Comment by ryandrake
2 days ago
I don't think this is a social class issue, it's an issue where society is failing to address widespread anti social behavior and mental illness. We've kind of given up and just accepted racism, anger, belligerence, and all kinds of mental illnesses as inevitable societal land mines that normal people have to tiptoe around. And now that they're unchecked, they're taking over. I can't remember any time in my life where we've had so many people just out there living their lives, in desperate need of help.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/
I mean this earnestly, and not as some sort of comeback: what would “checking” this behavior look like? What is gone in society now that checked it in the past?
I’m sympathetic to this view but I can’t really make it a coherent theory in my head. When people talk about it on the internet it doesn’t seem to go very far beyond “something changed after Covid” and maybe “social media is to blame” but those two observations don’t make for much of a theory.
I don't know. I'm not a sociologist but it seems like we (at least the USA) have lost the concept of shared behavioral norms, and even where we haven't, public/private shaming is no longer an effective way to enforce those norms.
Maybe I'm longing to go back to an episode of Happy Days that never really existed, but I kind of remember a time where if you were sitting out on your porch and someone walked by and threw trash on the sidewalk in front of you, you could tell them "I saw that! How dare you throw trash down and litter in this neighborhood!" and chances are, they'd show a little remorse and maybe reverse their decision. Now, it's "Fuck off, Karen! Mind your own business! I can do what I want and you can't stop me!" And we just kind of start accepting bad behavior from strangers.
"I don't give a fuck, and you can't tell me what to do" has become this awful national motto.