prest0: Not All Change is Good

Preston P. DuBose (

prest0) wrote,
@ 2008-06-03 05:33:00

Entry tags:

miscellaneous

Not All Change is Good

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Here’s a little popular inbox humor. Author unknown. Remeber that it’s only funny because it’s all too true. Anyone else feel like we’re on the cultural downslope of the Roman Empire?
***********************
Subject: Changing times

High School
1957 vs. 2007

Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: A foreign student fails high school English.
1957 - He goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - His cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. He is given a diploma anyway.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

Popularity: unranked [?]

(23 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	jediwiker 2008-06-03 02:05 pm UTC (link)
	Heh. Well presented! JD (Replies frozen)

blondemuse
2008-06-03 02:28 pm UTC (link)

I don't know about "cultural downslope of the Roman Empire," but it does pay to notice these things! But I do feel better as a parent for adopting more of a 50s-style approach than today's "It's not my fault" ideas. But I have to wonder sometimes if the 50s were all that great. I mean, they had only begun to use Air Conditioning residentially. Can you imagine our Southern summers without the blessed blast of cool relief? And everyone smoked like a chimney.

(Replies frozen)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-03 04:23 pm UTC (link)
	Without a doubt, technologically we're a million times better off. Culturally...it's been downhill since rock 'n roll! (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

ronin_kakuhito
2008-06-03 09:45 pm UTC (link)

Hum... I don't know. I'd have to say that culturally, it has been a series of trade offs since rock'n roll. I mean I know that the 1950s were a pastoral wonderland in American Culture (unless you were non-white, non-male, lower middle class or less, non-straight, non-cognitively or physical normal, non-assigned gender rolled, of a sub-independent age, non-mainstream, or any one of a thousand other non-s you could care to list,) but I'd also say that the big sensational issues are thus primarily because, in a population of 300,000,000 (Approximately twice that of 1950) people, they are still vanishingly rare. (I'm also not saying that things are perfect, or even always good for any group in the US, just that they have improved greatly in the last 6 decades.)

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-03 10:07 pm UTC (link)
	I'll buy that. The 50s were no theme park. Unforunately, the pendulum has swung too far. Hence the culture of fear, the outlawing of physical displays of affection, the dumbing down of eduction, and the litigous campaign against common sense. I only hope that it's a pendulum (which would imply that some problems will self-correct) and not a steep slope. (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

mumbly_joe
2008-06-04 02:41 am UTC (link)

the dumbing down of education
Except for the fact that, due to leaps and bounds of development in the fields of Biology, Mathematics and Physics, multiple radical shifts in LitCrit theory and literary styles, and several of the most complex decades in American history, basic education is now expected to encompass roughly twice as much material as it did 50 years ago. Except in that sense, you're absolutely right about the "dumbing down of education".

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-04 02:49 am UTC (link)
	And still the standards are lower. (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	mumbly_joe 2008-06-04 03:02 am UTC (link)
	Cite? For my part, I can point to the fact of the Flynn Effect, coupled with the fact that IQ tests and derivative tests are continually re-normed to account for it. By definition, this would result in higher standards between generations, not lower ones. The norm -100 for IQ tests- comes to represent a much higher standard than it did 50 years ago. (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-04 03:26 am UTC (link)
	One friend who teaches in high school and three in elementary school. All describe a decline in real learning and critical thinking corresponding to every-increased emphasis on teaching the skills for passing standardized tests. (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

arctangent
2008-06-04 03:43 am UTC (link)

Wow. Because if FOUR PEOPLE think it's true -- four people who all apparently are in the same circle of friends, no less -- then that's as good as a nationwide study.

Yes, standardized tests obviously have a negative effect on learning. The fact that standardized tests exist now and have a negative effect on learning is completely different from the claim that therefore learning is now worse than it was in the 1950s. That's *ridiculous* logic, like claiming that because the Microsoft monopoly has a negative effect on computers and the Microsoft monopoly exists now but not in 1972, computers are less powerful than they were in 1972.

