are we more caring or less caring as a society nowadays compared to previous decades?

[notalone32]

In some ways I think we are more caring but in many other ways we are less caring. I think peopLe now are so busy that they just don't have time to care as much as they used to.

Social media has donea good job in promoting awareness of people in need but I also notice a tougher attitude towards others these days. I think people are much harder. Less compassionate

 

[Inkfingers]

In some ways I think we are more caring but in many other ways we are less caring.

I don't necessarily believe that people used to care more......but at the same time I recognise that much of the "caring" seen today is actually just a worship of someone who can claim a "victim" status in-line with the "carer's" political ideology; with that "caring" then usually expressed as some form of moral exhibitionism.

 

[notalone32]

I don't necessarily believe that people used to care more......but at the same time I recognise that much of the "caring" seen today is actually just a worship of someone who can claim a "victim" status in-line with the "carer's" political ideology; with that "caring" then usually expressed as some form of moral exhibitionism.

Eh? Examples please. Not sure I follow

 

[Inkfingers]

Eh? Examples please. Not sure I follow

One obvious example: Live Aid.

People refused to help those starving in Africa unless they were able to buy a record for a couple of pounds and then ignore the situation further. It's moral exhibitinism - getting all excited over "something must be done" but doing nothing about it yourself, expecting others to pick up the bill, and being uninterested unless you can buy some "experience" out of it.

Another example: Princess Diana's Funeral

It was Eva Peron all over again, and you had to show at least the demanded amount of distress of be castigated for it.

A Third Example: The New Internationalists

Middleclass young semi-professionals who will step over the starving and homeless in their own street in order to buy their fair trade T-shirts and bleating on about sweatshops.

A Fourth Example: The Big Society

Possibly the one good thing that Cameron offered, but which was scuppered by a left-dominated society that demands that the State do it all.

A Fifth Example: "Homophobia"

People bleating on about Chick-fill-a, or Putin, whilst buying oil from Saudi.

And those who make a big thing about the "freedom" to engage in same-sex "marriage" without recognising the freedom of others to refuse to recognise and affirm its supposed validity.

Is that enough examples?

 

[notalone32]

One obvious example: Live Aid.

People refused to help those starving in Africa unless they were able to buy a record for a couple of pounds and then ignore the situation further. It's moral exhibitinism - getting all excited over "something must be done" but doing nothing about it yourself, expecting others to pick up the bill, and being uninterested unless you can buy some "experience" out of it.

Another example: Princess Diana's Funeral

It was Eva Peron all over again, and you had to show at least the demanded amount of distress of be castigated for it.

A Third Example: The New Internationalists

Middleclass young semi-professionals who will step over the starving and homeless in their own street in order to buy their fair trade T-shirts and bleating on about sweatshops.










A Fourth Example: The Big Society

Possibly the one good thing that Cameron offered, but which was scuppered by a left-dominated society that demands that the State do it all.

A Fifth Example: "Homophobia"

People bleating on about Chick-fill-a, or Putin, whilst buying oil from Saudi.

And those who make a big thing about the "freedom" to engage in same-sex "marriage" without recognising the freedom of others to refuse to recognise and affirm its supposed validity.

Is that enough examples?

Thanks. All good examples. I admit I find example 1 very irksome and annoying. Also an excuse to make records with very patronising lyrics “ Do they know its Christmas?” As a vast section of the population in Africa is Christian of course they know its christmas

 

[Inkfingers]

Also an excuse to make records with very patronising lyrics “ Do they know its Christmas?” As a vast section of the population in Africa is Christian of course they know its christmas

Yes, that was almost laughably bad. A song written for the Ethiopian famine, where a large number of people are Copts.....they probably are more aware of Christmas and are closer to the Christian spirit than the writers of the song.

 

[keith99]

In some ways I think we are more caring but in many other ways we are less caring. I think peopLe now are so busy that they just don't have time to care as much as they used to.

Social media has donea good job in promoting awareness of people in need but I also notice a tougher attitude towards others these days. I think people are much harder. Less compassionate

I don't think people have changed that much, but society has. The most notable change is physical mobility. When I was a child neighborhoods were something that fit the name. People knew their neighbors and came to like many of them. Now one recognizes their neighbors and might occasionally wave to one of them.

