Posted by ayuda on May 8, 2003, at 13:56:56
In reply to Disturbing news., posted by Questionmark on May 8, 2003, at 2:38:49
As a professional historian, I know people today do not understand this or believe it, but we are actually more progressive and less violent than people were in the past, and yes, that includes whatever people are calling the gold old glory days in which these things never happened, a time period that doesn't exist (every generation since the ancient Sumerians in 3000 B.C.E. has written about how the younger generation has no morals and doesn't respect the ways of the past, that things are getting worse, etc. -- it's humbling to see it in the first written records of mankind from 5000 years ago, and still be true).
These instances are not only not as common as similar acts in the past, they also come with much more moral stigma attached. Just that you know about it - the media attention to these kinds of things is something that is really as recent as the Vietnam War - and that you are outraged, you have a leg up on people from biblical times or people from medieval times or even people from 100 years ago. Being able to broadcast these things in the media takes them out in the open, where these things were not, even in the 1950s, and certainly before, when our society acted like these things just didn't happen (but they did, it just wasn't popular knowledge).
As Dinah mentioned, and this is not to be overlooked, less than 50 years ago, gangs of white people would take black men out of their homes in the middle of the night, beat them until they were urecognizable, then hang or dispose of their bodies in public ceremony. Men, women and children participated in these atrocities of lynching, and nothing was ever done to bring justice to the sufferers, victimizing whole communities.
Just 40 years ago, and maybe even more recently, it was NOT a crime for a white man to rape a black woman, or a crowd of white men to rape a defenseless black woman. If she survived the brutal attack, she couldn't take them to court - it wasn't a crime.
A hundred years ago, it was okay to beat the crap out of your wife and children, it wasn't a crime. It was okay to deny a job to a person based upon their race or ethnicity, it wasn't a crime. And women could commit murder and get away with it, because it was assumed that they weren't in control of themselves in the first place.
Every time someone says to me, the world is getting worse, I tell them, do the research I do, read the things I read, read the newspapers from the 1930s, read the magazines of the 1950s, read the un-cut reports of wars and family relations and "terrorism" that happened on a daily basis and a large scale. Knowing what I know, I am saddened that people still stoop to acting like animals, but I am not surprised.
Just feel lucky that you personally can tell the difference between right and wrong. But these things don't happen every day. And when they do, there is outrage, and there is justice - sometimes, not always.
I think that the problem we all have is not so much that society is backsliding, but that you would think that as technology and education and science, etc., increase, people would act like better human beings than they ever have, and the problem is, they don't. Many still act like the vicious dogs that people were when the Germanic tribes invaded the Roman empire, or when czarist Russia forced the Jews into pogroms, or when the crusades were fought in the name of religion, destroying thousands of people over property rights to the Holy Land, a fight that has yet to cease. People are kinder to each other, even in war, these days than in biblical times, in the Roman Empire, in ancient Greece. That's not saying much, I will admit, but it is true. Sad, but true.
Getting back to the Chicago thing, though, that such a large group participated in it doesn't surprise me, but the viciousness makes me wonder, what in the heck do you spoiled middle class children have to be so angry about? That you are too privileged in life? That you've had it too easy? Well, congratulations, you just made life harder on yourself and others.
poster:ayuda
thread:225045
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030506/msgs/225150.html