Old social values you could get behind

[loc978]

Honestly, all of the good old social values I can think of are no longer viable due to increased population density. Maybe if we had widespread consciousness of our overpopulation problem we could see a slight decrease to our population over the course of a few generations, bringing back the viability of charity and an increased standard of living for most people.

So I guess the "one or two kids per family, no more" movement of the 70s... not that it took off in most religious circles.

 

[Quadocky]

I think the irony in my mind when posting in this thread is that we already had a resurgence of 'old social values' back in the Regan era and onward. Not to mention, such values are still being touted outwardly by all sorts of fanatics in a reactionary way. The Internet MRAs and racists come to mind.

I can't really say much on this because there are still people out there who wanna tilt the social clock all the way back to ages when racism and bigotry were considered GOOD things. But no, I still have the misfortune of existing in 2014 when people still think these ideas are good ones.

The worst part in my mind is that a lot of great socially progressive ideas have been around for decades.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

Well, considering poverty, lack of education, and lack of a proper family structure are all things which are known to increase the likelihood of criminal behavior, I think it makes perfect sense to be sympathetic to people in those situations and people who are forced to lead those lives. Yes, I say FORCED. People who are born poor are much more likely to not finish high school and remain poor themselves.

You are doing a disservice to the many people who in spite of all sorts of hardships in their lives choose NOT to commit crimes. Yes, I say CHOOSE.

I suspect that you'll accuse me of being disrespectful or lacking in empathy. But I beg to differ. To me, things like mugging old ladies (or anyone really, but doing it to a senior citizen is especially cowardly) or vandalizing someone else's car because you're feeling bad about your lot in life are the epitome of disrespectful and lacking in empathy.

Every single day, people are (or feel) hurt, betrayed or somehow wronged; but not every one of them copes with it by hurting, betraying or wronging someone else in return.

 

[Nimcha]

Of course this thread desolves into what values people want to see in stead of values that ever actually existed in society in the first place.

 

[Lieju]

I'm really concerned of this so-called 'small-talk culture' pushing its way to the Finnish society.

I just want to sit in a bus looking grumpy without anyone talking to me, thank you very much.
Also it seems to me American attitudes towards nudity are spreading to Finnish society, where kids won't go to sauna together with their parents anymore, but try to be sexualized.

Like a parent I know put it: Trying to show as much skin as possible while fearing nudity as something unnatural.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

I can't think of any that wouldn't negatively impact me or someone I know and care about.

Also it's weird that I seem to be the only person on this board that likes kids.

For what it's worth, I like kids. I'm not sure I want to have any, though.

I too enjoy the young people. Honestly, I have an easier time talking with them than most people my age.


Ot: This was an interesting question, and it made me realize there isn't a single thing I want from the past. Call me an optimist, but everything has been getting better. Everything still sucks mind you... but it's getting better.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Witchcraft.

I mean, back in the middle ages, there were all those witches and monsters and old gods and druids and shit. then christianity came along and suddenly hexing your neighbor so that their daughter would vomit toads whenever she coughed became "inappropriate" and "evil" and the next thing you knew, you were run out of town, had to take refuge in a cave with your undead followers and fend off pesky adventurers.

Er...Europe was heavily Christian long before the Middle Ages.

(but seriously, I wish the world had some of that wonder and mystery left, we used to think there were dragons and magic, and "going out to find new places" was actually a proper job, now we know pretty much everything, there isn't any mystery left, it's all about trying to find tiny molecules to say "see, I was right", rather than "HOLY SHIT A NEW CONTINENT")

Yeah, I'm reading this on a machine powered by and made from plants contemporaneous with early dinosaurs, which allows me to gather information from places all across the globe. I can look at detailed pictures of the surfaces of every planet in the solar system, including those I can't even see with my own eyes. I can find things out about animals that went extinct in times that are several orders of magnitude older than the beginning of my own species. I'm not seeing a lack of wonder, I'm seeing people being jaded.

Back when dragons roamed the Earth, you'd likely not have been that interested in them anyway.

You are doing a disservice to the many people who in spite of all sorts of hardships in their lives choose NOT to commit crimes. Yes, I say CHOOSE.

