Pervasive shamelessness in the modern society

Lack of shame has become a norm in modern society, where the emphasis on economic growth and technological advancement overshadows basic human values, leading to widespread unhappiness, hunger and poverty. Material developments can make people’s lives easy but cannot bring happiness, which needs social harmony.

The present educational system promotes rote learning for getting higher grades in exams while almost neglecting moral education. Scholars come out of schools with a cut throat competitive spirit devoid of human values like honesty and truth.

In politics, politicians exploit concepts like nationalism, patriotism and sovereignty to stick to their leadership positions. Political and religious persecutions drive away people to safer regions. Often politicians and business men collaborate to deceive people.

Socially, children witness unethical behaviours from all around- parents engaging in fraud to become rich; media sensationalism and professionals ( medical, legal and tax consultants) charging exorbitant fees. This pervasive shamelessness, rooted in societal constructs like materialism, religion, castes and the like hinders the progress of civilization to the better position. Being slaves to these social concepts themselves people are unable to revolt against malpractices indulged in by shameless politicians and religious bigots even though they are quite aware of it. Shamelessness will continue to plague society if people are not weaned away from the detrimental effects of these social constructs.

Interesting post, but it doesn't seem to finish. "Shamelessness will continue to plague society if people are not weaned away from the detrimental effects of these social constructs."

Weaned away to what?

"leading to widespread unhappiness, hunger and poverty."

Well lets eliminate the last two first. In nations like Australia, there isn't widespread hunger or poverty. While there is, and always has been, relative poverty, (ie some people are poorer than others) the facts show that the relatively poor today are 35% better off than the relative poor three decades ago. There was a time when being poor was about not being able to give your kids three meals a day. Now its about not being able to afford the latest Nike shoes for your kids.

As to unhappiness, well that's in the eye of the beholder. I strongly suspect that people today aren't anywhere near as unhappy as those who existed in the Great Depression, or the world wars, or, in Australia, the economic doldrums of the 1970s. Its unmeasurable but I don't buy that people today are unhappier than their parents or grandparents.

Which brings us to the shamelessness claim. Again its unmeasurable. But again I don't accept that we are any more shameless than yesteryear. Perhaps social media has made our inherent lack of shame over our actions more visible. But that doesn't show that it has increased or that, therefore, we need to rein it in.

"I strongly suspect that people today aren't anywhere near as unhappy as those who existed in the Great Depression, or the world wars..."
- Don't hold your breath mhaze, I think we might be about to cross the rubicon to the beginnings of WW3, and I hope I'm wrong.

The U.S. might be about to deploy ground troops to Iran, once that happens there will be no way to deescalate, and there's no telling where it will all go.

I don't know if what this blokes saying is credible, but it warrants concern, and it's the opposite of your 'Superabundance' hopes.

Jiang Xueqin: The Iran War: The Watershed Moment That Changed the Middle East Forever
http://www.youtube.com/live/0rIgZD-tk3s

Jeffrey Sachs: We Are Now in the Early Days of World War III
http://youtu.be/DeRETBWnNWA

mhaze,

"In nations like Australia, there isn't widespread hunger or poverty"

I think that is true, but its a growing problem. A group of us started an outreach one year ago this month, to serve a hot meal on a Wednesday night to those in need, thanks to a local centre that has a commercial kitchen and dining room, gave us free rent and free use of the facilities, and we received $5,000 thanks to a local politician and a sports club, the local community has been terrific with donations. It started off with about 15 to 20, now its 40 to 50 every week and growing. Our area of Brisbane is relatively affluent, but there are pockets of poverty. We are getting an increased number of younger families with children. Most people are embarrassed the first time, humiliated to think they need assistance in this way. We don't ask for names or anything else about a person, just "Welcome come on in", no one is refused.

The biggest problem I come across talking to younger people in need is rent, and rent increases, don't get many with a mortgage, most live week to week, plus the "unexpected' bills like school fees, car, credit card payments, etc, these things cause financial stress for many younger families. Get some older folk who own their own home, but they are a minority. Get a small number of homeless, but most have a roof over their head.

The other point is many people don't understand "poverty", they think of the classic down and out, homeless person with little material possessions. A person can have a lot of material things, and still be in need. Poverty is not always what people perceive it to be.

