philosophy?

Question

name something besides religion that we did our own way 100 years ago but today we handle much differently and why did it change

Answer 1

A basic civilizational change in the West has been noted by Flynn. Namely, 100 years ago, if you were to ask most people what "dog and rabbit" had in common, the answer would be concrete and experiential: "the dog chases the rabbit." This conformed to their experience. Today, the same question to most people gives something more abstract, like "they are mammals."

The Flynn effect is a documentable rise in IQ test scores on a decadal basis. Its cause is the more abstract and connected level of secular, practical education which has moved in western society in the past 100 years.

The Flynn effect is thought by some to be an artifact of a rise in emphasis on abstract connectedness, e.g. knowing that "rabbits and dogs" are "mammals." This promotes a certain test-wise score increase. However, in contradistinction, 100 years ago, literacy levels were higher in e.g. America, grammar and writing skills demonstrably more advanced, and audiences of ordinary folk typically listened and followed complex political debates with much more ease than do audiences today.

There is a well-known science fiction story, "The Marching Morons," which may typifiy this latter "gee, we're more advanced" notion, much as U.S. students think they're excellent at math, but typically score below average among nations: a few geniuses, with lots of mass merchandising, sell cars with fins, loud engines, etc. to the "MM." The "MM" think they're getting hot stuff, but in reality they're going slower. A similar event occurred with SAT scores in the late 1970s or early 1980s, when student SAT scores were going down, down, down, so the SAT people "renormed" them, adding dozens of points to the "new, improved" SAT, so now people think they're doing just about as well as the 1960s group, but in reality, they're scoring perhaps 50-100 points lower, as a group.

"Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet, has some good insights into how such things happen.

cordially,

j.

Answer 2

Who is 'we'. 100 years isn't much time. The world is change and diversity of humans in cultures of belief, knowledge, technology and so forth. Name something that is absolutely unchanging in human history. Yes, I guess dogmatism's are at war with each other, but class consciousness is equally applicable to their knowing.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

'Karl Marx
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844


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Private Property and Communism
The antithesis between lack of property and property, so long as it is not comprehended as the antithesis of labour and capital, still remains an indifferent antithesis, not grasped in its active connection, in its internal relation, not yet grasped as a contradiction. It can find expression in this first form even without the advanced development of private property (as in ancient Rome, Turkey, etc.). It does not yet appear as having been established by private property itself. But labour, the subjective essence of private property as exclusion of property, and capital, objective labour as exclusion of labour, constitute private property as its developed state of contradiction – hence a dynamic relationship driving towards resolution.'

In other words, there are those striving to exclude their selves from labor and those who are destined to labor all their life, but have, if opportunity exists, to rise to the non-labor class, or fail trying.