For God's sake, our regimen of standardized tests exists BECAUSE in the 1960s and 1970s the federal government realized how badly our population appeared to be lagging behind the Soviets in producing competent scientists and engineers to fight the Cold War and struggled like hell to get us to catch up. Claiming that our current *overreliance* on standardized tests to keep kids up to speed on calculus, physics, chemistry, biology and so on makes us *worse off* than the days when those programs *basically did not exist in schools outside major urban areas*... ugh. Seriously, ugh.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)

arctangent
2008-06-04 03:56 am UTC (link)

"Culture of fear"? The 1950s were a period of constant, sustained terror. People spent every day contemplating the possibility that the nukes were going to rain down and kill us all at the touch of a button. The actual literature that came out of the '50s, especially the nascent, very-rapidly-growing genre of science fiction, shows an obsession with the uncertainties of the future.

The idea that the '50s were a period of relaxation and peace when no one worried about nothin' is pure fantasy. It's the Happy Days version of the '50s and bears no more resemblance to the actual '50s than That '70s Show bears to the '70s. (I.e. the clothes and music fit, whereas the attitudes and beliefs are those of the current generation only made more childish and juvenile -- because the people writing the show were children during the time in question.)

As for the rest... gee. "Outlawing of public displays of affection"? Where? Walk down a street in New York City and see how many people feel free to exchange copious amounts of saliva in public. If anything our current attitude toward sex mostly consists of a swinging *back* to '50s circumspection and fear after a peak of sexual liberation in the late '60s and early '70s.

"Dumbing down of education"... please. Compare the number of American high school students who even know what quantum physics *is* vs. the number who did in 1955. (And don't you dare tell me that this is because quantum physics is a "recent" discovery. The basic principles of quantum mechanics had been common, well-published, public knowledge in the scientific community since the *1920s and before*. The recent quantum physics seems like a "new" idea in pop culture is that *pop culture has been very slow to catch up with what scientists know*, probably because general, pre-college science education in this country has only been starting to become decent since the start of the Cold War, when the federal government realized readin, 'ritin' and 'rithmetic wasn't actually cutting it.)

"Litigious campaign against common sense"... I won't argue with this one directly, since it's an up-in-the-air issue I could come down multiple ways on depending on how you define the terms.

I wouldn't say that our times are actually *better* than the 1950s, but I think a realistic assessment of what our problems actually are would directly contradict the stupid received wisdom you hear in folksy e-mail forwards by cultural conservatives. (As is always the case -- people always complain about the opposite problem to the one they have. Misers complain they spend too much money, hypochondriacs complain they neglect their health, anorexics complain they eat too much...) I would say that Americans, in fact, work a *lot harder* than they did in 1955 -- the fact that our per-capita productivity, taking technological advancement into account, has nonetheless doubled has few other obvious explanations I can see -- and get less in return in terms of security and social support, and so we live in a society rather fragmented and atomized with few institutions we can lean on. Far to the contrary of institutions like schools being too powerful, they're actually quite a bit *weaker* than equivalent institutions in 1955, with both good and bad results (fewer petty tyrants messing with your life, more dangerous situations where people break down and there's no one to pick them back up).

But I'm sure you're not particularly interested in that, hung up as you are on the plague of oppressed quail-hunting good ol' boys who are completely unable to take aspirins in peace on school grounds.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-04 01:56 pm UTC (link)
	Since you replied in 5 places, I'm consolidating my response at the very bottom of this thread. (Replies frozen)(Parent)

seankreynolds
2008-06-03 04:52 pm UTC (link)

I don't care if Jack has to be a big man and go quail "hunting" before school, I don't want his gun on school property. Jack may be a hunter, but Billy may just be a thief and a bully and having a loaded gun in the parking lot is bad news.

If Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight, how often do they really end up buddies? Isn't it greater odds that they end up enemies for a long time?

Jeffrey needs a paddling, "ADD" or no.

I don't think Billy's dad has the right to take a belt to his kid, broken window or no. I'm not some bleeding-heart when it comes to corporal punishment, but beating a kid with a belt creates a scared, angry, resentful kid, not a respectful, law-abiding kid.

Mark getting suspended for aspirin _is_ ridiculous.