I suspect that you'll accuse me of being disrespectful or lacking in empathy. But I beg to differ. To me, things like mugging old ladies (or anyone really, but doing it to a senior citizen is especially cowardly) or vandalizing someone else's car because you're feeling bad about your lot in life are the epitome of disrespectful and lacking in empathy.

Every single day, people are (or feel) hurt, betrayed or somehow wronged; but not every one of them copes with it by hurting, betraying or wronging someone else in return.

There is that yes, but then we know that poverty causes increased crime rates.

Alternatively, there are many people better off that aren't morally better, they just haven't had to make that choice yet, if you prefer.

 

[Something Amyss]

I too enjoy the young people. Honestly, I have an easier time talking with them than most people my age.

I've actually said this to someone recently, but I'm of the believe people are mostly good. A lot of the horrible actions we commit are the result of learned behaviour. Kids can be jerks, but they seem to be less jerks until we indoctrinate them. Which is sort of refreshing.

 

[Majinash]

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.

Yeah, but people think this meant that being 'obese' was attractive. It wasn't. It was the chubby, even fat people. Not the scooter riding level of fat.

Even in the Ancient Times, you should look at their idea of beauty. Curvy, chubby, but not stretch marks McHamPlanet.

To expand on this even more... that mindset is still present today, just replace "fat" with "nice car". People having plenty to eat when food was scarce was a sign of wealth. These days guys drive half million dollar cars to show they have wealth. "the ladies" still find "a fine catch" and nothing has really changed.

Was there any evidence that back hundreds years ago women found larger men "sexually desirable" rather than just "desirable"?

OT: Bushido.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

The West is aging because people care too much about individual freedoms and forgot the collective duty to renew society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation#References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

All societies need newborns to continue existing.

 

[Godhead]

More affordable college tuition. And I have no idea whether this was more prominent in the past, but we need more amateur stock-car racing.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

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.

Yeah, I can definitely agree with this. Honestly, I don't consider the actual act of carnality evil (because that would preclude people from having children and thus, you know, doom humanity), but I can't help but feel as though society at large has developed a serious obsession with it. Why is it that having sex is seen as some great essential thing that you absolutely need, and without which you are a complete loser? Why is so much advertising based purely around selling products based around sex appeal, rather than quality?

I remember an article by Yahtzee where he compared it to society being obsessed with spam, and everywhere he goes people are constantly talking about spam, or trying to get more spam, or buy products that will help them make spam, but when they find out that someone just doesn't like spam very much, they think something is wrong with them.

At any rate, I think focusing on it too much is just unhealthy, and encourages selfish desires too much. Self-control should be encouraged, not decried as prudishness.

I also saw a few people mention marriage as an important institution, and that I can wholeheartedly agree with. It's just plain bad for development and society to have most people come from broken homes, because their parents couldn't bother to think of their families ahead of themselves or not rush into a relationship they obvious weren't ready to commit to.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

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

The crusades, the sackings, burnings and rapings of entire cities were carried out by knights. Game of thrones explores this very well. Honor didnt really exist among knights except some thin veneer with which to look down on the common folk, and when it did it was because a stricken knight on the battle field can demand clemency and ransom and not have his throat slit like any other backwater peasant.

The closest to the honor system i can imagine is feudal japan but honor was, in places from what ive read, so rigid and strict that it seemed to do a lot of harm as well as good. It also could be twisted to inflict awful things upon those who were "beneath honor". I understand the principle and i totally agree with those values, holding them myself to be ideal, but i dont think there ever was a golden age. If anything its more important we get them right like no one else before us ever has.

I think i want the closeness of communities to be a thing again. I know as a community member its my fault as much as anyones that theres no closeness there. But i like the old world war 2 propaganda where we were all in it together, every English person is your bother and you are willing to fight and die for any man woman and child among them. I like the sense of selflessness. That we all are willing to sacrifice for one another. I hate selfishness. I hate elitism. I hate that today so much of ego is based on who you can feel superior than for any frankly mindbogglingly stupid reason. Media, music, art, literature, friends, clothes, language, the rampant elitism and shrivelled egos desperate to say "Im better/smarter/special because i like X and you dont" makes me so angry and so disappointed. Its pathetic. I want that attitude to go. Society seems so cutthroat, not just in careers but in every day life. Who you are is now defined by who you are BETTER than. Its just a host of superiority complexes gone mad.