BTW, we have a young girl from Centrelink, who gives up 2 hours after work of her time each Wednesday to give a bit of help on whats available to people who need some advice. So, not all public servants are bad people!

mhaze,

Paul's example illustrates exactly why the "Nike shoes" framing misses the point. The working poor today aren't struggling over luxuries. They're being crushed by housing costs that have risen far faster than wages.

Rent stress among young families is a structural problem, not a perception problem. Saying the relatively poor are "35% better off" while housing costs have dramatically outpaced incomes isn't really a rebuttal. It's comparing the wrong things.

The goalposts have moved, and not in the direction you're suggesting.

Hi JD,

One thing that crops up a lot is "After Pay" for many its an alluring trap. One lady, a single mum, was telling me that to get her 3 back to (public) school cost a fortune. Did get some from the uniform shop, but had to buy new shoes and more which combined cost over $200, just the shoes. Told me from experience the cheap Kmart don't last and don't fit well, so its the $70 a pair.

"...Now its about not being able to afford the latest Nike shoes for your kids..."

You really have no concept of what being poor is do you?

"Pervasive shamelessness in the modern society"

Hmmm, wasn't that the sort of thinking that brought the Islamic Republic of Iran into being?

I think it incredibly dangerous to blame the failures of society on the way people think as it can lead to some people believing that all you need to do is to remove people of a certain persuasion or outlaw unclean thoughts and your society will thrive.

Albo's mad bill attempt was a step down this path, and the recent hate laws (passed with the help of the moronic Libs) shows that such laws make enforcement not about suppressing hatred but an instrument of political control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1siil2ihDVQ

Have laws to protect people by all means, but I believe that freedom of ideas and freedom of communication is necessary for civilisation to prosper.

Paul, I'm sure that housing is a big part of any increase in poverty in Australia, which is why I'm spending so much of my time on housing issues. This is a problem entirely of our own making. There was the COVID catastrophe with the whole country taking a gap year, and logistics being gummed-up. There was interest rates too low, and for too long. Excessive government borrowing for crazy projects - like replacing the whole electricity generation system with a new, expensive and unreliable one. And building standards have been made unrealistically high, rezonings and approvals too time consuming and difficult, the cost of infrastructure offloaded onto developers. Onto all of this we've pushed a ridiculously high immigration rate. And we have record low rates of productivity due in large part to union demands.

So in five years housing has gone from historically average levels of affordability, to record levels of unaffordability. But none of this has to do with Ezhil's topic. I agree with a lot of what he says, and I blame a rich society and a postmodern education system, but I'm fascinated to know what he thinks the cure is.

For me it would be a more Christian society, not a less Christian one. Yet he seems to be pushing for less Christian. What is his alternative?

Poverty can be measured empirically or it can be measured by hand-waving.

Measured empirically, absolute poverty (as opposed to relative poverty) has been on the decline for two centuries in most parts of the world.

Looking at one expense (housing) and saying that's gone up and therefore the poor are worse off is just ignoring the data. But if you want to hope that things are worse then ignoring the actual data is definitely the way to go. Some things are relatively more expensive while others are relatively less expensive. And the data proves the later exceeds the former by a wide margin.

Hand-waving or actual data. Difficult choice.

But back to the main issue - shamelessness.

Personally I don't buy that it is on the rise as opposed to being more obvious. Now I guess its possible to argue that a society where a girl can become rich and famous by discussing her fellatio technique (the Hawk Tuah Girl) on mass media is one that has lost any level of shame. And it certainly shows a society where inhibitions, sexual and otherwise, no longer hold sway. But is that because the morals or lack of shame are greater or is it because the mass media makes it more obvious?

I'm not at all sure why a shameful society is inherently better than a shameless one, although it could be said a shameless society is more honest society.

Graham,

You are claiming that the decline in Australia is due to poor economic choices. Ezhil has claimed that the decline has occurred because we have moved away from a(n undefined) set of social values. I'd observe that societies established with the intent of conforming to a set of social values (e.g. Iran, Venezuela, Cuba) end up worse by social and economic measures against societies valuing individual freedoms.

Paul,

That example illustrates the point very well. A lot of people still picture poverty in terms of absolute deprivation, but for many families now it's a constant balancing act between rent, utilities, transport and school costs. The shoes aren’t a luxury - they’re just another unavoidable cost of getting kids through school.
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Graham,

I agree with you that housing policy sits at the centre of a lot of current financial stress. Interest rates, planning restrictions, infrastructure costs, immigration settings and construction bottlenecks have all played some role in pushing prices up. In that sense, the affordability crisis is very much a policy problem rather than some natural law.

