess of it. We multiply worse than rabbits and are driving other living things out of existence while destroying the environment.
Actually, most of us are breeding at below our replacement level. Were it not for India, Africa and China, the world's population would be shrinking. America and Europe are only increasing because of immigration. Take that away and we would be declining in numbers.
The thing is, for all the negativity that seems to be in our faces in every form of our media, none of it aligns with what I see in my "real life." I see lots of good around me. With over 7 billion people on the planet, there always has been/will be hatred and strife somewhere. Closer to home, we are under attack. But a few hundred (or a few thousand) do not define the hundreds of millions of us.
Yeah, I do see a lot of good around me but at the same time I see a lot of apathy concerning things that would have been shocking just a few decades ago. For one, when we hear of all the shootings and deaths in places like Chicago, I for one just shrug my shoulders as though, like the weather, there’s nothing I can do about it so I channel my concerns elsewhere. I would think that people being killed in some very nefarious ways would spark some rage in the country but what I see is mass complacency as in: 300 people were shot on the streets of Chicago ..,Okay......how about those White Sox?!!
You can't do anything about it, unless you are a citizen of Chicago or in Illinois. And even then you are facing an uphill battle. Don't confuse realism with apathy. I know lots of people who are shocked and outraged at what continues to be "a way of life" for those in our inner cities. Personally, it infuriates me. Lots of innocents are literally caught in the crossfire. But this is the ugly side of self-governance...and it's about as ugly as it can possibly get. And in many ways, it's the predictable outcome of local individual behaviour. We can have empathy (and even outrage), yet still respect the rights of others to screw up their own lives, and focus our efforts and resources on things we can change.
As seniors, having seen the world for many decades, we learn not to concern ourselves with what doesn't directly affect us personally. Life is too short and getting shorter. Let the young worry about it. Anyway, that's how I'm starting to live my life.
As I have said, I went to a local broadcasting station and chastised them for ignoring the violence in nearby Chicago but reporting on a gun issue on the west coast! The man I spoke to replied that they report the news that comes in on their wire. Who is in control of the news?! Like Martin Alonzo's clip said, we are being fed news as the powers that be see fit to control us. Chicago and Illinois has been a hot bed of corruption for MANY decades and no one had done anything to fix it. But in my small city, I also see good things. The problems started growing when the drug trade began using it a stopping off point. Churches and families used to be the bedrock of values. Our churches have consolidated as membership shrinks and Two parents working makes schools parent. Getting things free from the government teaches no value. It teaches waste.