Do you think people are lacking 'class'?

Yes. I do. But we will raise our boys to be men. Yes mam and No Sir. Thank you and can I help you with that. They know to give up there seat for an adult. Woman are not called names but cherished and respected. There Dad has the last say and money doesn't grow on trees. They know that a day may come where they have to fight for family and or country. And If it does, they won't do it with pants sagging half way down their behinds. A's and b's are expected. As one day hard work will be. Strict? Old fashioned? Yes.

People have always been like this. It's just the fact that there are a lot more people now, so you have more opportunities to see it.

Do you really think the flappers in the Roaring 20's were all about class, dignity, and respect? Oh, and the Old West, they were real classy thieves and murderers.

People haven't changed, we're just a lot closer together and have access to more people than we used to.

Kinda like how everyone is paranoid about violent crimes because of all the stuff we see on the news on TV and think things are so much worse than they were back in the idealized 50's. There's actually less violent crime now than there was in the 1950's according to statistics, but back then, you don't know about these crimes unless they happened in your local community.

I've noticed a lot more lately--say within the past few years that people are more hostile, angrier, and feel incredibly entitled. Not saying everyone, for when I see great stories such as the plane landing on the Hudson a few years back, it gives me hope that people still have humanity.
Now-a-days you look at someone next to you in the other lane while driving and you get the bird. Even to watch a hockey game (my son plays hockey) one can hear others in the stands throwing the F-bomb around. and yes, there are children present..
When I was growing up I can remember being in the lobby at the rink during the hockey period and there were some young men saying F this, F that while chatting in our midst. My Dad went up to them and said 'Do not talk like that in the presence of women"....I'll never forget that moment. He grew up in an era where a man's handshake was as good as signing your name on the dotted line, where people had character and integrity, where people took care of their own business and didn't get into someone else's uninvited.


So in a nutshell, do you think class is diminshing in our time, and do you think technology plays a big part in it?

The final trend Pinker discusses is the “rights revolution,” the revulsion against violence inflicted on ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals and animals that has developed over the past half-century. Pinker is not, of course, arguing that these movements have achieved their goals, but he reminds us how far we have come in a relatively short time from the days when lynchings were commonplace in the South; domestic violence was tolerated to such a degree that a 1950s ad could show a husband with his wife over his knees, spanking her for failing to buy the right brand of coffee. . . .

"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html?pagewanted=all"

The original question was not about violence or general standard of living, so I'm not sure why people keep bringing that up.

I'm also failry certain that the OP was not using the word "class" in a socio-economic context, i.e. upper, middle, lower, etc.. She was asking why being rude to each other seems to be acceptable in today's society (the words "hostile" and "angry" being used to describe those who flip people off while sitting in traffic or cursing in front of little kids at hockey games). So "class," in that sense, refers to a person's standard of behavior with regard to how he or she treats other people, not to that person's standing within society.

And here's where it blows my mind that anyone thinks "people haven't changed." Things that used to be considered completely unacceptable at all but the absolute lowest levels of society (like men cursing in front of women and kids or people wearing pajamas to the grocery store) are now commonplace at all levels of society. People HAVE changed. Nobody has any respect for anyone anymore. And as much as people rationalize their behavior under a banner of "Live, and let live," it's all a load of garbage. When a dad can't take his son or daughter to a baseball game without having to request that some inconsiderate moron behind him watch his language, it's gone way beyond minding your own business.

Civilized society requires that you take other people into consideration when you are anywhere but alone in your own home. There is nothing "civilized" about going out and mixing with other people with the attitude that you can do absolutely whatever you want and that everyone else should just leave you alone. That is the OPPOSITE of civilization. See Kant's Categorial Imperative.

I am a "baby boomer." Think of this: nearly 450,000 people attended the Woodstock Festival in 1968. Traffic was backed up for days to get to the festival. There werent enough port-o-johns and lines to them were long. There were water and food shortages. Yet, No one was killed, there were no injuries as the result of fighting among attendees. There were no weapons found among attendees. This would not happen today. I am not saying this was a "better" generation or a more civil one-- but I don't think that a gathering of these many people could happen now without brawling, hard drugs, and murder.


It seems as if as a society "we" do not have a collective sense of what "civil" behavior is; and it cuts across all socio-economic classes, ages, gender, and races. Where ever there are public "gatherings" (including "electronic" gatherings) there is a lack of mutual respect, or sense of "common good."