Old social values you could get behind

[Dirty Hipsters]

People in the past sucked. Lots of racism and bigotry, sexism, etc. You name it, societies of the past persecuted people for it (and still do in some cases). Still, it wasn't all bad, and there are some social values that we've lost due to "progress" that I wouldn't mind seeing a revival of, like for example the old Victorian adage that "children should neither be seen nor heard."

I hate other people's children. They're loud, they're annoying, and they ruin everything. Airplanes? Children make them hell. Restaurants? If there's a child in there you will not get a peaceful meal. Movies? There's always some shitty parents who decide to bring their toddler to the theater and then act surprised when the little bastard can't sit still and be quiet for 2 hours.

I really wouldn't mind if "children should neither be seen nor heard" made a comeback.

What about the rest of you? Any old social values that you miss and wish would be revived?

 

[Agayek]

That's ageist! You disgusting ageist scum! Apologize to all those children you've offended who neither know nor care that you exist!

/ridiculousness-to-match-the-current-climate

More seriously: Honestly, I'd kinda like it if the traditional "nuclear family" became more of a thing again. I don't mean the "the working dad, the housewife, 2.4 kids, and a white picket fence", Leave it to Beaver style thing, but that actually having a stable home and family environment would be returned to a high cultural prominence and be something people actively work toward.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but there just doesn't seem to be the same push for that as there was in yesteryear. I've seen a lot of people come from broken homes. I've seen a lot more people have kids when they really, obviously weren't ready for it, and neither the kid nor the parent(s) ever came out better off. I'd really, really like it if we as a culture started emphasizing and glorifying the prepared, complete family again instead of disdaining it.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Fat people being more sexually desirable. Seriously, back when food was a constant worry, if you were fat, the ladies all knew you had the scratch to live through the lean times. You were a fine catch.

Now, some jackass with washboard abs from the Jersey Shore is seen as a "catch" (though I would wonder what you would "catch" from such a twit, really)

A bit more seriously, I would like to see a resurgence of the smaller business loyalty that has been usurped by the box store/economy of scale model we work with now. It had it's limitations, sure, but it worked better to tie a community together in many respects. That and the lack of need for the insanity-inducing advertising campaigns.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Leading from the front and going down with the ship...though exactly when and how much these were things is debatable.

You're in a position of responsibility, and you don't do your job, there should be consequences. No golden parachutes, no "I didn't know about this thing I really should have", if you want credit you have to take blame.

 

[firebobm173]

60's hippie free love and drug use should totally make a comeback, if not the associated hygiene.

 

[krazykidd]

I'm black so nothing really. I got the short end of the stick there . Society hasn't been kind to us for about 2000 years, give or take.

 

[Casual Shinji]

One parent staying home to take care of the kid(s).

If you have kids I feel it's a bit too easy to just dump them in a creche. Ofcourse, for a single parent it's a good solution, but I just don't like little kids being left to strangers like that. Maybe it's me just not trusting some random person with my kid if I ever had one. I know everything is expensive and it's nice to have two paychecks coming in instead of one, but for the child's well being I think it's better to have their real parent look after them in the pre-school years of their lives.

I don't know how popular the use of a creche is other countries, but over here it seems pretty much the default and that's never felt right to me.

 

[infohippie]

One parent staying home to take care of the kid(s).

If you have kids I feel it's a bit too easy to just dump them in a creche. Ofcourse, for a single parent it's a good solution, but I just don't like little kids being left to strangers like that. Maybe it's me just not trusting some random person with my kid if I ever had one. I know everything is expensive and it's nice to have two paychecks coming in instead of one, but for the child's well being I think it's better to have their real parent look after them in the pre-school years of their lives.

I don't know how popular the use of a creche is other countries, but over here it seems pretty much the default and that's never felt right to me.

I came into this thread to say exactly that. Having both parents in the workforce has become so common (and thanks to capitalism, the cost of everything then increasing to "what the market will bear") that now it is financially almost impossible to have one stay at home parent and one breadwinner.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I feel that some parts of society have become entirely too sympathetic towards criminal behavior, to the point that certain criminal actions will be blamed on things like poverty or racism or a crappy childhood or something else that's ''out of that person's control''. The way I see it, anyone who blames outside factors for their criminal actions is only looking for excuses.

David Draiman, the lead singer of Disturbed (a band I don't particularly like, by the way) said something about this subject that perfectly encapsulate my feelings:

''The minute that you start blaming everything around you for why somebody loses their goddamn mind is the minute that everybody comes up with an excuse to be a maniac''

Source:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOCP-nQvPzg

 

[Fappy]

One parent staying home to take care of the kid(s).

If you have kids I feel it's a bit too easy to just dump them in a creche. Ofcourse, for a single parent it's a good solution, but I just don't like little kids being left to strangers like that. Maybe it's me just not trusting some random person with my kid if I ever had one. I know everything is expensive and it's nice to have two paychecks coming in instead of one, but for the child's well being I think it's better to have their real parent look after them in the pre-school years of their lives.

I don't know how popular the use of a creche is other countries, but over here it seems pretty much the default and that's never felt right to me.

I came into this thread to say exactly that. Having both parents in the workforce has become so common (and thanks to capitalism, the cost of everything then increasing to "what the market will bear") that now it is financially almost impossible to have one stay at home parent and one breadwinner.