The foreign student example is absurd. I grew up in California where being white in my high school meant you were a minority, and some of the local Chicano kids were failing their *Spanish* classes they took in hopes of "easy As." If a foreigner or local is really failing HS English, one summer session isn't going to be the magic bullet that clears their way to college.

Johnny and the anthill: Really, has this ever happened? Kid playing with firecrackers gets arrested for terrorism?

Johnny and Mary and the hug ... if this really happened, it is idiocy.

But most of this list sounds like it was put together by some cranky old conservative white guy who longs for the "good old days" when kids behaved and the coloreds knew their place.

(Replies frozen)(Thread)

prest0
2008-06-03 05:29 pm UTC (link)

I think the point is that 50 years ago, even if Billy had considered stealing a gun it wouldn't have been to use it at school. but to sell it at a pawn shop or go hunting himself. School shootings are a new development to our generation.

Maybe Johnny and Mark blow off their steam and that's the end of it, or maybe it's the start of a long running feud. Probably depends on their ages as much as anything.

I wouldn't use a belt for something that was an accident, but I won't say there's never a time for it either. How kids react to punishment depends on the kid. Some may indeed turn angry and resentful, while others may start thinking about the consequences of their actions.

Getting suspended for asprin happen. Welcome to the new millenium.

Yeah, that was a silly example and obviously drawn out to the extreme conclusion.

Kids have most definitely gotten arrested for making potato guns and building home-made firecraker "bombs". Whether they have been pursured under terrorism statutes, I don't have the time to investigate. I think it mostly depends on how much of an ass the local prosecutor is. You'd be surprised.

Unfortunately with the Johnny and Mary hug example is all too real. Yes it is idiocy, but it's the world we live in now. From little league coaches to Sunday school teachers, adults are being instructed to avoid hugging children and limiting touching to something like a pat on the shoulder.

Um... wow. I think I'll leave the last one alone.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

seankreynolds
2008-06-03 07:29 pm UTC (link)

Gun: True.

Fistfight: So if it's a maybe-maybe situation, then the original point of that article is a false premise, yes?

Belt: I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks it is okay to beat a child with a belt is messed up in the head. If it's illegal to beat a dog with a belt, it should be illegal to beat a child with a belt, even if the child "deserved it."

Aspirin: I'm not disagreeing. Zero-tolerance policies in school are stupid and are used by administrations to absolve themselves from thinking.

English: Okay so that's two points that have a false premise.

Terrorism firecrackers: You may not have time to investigate yet you propagate this list as if it were true?

Criminal hug: As with the aspirin, I'm agreeing with you, it's ridiculous, and part of our "culture of fear."

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

prest0
2008-06-03 09:55 pm UTC (link)

You may not have time to investigate yet you propagate this list as if it were true.

It might be time to step back and take a deep breath, Sean. Stop focusing on the trees and look at the forest. This isn't a case study documenting actual events. There's no documented fight between "Johnny and Mark" at Washington High on June 3, 2007, with footnotes and hyperlinks to news articles. It's just a story using humor (including exaggeration) to illustrate the differences in how our culture handles problems today versus one or two generations ago. Exaggeration or no, I still maintain that it's only funny because it's true--not the trees, but the forest.

I guess you're imagining the belt thing differently than I am. You didn't seem to have a problem with the example of sending a kid to the pricipal for a paddling, but the idea of "paddling" a kid with a belt seems to be a sore subject. I'm not talking about laying upon him like a whip, and I doubt that's what the story meant either. I vaguely remember our elementary principal giving students the option of the paddle or a belt, and of course each kid had his own theory on which was better.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

seankreynolds
2008-06-03 10:32 pm UTC (link)

I suppose it's funny if you accept that the premise is true, that our culture handles problems "worse" today than they used to.

I ask for examples because the elements in the post could easily be urban legends or propaganda against "liberal parenting." There are people that are going to read this list and say, "Really, suspended for aspirin? Terrorist charges for fireworks? Firings for hugging a crying child? I had no idea!" They're going to believe it. So the cynic and scientist in my asks for proof of this. I've been fooled by stupid things on the internet, now I think thrice about believing anything, no matter how real-seeming, unless I get some corroboration. Especially if the thing in question is an argument for a position (even just a quasi-argument like this thing is).

