4gold wrote:
I consider America's turning point in morality to be the turbulent 60s. Obviously, you can show morality to be increasing or decreasing just by changing the beginning dates.
Divorce and
crime (violent crime has nearly tripled) have all been on the rise since that turbulent decade.
Ironic on the Divorce thing; women's rights and the feminist movement took off at that point, so the rise in divorces may be a simple matter of women having the option to leave abusive and/or harmful relationships (and men too.) It's more a matter of divorce or choosing to end a relationship losing the social stigma it once had. It doesn't show a decline in morality; it shows that people are able to make more choices, which is better, imo.
As for crime; well, more things are illegal, aren't they? That doesn't necessarily, again, show that immorality is on the rise, it simply shows the government is attempting to exert more control over it's people.
As for the 60's being a turbulent time, it was one, and I'm going to quote to you how turbulent it was by a friend of mine who lived through it.
"Again my experience - this 'movement' was co-current with the civil rights movement in US, which developed into the peace movement as US became involved in Viet Nam. In the civil rights movement we questioned laws, we questioned some stances of the church, we questioned how things had always been - all from a sense of justice and belief in the equality of all people. By the 70s, with the emphasis on Viet Nam, there was a change in many - the joyousness and perhaps naive sense of freshness and freedom had degraded into sex and drugs in the popular mind, and a withdrawal from society in frustration by many so called 'hippies' because it was so difficult to bring about changes.
I'll give you an example of how rigid the early 60s still were - I was sitting with a friend on her porch when her son appeared on the front sidewalk - with orange hair!!!! she called him in and made him go inside - she was horribly embarrassed! He hadn't done anything illegal - just made an attempt to define himself by his hair. (yes, of course, he did it partly to shock - and succeeded). Hair grows out. When people adjusted to hair, it became piercing - first just ears, then noses, then other areas. By the time it was fairly widespread we were in the early 70s.
If you didn't live in the late 50s/early 60s, you really can't have any idea of what it was like! One very cold snowy winter our hostess for a dinner party called all of us and said it would be OK if the women chose to wear pants! In the 60s some restaurants didn't allow women in pants to come in - I saw one woman simply take off her pants and walk in with a long tunic as a mini dress! Illogical, unnecessary rules that most accepted without thought. Believe me, in those days, wearing pants was activist and courageous! I was nearly assaulted for wearing them when someone confronted me in a store and told me I was an "affront" to God! "
-Donata
Just to give you an idea of how our country is breaking down, morally
Someday even certain men might be able to wear skirts in public without drawing the wrath of those around them!