The best you can usually hope for is that one of them works part time or stops working to raise the kid for the first 4-5 years of development. Even then it's not financially viable for most families. It's one of those values that would probably still be pushed if it were realistic.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Honour, dignity, respect, pride; and I'm not talking about the "I must keep this secret to preserve my honour", I mean people holding themselves accountable for their own actions. Taking responsibility, that kind of thing. Very few people seem to hold these values these days, some even laugh them off as medieval, mostly people who prefer "Money, Power, and Status" or "Greed is good". God how I hate those people.

Edit: People have pointed out how these values have been used more as an excuse to commit atrocities than a force for good. I have to agree, but at the core, if these values are upheld in truth, I still believe they'd make the world a better place.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Family Values, owning up to ones mistakes and successes alike, integrity, etc. Shit people today have seemed to have lost not only the definition to but the books it was written on and any semblance of where/when it happened to disappear. Work ethics are in the toilet, for the most part. People I know/have known complaining about entry level jobs paying them a minimum wage but they do little to nothing to improve their skillset or show their bosses that they're worth more than the entry-level position they just got hired at.

 

[DarthUsopp]

The part of ancient era views on ethnicity/race where you belong to whichever culture you act like and people don't give you crap for not sticking to the one you were born with.

 

[Gunner 51]

Oooh, this is an interesting thread.

I do agree children should be seen and not heard to an extent. Disciplined when they act really inappropriately, but certainly not beaten shitless like they were back in the olden days.

Another old world value I'd really like to see is a nation's leader actually going off to war with thier troops. They wouldn't be so willing to wage war every two seconds when confronted with the grim realities of it.

 

[Entitled]

Purity culture.

Well, I would prefer a more gender-neutral version of it, where women don't get singled out with slut-shaming like they always were and are. But in principle, I would prefer it if everyone would be encouraged to keep their pants on.

 

[C. Cain]

Honour, dignity, respect, pride; and I'm not talking about the "I must keep this secret to preserve my honour", I mean people holding themselves accountable for their own actions. Taking responsibility, that kind of thing. Very few people seem to hold these values these days, some even laugh them off as medieval, mostly people who prefer "Money, Power, and Status" or "Greed is good". God how I hate those people.

Yes, I can see why you?d like this to be more widespread. This being a thread about old values it raises a few questions, however: when did this actually happen? And in which cultures? I struggle to come up with a time period in which the majority of people in any given population not only held these values, but acted accordingly. The money, power, and status thing, on the other hand, appears to be a very common pattern among societies across the globe and through the ages.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

"the second summer of love" was in the 90s...if you were old enough...well 88-89 so it was on the cusp of what that decade became.

i don't agree with the "the 90s were shit" meme...for me...i don't regognise it and think its maybe a thing for younger people who were not actually engaged with "youth culture" at the time...

for a great many "young adults" "the 90s" (what with the fall of the cold war and the run up to the millennium) was, and is very much fondly remembered as remembered as, a "party time".

music...and for that matter "outdoor music festivals"....just like in the 60s...was a huge part of that.

now, were once "the establishment" fought against "raves" and "rave music"..."EDM" is used on the mainstream medias football highlights...

I second this, the 90's were fuckin ace , not gonna get nuked by the russkies anymore, we have MDMA and the Tories even fucked off eventually. PAAAAAAARTAAAAAY!!!!

As I usually say, as a general rule you'll find the decade you were a kid in shit and then one you get into the teenager/young adult phase it's suddenly the bestest most awesome decade ever.

OT: I dunno, er...the late 1800's to early 1900's permissiveness of drug use, with some small regulatory changes.

 

[chocolate pickles]

People in the past sucked. Lots of racism and bigotry, sexism, etc. You name it, societies of the past persecuted people for it (and still do in some cases). Still, it wasn't all bad, and there are some social values that we've lost due to "progress" that I wouldn't mind seeing a revival of, like for example the old Victorian adage that "children should neither be seen nor heard."

I hate other people's children. They're loud, they're annoying, and they ruin everything. Airplanes? Children make them hell. Restaurants? If there's a child in there you will not get a peaceful meal. Movies? There's always some shitty parents who decide to bring their toddler to the theater and then act surprised when the little bastard can't sit still and be quiet for 2 hours.

I really wouldn't mind if "children should neither be seen nor heard" made a comeback.

What about the rest of you? Any old social values that you miss and wish would be revived?

In that case, I'll go for "any adults (barring myself) should neither be seen nor heard". Think about it: Lot's of them are assholes. The ones who speak unnecessarily loud on the phone; the ones who don't know how to queue like a normal human being; The ones who drive like their pissed. Seriously, those guys are such douches!

On a more serious note, I do question how much of a kid's behavior is down to parenting. Don't get me wrong, I think if a kid's being a shit, they are to blame. But seeing some of the people who qualify as parents these day, it's no wonder they're like this.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Honour, dignity, respect, pride; and I'm not talking about the "I must keep this secret to preserve my honour", I mean people holding themselves accountable for their own actions. Taking responsibility, that kind of thing. Very few people seem to hold these values these days, some even laugh them off as medieval, mostly people who prefer "Money, Power, and Status" or "Greed is good". God how I hate those people.

Yes, I can see why you?d like this to be more widespread. This being a thread about old values it raises a few questions, however: when did this actually happen? And in which cultures? I struggle to come up with a time period in which the majority of people in any given population not only held these values, but acted accordingly. The money, power, and status thing, on the other hand, appears to be a very common pattern among societies across the globe and through the ages.

If i had to guess, I'd say it would have originated at some time during medieval Europe, primarily among knights and nobility.