(Replies frozen)(Parent)

arctangent
2008-06-04 03:28 am UTC (link)

It might be time to step back and take a deep breath, Sean. Stop focusing on the trees and look at the forest.

Where I come from, making sweeping pronouncements about "the way things are" without recourse to actual facts, based on nothing but surface impressions and gut feelings about "the way things are", is called prejudice. And is wrong. And leads people to say and believe things that are completely 100% wrong, like the Earth being flat and Barack Obama being a Muslim and all black people failing IQ tests.

The "forest" here -- boo hoo, liberals are making our kids stupid by coddling them and making up too many rules, things were AWESOME back in the day when everything was flown by the seat of the pants -- is bullshit.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)

mumbly_joe
2008-06-03 11:44 pm UTC (link)

The funny thing with the English thing is that my Puerto Rican grandfather *refused* to speak Spanish in the household because of a (well-founded, at the time) concern that, in the schools my mother and her brothers went to, speaking English with an accent would have been a one-way ticket to remediation. Frankly, if this reference in this email were even remotely accurate, I would have grown up in a bilingual household. As it stands, I speak Spanish better than my half-Puerto Rican mother, as a result.

But, no, no sir. No racism in the 50's, or anything like that. ::rolls eyes::

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	prest0 2008-06-04 02:17 am UTC (link)
	Quite frankly, you're focusing on the trees and not the forest. If it makes you somehow feel better, substitute "history" or "geography" for "English". The point is exactly the same, and it has nothing to do with racism. (Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	arctangent 2008-06-04 03:25 am UTC (link)
	The point is also completely unsubstantiated by any real cases that fit anything close to your described sequence of events. (Replies frozen)(Parent)

arctangent
2008-06-04 03:37 am UTC (link)

A proctor (what would be called an "RA" today) at my alma mater took his hunting rifle from home to school in order to begin a shooting spree against the students living in his hall. He chickened out after shooting one freshman in his sleep -- had circumstances been slightly different he could've easily gunned down 20, 30 people. This happened in 1955.

The major difference between that incident and similar incidents today is that the college covered it up from the local community and news organizations played along. There was barely any newspaper coverage of the student's murder until four years ago when the murderer, who got acquitted by reason of insanity (oh, those liberal 1955 judges!) and is now a psychology professor, made his story public. He claimed that he had been driven to violence by sustained and constant bullying.

Yeah, life was completely different back then.

As for the other things, yes, you can find isolated incidents that support your thesis. That doesn't make them the "norm" or "the world we live in", any more than the world we live in now is actually a world of constant fear of being shot by fellow students, any more than that was actually "the world" in general in 1955. Trust me, it is by no means anything near the case that the majority of *actual* sexual harassment in schools gets punished, much less that all administrators everywhere regularly zero-tolerance people out for innocent hugs. (The actual case you're talking about didn't involve just a "hug", it involved a young boy grabbing a young girl's butt and the girl being upset and uncomfortable over it. Not technically "sexual harassment" because the boy didn't know what he was doing? Sure. Something you should teach boys not to do because it is inappropriate and bad? YES.)

(Replies frozen)(Parent)

prest0
2008-06-04 01:54 pm UTC (link)

This reply is directed to anyone else who feels compelled to pick apart my initial post.

Get over it. It’s an effing joke. I spent too much of yesterday engaged in a meaningless debate with humorless drones insistent on dissecting each line of a JOKE as if it were a thesis. You don’t agree? Good for you. I don’t mind polite disagreement and intelligent discourse. However, the replies to my post have become increasingly hostile and my patience has run out. You’ve got your own LJ, so use it. Reprint the joke and write a six page dissertation on how it’s another example of unenlightened propaganda. Just do it on your own dime, because the threadcrapping stops now. I don’t expect everyone to agree with every word I write, but I do expect a certain tone of civility to be maintained. Consequently I’m doing something I’ve never had to do in several years of LiveJournal use. Comments on this thread are now closed.

(Replies frozen)

(23 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login or password? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…

About

Help

Get Involved

Legal

Store

LJ Labs