Has our country turned into "Brave New World"?

Question

In the sixties, a counterculture revolution swept through America, resulting in a sudden, steep moral decline. Since that time, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has tripled, reported violent crime has quadrupled, the prison population has quintupled, the percentage of babies born into fatherless homes has risen six-fold, and our society has degenerated into a place where religious and moral restraints have been completely abandoned and those that still have them are mocked and called “uptight” or “prudish”, in which the masses are kept in a permanent stupor with recreational drugs, carnal pleasures, and mindless entertainment, exactly like Aldous Huxley predicted in his novel “Brave New World”. I’m really worried about the escalating violence and crime rates, broken families, etc. Is the end in sight? Do you think are country is getting even worse, or that it’s reached it’s peak of madness and is slowly progressing towards a better state?

Answer 1

I tend to agree with Maverick. Back in my day (OMG dating myself). There was plenty going on. We just were not allowed to talk about it in public and we didn't have the Enquirer, Star or Globe. Several wives had accidents with doors and stairs. Several of our Presidents have had "affairs" Jefferson, Eisenhower, Kennedy to name a few. There have been a lot of labor disputes that were not advertised because the newspapers were owned by the companys and businesses that were being put down for laborer abuse. Daughters of prominent town leaders have been known to spend a year with "relatives" out of state. Husbands have always "just disappeared" and turned up somewhere else with a 2nd family.

Aspects of both Orwell's and Huxley's novels have come in to existence. Some readers feel it is because these books by the mere fact of being written gave people ideas and created the environment for things to "happen".

I think it is the mere fact that our population has practically exploded across the planet. People are more willing to talk about "dark" things in order to bring it to light and stop the behavior that hurts others. One could smoke anything they wanted in relative peace, now they are jailed for possession. The tobacco companies are still dealing death with deliberate use of addictive additives. Oh well. Uptight and prudish are turning out to be CEOs trashing their own companies and employees. More things are in the open now, so it seems like the bad things are getting out of hand. The world is becoming a more open society and we can better see the ills. Hopefully this occurance will help us as a global society to make even more changes and heal the psyche of each individual.

Go in peace despite what is said and done.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, no. I agree with you that our nation currently has many of the worst features of Huxleys "Brave New World" and even worse also has far too many of the features of George Orwells "1984" to accompany them. Those that see the Bush presidency as prefererable to the Clinton presidency are apparently blind to the facts- Neither of these men should ever have been elected to anything more responsible than "dog-catcher"- and the only person I can see who has the integrity and honor to sit in that office is not likely to ever see the day-Rep. Ron Paul (R-14th district Texas) is the only person in government that I am aware of that seems to have ever read the Constitution- as long as american continue to elect jingoists, hatemongers, Liberals, NeoConservatives, spendthrifts, statists, and all the other dross that represents politics in the United States of America, we are a Nation without hope.

Answer 3

Do you have any stats to back this up? And I mean based on population...while the whole more people in prison thing can definitely be attributed to strcter laws and less civlil liberties and more prisons...but is the world worse now than it ever was? I am 45 years old and I've been around awhile..while drugs have created more crime alot of that can be atributed to drug laws where mereley haveing possesion can have you tossed in jail...does that make society more evil because we have more people in jail? More broken homes yes maybe and alot factors into that...but I seriously doubt violent crime today is any worse than it was even one hundred years ago....if you base it on population...you need to stop believing the media scare tactics...life is not wonderul now nor was it ever...and people are people no worse today than they were thousnds of years ago....and according to the statistics I have seen violent crime is decreasing not increasing....sshow me something to back up what you say .