In 1947, sociologist Dr. Carle Zimmerman wrote a text called "Family and Civilization." He identified eleven 'symptoms of final decay' observable in the fall of both the Greek and Roman civilizations. See how many characterize our society:
1. No-fault divorce
2. "Birth dearth"; increased disrespect for parenthood and parents
3. Meaningless marriage rites/ceremonies
4. Defamation of past national heroes
5. Acceptance of alternative marriage forms
6. Widespread attitudes of feminism, narcissism, hedonism
7. Propagation of antifamily sentiment
8. Acceptance of most forms of adultery
9. Rebellious children
10. Increased juvenile delinquency
11. Common acceptance of all forms of sexual perversion
25 comments
Quite a bit of fail here:
First, I'm not sure why Zimmerman's hypothesis is a thing we should care about in the first place.
Second, most of this stuff is not as widespread as the OP seems to be suggesting, or at least not at historically abnormal levels. Parenthood is still very respected, most people still place a lot of significance on marriage and family, hero-worship of national figures is still pretty widespread (although perhaps a little more tempered,) etc. The juvenile arrest rate reached a historic low in 2014. Your feelings about how bad things are are not indicative of the culture as a whole, and "Leave it to Beaver" was actually not an accurate depiction of 1950's America.
(Third, I'm kind of confused why "feminism, narcissism, and hedonism" are in the same category. Okay, I can guess. But still.)
I would add another factor, with just as much proof as Zimmerman: acceptance of christianity.
You voted Donald "Grab Them By The Pussy" Trump, didn't you?
American Conservative "Family Values" in truth aim to replace love and family with an empty farce, deeply perverse upon closer inspection and hypocritical in their application.
Gee, it's almost like Dr. Carle Zimmerman lived in a time when people were feeling particularly threatened by issues like these, whether they were real or imagined. It's almost like he started grasping at straws trying to prove that they were going to destroy the country. It's almost like he never bothered to research the real reasons the Roman Empire fell, either.
Mister Spak:
I'd rather go with the prophets Zager and Evans.
"In the year 8510, God is gonna shake his mighty head, he'll either say I'm pleased where man has been, or tear it down and start again..."
Also, rebellious children? Children these days are about as far from rebellious as you can get! Rebellious kids run away from home; today's kids still live there at 32! ;-)
If marriage should be considered sacred, then why (and HOW) would the trappings of power, exchange, and celebration be stripped away?
There is no such thing as widespread acceptance of "all forms of perversion" - not 60 years ago and not now.
Rebellious children have existed in every era. Every. There is nothing new under the Sun.
As to the rest of that horseshit, why should I take it seriously when I just picked points at random to deconstruct and found all of them either to be wrong or else so common as to be meaningless?
21st May/October 2011: Harold Camping.
We're still here, he's not. You do the maths.
@Mister Spak
That (C)Rapture poster. Your argument is valid .
The Roman Empire didn't so much "fall" as "saunter vaguely downwards", particularly when you consider the Eastern Roman Empire along with the West. To the extent that "fall" is the right word for what the West did, it was the result of a centuries-long vicious cycle of economic breakdown leading to a reduced ability to field legions, which led to more barbarian attacks and banditry, which limited trade, which led to economic breakdown... you see where this ends. None of these are particularly cultural issues, and indeed, the Eastern Romans were culturally very similar (at first) and lasted another thousand years.
Maybe I don't know ancient history as well as I thought I did, but I'm pretty sure divorce was not a Greek or Roman institution.
@Jamaican Castle
+1 for the 'Good Omens' reference.
I think you mean he looked at what he don't like, both real & imagined, about modern society and attributed it to the most famous cultures he could think of to give his garden variety doomsaying impact.
You forgot "12. Implementation of Christianity".
1. No-fault divorce promotes happy families
Some of those are questionable, some are unprovable.
The ones which are likely, well, correlation isn't causation. Wouldn't you expect a slowly collapsing society to start shedding a lot of its norms, since a lot of people are going to go, screw it, the old ways don't work and there might not be a tomorrow"?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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