🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Dr1zyL.KK4@world.std.com> jcooley@world.std.com (John Cooley) writes:
  I would 
>love to be in the world that was described to me while younger where people
>had integrity, one's word ment something, people trusted and could
>trust one another, and there is a sense of community.  What I find is
>a world where Americans don't even know who their neighbors are, people
>will say or do anything for a buck, one's word means very little, and
>even in situations like marriage & divorce it's every man, woman and child
>for themselves.  Either I can pine away for a fantasy world or adapt to
>the current reality.  This doesn't mean I'm going to "sell out" my
>values for this harsher reality; I just have to be acutely aware and
>cautious of what might be going on versus just assuming the best.
>
>  - John
>

 There is a saying, "The world has always been going to hell". Each 
generation tends to romanticize the previous ones, assuming there was some
quasi-golden age of a world filled with people as described above. The 
truth in this is that as/if the world gets crowded with more people a 
more ruthless survival atmosphere tends to become evident. But I think a 
lot of the perception of the world going to hell is perpetrated by our 
exposure to instant news and information. Who would have heard of recent 
mass-murders in Scotland and Australia if they had occured 100 years ago?
Who can say to what extent human nature can be changed or if it has 
changed in the last 100 thousand years or so? The veneer of civilization 
is thin indeed.

-Marty   


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