"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 19:37:40 +0000, Eisboch wrote:


That's the "Ka-Thunk" that went off somewhere in my (mostly empty) head
as
I listened to this. It's a social change taking place where the concept
of earning something by working hard is being replaced with "It's owed to
me". It's a change whereby if you feel you've been wronged by a
merchant -
you sue him, rather that accepting the fact that you learned a lesson and
won't do business with him again. It's a change where paying your dues is
not necessary, you are "entitled" simply because you exist. Its a change
whereby "I" has become paramount rather than "we". That's what I meant
by loosing traditional values. It may be inevitable as a evolutionary
step of our society, but I think it will be the primary reason of our
downfall as a nation if not corrected, rather than the actions of
politics
and politicians.

I've been thinking on this. I realize there is no one root cause, but
something occurred to me, and I just want to throw it out for any
responses. We are talking about a fundamental societal change that seems
to be concurrent with our becoming a mobile country, and it's resultant
loss in "community". Think small town. Merchants couldn't wrong you if
they wished to stay in business. The whole village, in effect, raised the
children. Hell, even big cities had their neighborhoods, a virtual small
town in a big city. Now, I've read, the average person lives less than 5
years in one house. Neighbors often change so frequently you never get to
learn their names. There is an anonymity that allows us to think I,
rather than we. I don't know, maybe interstates weren't such a good idea.
;-)

The root cause of this is the breakdown of the nuclear family brought on by
no-fault divorce and the welfare state. The plethora of lawyers and their
greed to make alot of bucks has also contributed to the problem.