But I’m less convinced by the argument that the underlying cultural issue is simply that society has become less Christian.

Historically, societies with strong Christian influence were not immune to corruption, exploitation or social hypocrisy. Nor is moral behaviour confined to religious societies. Plenty of highly secular societies today function with high levels of social trust and low levels of corruption.

The real issue Ezhil seems to be circling around (albeit vaguely) is the tension between material success and social cohesion. Rapid economic and technological change can improve living standards while also disrupting older moral frameworks. The question isn’t necessarily whether society needs to become more religious again, but how modern societies maintain social trust and ethical norms under very different economic and cultural conditions.

And where would your suggestions leave people who think moral and social questions should be guided by reliable evidence rather than religious authority?
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mhaze,

The point about long-term declines in absolute poverty globally is correct, but it doesn’t really address the issue being discussed here.

The question isn’t whether living standards have improved over long historical periods. They obviously have. The question is how current cost structures - particularly housing - affect lower-income households within wealthy societies today.

If rents go up a lot faster than wages, people are going to feel poorer, even if other goods get cheaper. That doesn’t contradict the long-term trend you’re pointing to. It’s just describing a different problem.

You misread what I wrote. I responded to Paul's comments about poverty. But I blamed a rich society for the rise in shamelessness.

I think you have to distinguish between systems and societies. Your list was interesting, but none of those countries was set-up to be Marxist or fundamentalist Muslim, they were taken over by people who imposed those values.

Christian societies value individual rights, but they also discriminate between good and bad. Part of our problem is that we value rights without responsibilities, and as wealthy societies we get bored with the staid and the stable and reward novelty. Once novelty becomes mainstreamed, you have a problem.

"Your list was interesting, but none of those countries was set-up to be Marxist or fundamentalist Muslim, they were taken over by people who imposed those values."

Yes, but in all of those cases the motivation for change was that the existing society was corrupted and needed a morality overhaul. There is a claim (Paul might consider it a far right conspiracy theory) that nations like Qatar and Iran have been funding universities to promote the idea of western nations as founded on exploitation, currently in a state of moral degeneration, and headed for a fall.

Having re-watched Parasite, perhaps there is no great change in morality from generation to generation, but we are forever vulnerable to the observations and assumptions made of one another.

Graham,

The relationship you're drawing between Christianity, responsibility and social stability is far more complicated than that.

Historically, Christian societies were hardly free of corruption, hypocrisy or exploitation. And today some of the most secular countries in the world also rank very highly for social trust, low corruption and civic responsibility.

That makes it difficult to argue that Christianity itself is the key ingredient holding societies together. It seems more likely that institutions, social trust and economic security play a larger role than religious belief as such.

If secular societies can sustain strong civic norms, then the explanation for "shamelessness" almost certainly lies somewhere other than declining church attendance.

Thanks Ezhil for the thread.

Social decay is one reason that Traditionalism is better than Libertarianism. All Libertarian's see is money. Money is a tool but it doesn't make up for bad management on it's own.

JD "secular" is a Christian concept, so I assume the countries you are talking about are foundationally Christian countries. The only secular countries I can think of without a Christian foundation are communist ones, which have attempted to obliterate religion because it is a rival to the state. I doubt whether that is your idea of a successful society.

I wasn't arguing that Christianity creates a perfect society - that is a straw man argument. But my question to Ezyhill was what does he see as the scaffolding for a good society?

Hi JD,

There is real poverty in our society today, much of it unseen. I get emails like this one several times a day from individuals and contacts.

"I (a contact) am currently working with two families who reside in the area. Both families include a single mum with 3-children family structure. Can you please advise if these two families would be eligible to receive food hampers, as they both struggle to cover the cost of living (including groceries for their children) each week. Transportation is another barrier for both mothers, so could an arrangement be made for me to assist with collecting groceries with their children, on their behalf? One mother works and the other is at home with two of her children having high/complex needs.
My contact number is 04XX XXX XXX."

My reply is basically "Thanks Alana, see what we can do, call you later etc etc"

Only last week, we had to drop off food and gift cards to the local Scout Master, who has been fund raising for us, through the Scouts. Rang so embarrassed that she was in strife, and really need assistance herself to put food on the table for a young family of 5. All we can do is drop off $100 worth of groceries and $100 in Coles gift cards, ok for this week, but what about next? The BIG problem is RENT, its a killer.