If you believe so, and don't like it, what do you suggest that individuals can do to reverse the trend?
"smile": Yes, there are many things imperfect about "the American way of life"; and your point is...?
No one that I know of has ever suggested that civility, grace, and elegance were omnipresent at any time in American history; but they certainly used to be ideals, goals.
I'm old enough to have been alive when much of what you've described was part and parcel of American life, and I am black and gay.
Are you suggesting that we have to make a choice between a just society with equal opportunity for all OR a civil society? Why can't we have BOTH? Why have some among us decided that good manners, proper speech, and beautiful music are somehow elitist or "too white"? Even tough there was never a time when the "Father Knows Best" family was universal, why can't that still be considered the norm or the goal?
There's never been a time in America when there were no murders, but we still hold out a murder-free society as the ideal, the goal.
"smile": Yes, there are many things imperfect about "the American way of life"; and your point is...?
No one that I know of has ever suggested that civility, grace, and elegance were omnipresent at any time in American history; but they certainly used to be ideals, goals.
I'm old enough to have been alive when much of what you've described was part and parcel of American life, and I am black and gay.
Are you suggesting that we have to make a choice between a just society with equal opportunity for all OR a civil society? Why can't we have BOTH? Why have some among us decided that good manners, proper speech, and beautiful music are somehow elitist or "too white"? Even tough there was never a time when the "Father Knows Best" family was universal, why can't that still be considered the norm or the goal?
There's never been a time in America when there were no murders, but we still hold out a murder-free society as the ideal, the goal.