That has an impact. People are more apt to help others the more the others are known and seen as fully rounded people. One if more apt to help a neighbor than the guy who lives down the street. They are the same thing, just seen differently and the difference is huge.

 

[parsley]

I think peopLe now are so busy that they just don't have time to care as much as they used to.

Social media has donea good job in promoting awareness of people in need but I also notice a tougher attitude towards others these days. I think people are much harder. Less compassionate

Absolutely. They brag about being connected to compassion or activism, but a low percentage incorporates it into their daily behavior.

I also find I can't trust people these days -- even people I consider friend-material, I hear them speak of fudging rules. Or they invite you to lunch, only to announce later they wanted something from you.

I know people are tired of hearing it, but games and online activity have taken a toll on how people relate and live like human organisms. Time flies online, and a lot appears to get done; but in the long run, a lot gets accomplished through in-person human synergy. And yes friendships carry on well online -- but take a look at how people treat each other on the forum! A lot of vile talk gets broadcast.

 

[notalone32]

I have no issues with celebrities talking about their struggles if it helps raise awareness but I nerver cease to be dumbfounded by the hypocrisy of people who rave about how good it is that Stephen Fry is dealing with his Bipolar illness but when an aquanintance is sectioned for having Bipolar and is unable to work long term afterwards they sneer at how this person is lazy and claiming benefits. I actually had this happen in a group of friends at college. One of my friends was engaged to a man who couldn't work due to mental illness and my friend`s other friends used to comment that he was a sponger. Yet at same time they spoke positively about Britney Spears having her issues publicised. Worship of celebrities over jnormal people makes me annoyed

 

[Euler]

Personal anecdotes aside, the world is currently safer, less violent and more 'connected' than it has ever been.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Personal anecdotes aside, the world is currently safer, less violent and more 'connected' than it has ever been.

All of the scientific evidence that I hear--not "personal anecdotes"--suggests that Western civilization is a ticking time bomb.

In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright says that when Easter Island, the Maya, the Roman Empire and others collapsed ecologically the damage was regional, but when the West collapses it could be global in scope.

 

[notalone32]

Safer? Hadn't thought of it that way

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

In some ways I think we are more caring but in many other ways we are less caring. I think peopLe now are so busy that they just don't have time to care as much as they used to.

Social media has donea good job in promoting awareness of people in need but I also notice a tougher attitude towards others these days. I think people are much harder. Less compassionate

I do not know about outside of the U.S., but I think that the trend in the U.S. has been that people have become increasingly narcissistic.

When there is awareness of others there is probably as much compassion as in the past. But people increasingly seem to be less aware of others.

 

[Euler]

All of the scientific evidence that I hear--not "personal anecdotes"--suggests that Western civilization is a ticking time bomb.

In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright says that when Easter Island, the Maya, the Roman Empire and others collapsed ecologically the damage was regional, but when the West collapses it could be global in scope.

I suggest you read more broadly. I would recommend you start with Steven Pinker's work Better Angels of our Nature. He collates all of the available research into one volume. It demonstrates that we are increasingly less violent, less likely to start wars, kill fewer people when we do, more likely to go to the aid of others, etc.

Don't believe those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

I suggest you read more broadly...

What works have I read that amount to a narrow perspective?

I would recommend you start with Steven Pinker's work Better Angels of our Nature. He collates all of the available research into one volume. It demonstrates that we are increasingly less violent, less likely to start wars, kill fewer people when we do, more likely to go to the aid of others, etc...

Sounds like evolutionary psychology.

I am more inclined to read Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity, by Raymond Tallis, which, if I understand correctly, casts a lot of doubt on the reliability of evolutionary psychology.

Don't believe those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear.

It is not "those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear" that I am leery of.

It is people who are not able to think outside of the extremely narrow perspective of recent Western thought, or who intentionally ignore any perspectives outside of that, that I am leery of.