Lets use an example. Load of girls screaming over a boyband today? Fucking stupid teenage girls, worthless sluts whatever, obviously brainless. Bunch of girls screaming over the beetles, just SCREAMING, showing the exact same behaviour? Apparently not the same. Hint: It is and not a single one of them is a bad person inherently for liking what they like. Was anyone ever anti beatles as hard as anyone is anti boyband today? Was there ever so much latent DISDAIN for other people just floating about?

 

[MXRom]

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.

This. While growing up I was the oddity in the neighborhood since both my parents were still married. Everyone was either living with their grandparents, living with a single parent, living with a single parent and their new boy/girlfriend, or that family had no kids. Kinda sad when I think about it. Some of those kids were real good friends and they went on to have really crappy lives...

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

Actually it popped up in a lot of places. You had it in China, heck Confucianism was half about who was supposed to be honored or respected in order to create a harmonious society. You even have a separate name given to you at adulthood to be used only by those you were friends with. In Feudal Japan there was what was posted above. And during that whole age of Imperialism when the world powers of the time established colonies all over the world. There was a strict code of honor people followed then as well. It's what gave rise to things like pistol duels at 20 paces, and militarism. The concept of 'honor' appears all over history, and as noble as the ideals were, it tended to lead to a lot of unnecessary bloodshed.

 

[O maestre]

An ideology of some kind, not old ideology just something constructive but passionate to give all the societies of the world something to believe in and give purpose. Instead of ideologies being exclusive to angry young men.

EDIT: though of something else, I wish the time spirit(zeitgeist) of the the Islamic golden age could make a comeback. Or the renaissance.

 

[giles]

All societies need newborns to continue existing.

Welp, now that you say it... seems kinda obvious! So obvious in fact, one might have assumed I was aware of it beforehand.

Anyway, I'll be off to create babies now, because that's clearly how our society will sustain itself.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

There is that yes, but then we know that poverty causes increased crime rates.

Not necessarily, there's a lot of evidence that the 'poverty=crime' link is overblown, or maybe even totally false.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703580904574638024055735590?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748703580904574638024055735590.html

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/80316/relationship-poverty-crime-rates-economic-conditions

http://www.citylab.com/crime/2013/08/hard-data-proves-housing-vouchers-dont-cause-crime/6404/

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

All societies need newborns to continue existing.

Welp, now that you say it... seems kinda obvious! So obvious in fact, one might have assumed I was aware of it beforehand.

Anyway, I'll be off to create babies now, because that's clearly how our society will sustain itself.

Precisely. A society can procreate without over or underpopulating itself, which was my point. Obviously both excesses are to avoid, but that doesn't change the fact that it will always be fundamentally needed.

 

[Muspelheim]

Personal responsibility. Socialist apologism and massive dole handouts, free houses and cash for every kid you pop out has created an underclass in the uk which lives of the state. The left bribes them, they vote in the left, the left invents more handouts, they vote in the left. The poor tax payer gets hammered for more and more tax. There should be welfare provision in every civilised country but un the uk it's utterly out of control.

I'm fairly red by UK/US standards, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I do see what you mean. There is a core of truth to that term that deserves better.

Of course, personal responsibilty has been rather abused by the sort of person who will never realistically need any help through life's occasional bitchslaps and thus can't see why anyone else would. Neither they nor the labour dynasty is doing the concept any favours.

 

[cdemares]

I think things are better than we imagine they are in general. I've got one. Pride being a sin, or at least frowned upon. Vanity and hubris are basically celebrated now. We act like it's healthy and a quality of leadership, because it's attractive. It's not. It's why leaders screw things up and keep getting in deeper trouble.

Also, admitting fault. There's this pervasive myth that admitting fault for something is an opening for liability. But judges also favor people that are apologetic and honest. People are horrible at hiding a crime or their fault for something. The truth always comes out.