Fretting About Vice

Published by

Clarissa

June 30, 2015

And the moaning about the horrible spread of vice is getting to a hysterical pitch. Here is David Brooks ‘ s latest bout of bellyaching:

We live in a society plagued by formlessness and radical flux, in which bonds, social structures and

commitments are strained and frayed. Millions of kids live in stressed and fluid living arrangements. Many communities have suffered a loss of social capital. Many young people grow up in a sexual and social environment rendered barbaric because there are no common norms.

People are very uneducated. If they read any books at all, they’d know that this kind of whining has existed for as long as human beings have been able to pen a sentence. Older folks begin to fret about vice and barbaric sexual environments whenever their own capacity to “sin” begins to falter.

Becoming very preoccupied with the supposedly fraying moral fiber of society is not only boring as hell but also a sign of irreversible old age.

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11 responses to “Fretting About Vice”

David P. Bellamy

June 30, 2015

I wonder…does this extend to my moral outrage over the danger created by discourteous drivers?

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1. Clarissa
  
  June 30, 2015
  
  Do you believe that they are discourteous because they are younger and that 50 years ago drivers were more careful and polite?
  
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Shakti

June 30, 2015

I can’t believe David Brooks and I technically share a generation. The guy probably grew up with party lines, and I grew up with AOL chat rooms.

I reserve my yelling at clouds and telling people to get off my lawn for the inability of people to use spellcheck and grammar check or proofread and driving without checking smartphones constantly.

I mean, having an instant answer and amusement machine in the palm of your hand is basically crack, but damn.

When I think of vice, barbaric sexual environments, and the decaying moral fiber of society, I think of the continuous blind eyes people turn to bad behavior when it’s committed by people in positions of respect or power. That’s as old as the hills though.

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1. Clarissa
  
  June 30, 2015
  “I can’t believe David Brooks and I technically share a generation.”
  
  I can’t believe it either.
  
  I can understand denouncing Putinoid rabbits, which is frisky and original, but moral depravity of the younger generations? I’ll die before I get this boring.
  
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  1. The Dark Avenger
    
    June 30, 2015
    
    I do some community theater now and then, and deal with the younger generation depending on the nature of the play I’m in. I don’t know if they’re smoking opium in their vaporizers or whatever, but they’re usually polite, and they don’t take much guff from one another.
    
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NG

June 30, 2015

I think that David Brooks is channeling Charles Murray who wrote a book about the evolving American family entitled, “Coming Apart.” This has the usual ‘values’ solution of conservatives to dysfunctional families – go to church and your problems will be solved.

“The defining face of social conservatism could be this: Those are the people who go into underprivileged areas and form organizations to help nurture stable families. Those are the people who build community institutions (= churches – mine) in places where they are sparse.” – D.B.

A better book is “Marriage Markets – How Inequality is Remaking the American Family” by June Carbone and Naomi Cahn which incorporates the changing economic circumstances of the middle class.

The millennial generation is certainly changing the generational goalposts of life with their behavior. Have you read the Tinder Generation article?

http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2015/05/06/bay-street-tinder-diaries-dating-age-internet-hookup/#more-314051

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1. Clarissa
  
  June 30, 2015
  
  The most committed long-term relationship that spanned half a century that I know was that between by great-grandparents. They were together through Stalinism, WWII, and so on until the 1990s. And they never got married. And today, her great-granddaughter, my sister, is constructing the same kind of relationship (and has been at it for 13 years.)
  
  So I will never understand the Murray and Brooks-style moaning about “out of wedlock” living.
  
  As for the “Tinder Generation”, the only thing new about it to me is the app. Everything else remains unchanged from 20 years ago. Earlier than that, I just don’t know.
  
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  1. NG
    
    June 30, 2015
    
    I see that your old friend, Ross Douthat, has also commented on families in his Sunday column two days ago.
    
    “The case for same-sex marriage has been pressed in the name of the Future. But the vision of marriage and family that made its victory possible is deeply present-oriented, rejecting not only lessons of a long human past but also many of the moral claims that inspire adults to privilege the interests of their children, or indeed to bring children into existence at all.”
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      June 30, 2015
      
      I can’t even comment on Douthat’s pieces any longer. I just begin to gag from the very first sentence. The guy is getting worse every day.
      
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cliff arroyo

June 30, 2015

On the other hand, just placidly accepting any and all social change as good or neutral is not the best option either.

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1. Clarissa
  
  June 30, 2015
  
  I’m all for criticizing and rebelling and analyzing. But an older person who chides the younger people for being immoral is just such a comical figure.
  
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