The most riveting book that I have read is Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash. While we in the West worry about things like "those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear" the people who are the overwhelming majority of the world's population and who have only suffered from modernity are moving beyond all of that, the authors assert. A post-modern epic is unfolding at the grassroots among the most oppressed people in the world, and it was evidenced by the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, they say. Their gripping account of the latter alone made the book worth reading.

To be honest, Pinker's book just sounds like more of Westerners trying to rationalize a way of life that is not sustainable and that will inevitably implode. A book that tells me how the rest of the world--the overwhelming majority of the world's population--have moved beyond all of that and are poised to resume their own histories that have been interrupted by 500 years of colonial and neo-colonial domination by outsiders is my idea of "more broadly".

Give me a source that has no Western, Enlightenment, modernist, capitalist bias and shows that "progress" is real and then I could start to believe that things are getting better.

 

[Euler]

What works have I read that amount to a narrow perspective?









Sounds like evolutionary psychology.

I am more inclined to read Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity, by Raymond Tallis, which, if I understand correctly, casts a lot of doubt on the reliability of evolutionary psychology.









It is not "those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear" that I am leery of.

It is people who are not able to think outside of the extremely narrow perspective of recent Western thought, or who intentionally ignore any perspectives outside of that, that I am leery of.

The most riveting book that I have read is Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash. While we in the West worry about things like "those whose interests are served by keeping you in fear" the people who are the overwhelming majority of the world's population and who have only suffered from modernity are moving beyond all of that, the authors assert. A post-modern epic is unfolding at the grassroots among the most oppressed people in the world, and it was evidenced by the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, they say. Their gripping account of the latter alone made the book worth reading.

To be honest, Pinker's book just sounds like more of Westerners trying to rationalize a way of life that is not sustainable and that will inevitably implode. A book that tells me how the rest of the world--the overwhelming majority of the world's population--have moved beyond all of that and are poised to resume their own histories that have been interrupted by 500 years of colonial and neo-colonial domination by outsiders is my idea of "more broadly".

Give me a source that has no Western, Enlightenment, modernist, capitalist bias and shows that "progress" is real and then I could start to believe that things are getting better.

You gleaned all of that just from the title, right?

Because, if you'd taken the time, you'd see that the book is nothing like what you think.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

You gleaned all of that just from the title, right?

Because, if you'd taken the time, you'd see that the book is nothing like what you think.

I went to Amazon.com and read the one-star customer reviews.

 

[South Bound]

In some ways I think we are more caring but in many other ways we are less caring. I think peopLe now are so busy that they just don't have time to care as much as they used to.

Social media has donea good job in promoting awareness of people in need but I also notice a tougher attitude towards others these days. I think people are much harder. Less compassionate

I don't think people are less compassionate or less willing to help. I just think it's that people are being trained to believe that it's the government's job to take care of everyone and manage their lives.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

"Pinker’s attempt to ground the hope of peace in science is profoundly instructive, for it testifies to our enduring need for faith. We don’t need science to tell us that humans are violent animals. History and contemporary experience provide more than sufficient evidence. For liberal humanists, the role of science is, in effect, to explain away this evidence. They look to science to show that, over the long run, violence will decline—hence the panoply of statistics and graphs and the resolute avoidance of inconvenient facts. The result is no more credible than the efforts of Marxists to show the scientific necessity of socialism, or free-market economists to demonstrate the permanence of what was until quite recently hailed as the Long Boom. The Long Peace is another such delusion, and just as ephemeral." -- Delusions of peace, by John Gray.

 

[Euler]

One good quote deserves another -


October 6, 2011 at 05:10
"Steven Pinker doesn't "argue that we are becoming less violent". It's not his opinion. It's clear from the data, which John Gray does not challenge. Pinker's "argument" is about the causes of the change. John Gray has every right to dispute Pinker's theories on that. The book is important because popular media make us feel the world is becoming more dangerous. This is a sorely needed correction to conventional thinking."

The point being that I was also arguing the 'what', not the 'why'. You can disagree with Pinkers explanations for the decrease in violence, etc, but you can't disagree with the fact that it IS happening.