Tyrus Thomas and Possible Bridging of the Social Divide??

[wicked]

Sebastian Junger put out a book earlier this year, "Tribe." It's on communal living, how we (as humans) are new to this idea of kids having their own bedrooms, people expecting privacy. They were replaying the segment on the radio last week. It was fascinating.

One of the things he mentioned was that people are at their best when times are at their worst. You refenced the quake, he referenced post-9/11 and how crime rates (he said) went down in New York after the attacks.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I wouldn't get too upset, QT. People are pretty slow to respond to "big question" threads here.

 

[YankeeFan]

The healing in Baltimore began when gang bangers provided protection to white reporters covering the protests.

We've seen a real resurgence there ever since.

Sadly, this example wasn't followed in Milwaukee, where white reported fled the city, afraid for their lives.

 

[Earthman]

Peope are tired of being beaten up for their beliefs at every turn. As example if you don't want your 13 year old daughter to find herself in the school ladies room with LeRoy who now identifies as Lisa your labeled as intolerant and worse

 

[I Should Coco]

I recall the high interest rates (up to 18%, leading to downfall of Carter) and high gas prices (I remember when it went past $1/gallon!!)

However, I grew up in an area which was solidly lower middle class, not college educated, but with steady, union wages, paper, steel and can manufacturing plants, union building trades. This allowed people to purchase a tract home, a couple of cars/trucks, possibly even a boat, not in ground pools, but "Doughboy" pools.

Those jobs have essentially vanished and IMHO, there's a gaping hole there in our economic system. Where do those without college educations turn now (or in the past 25 years)? There are some building trades jobs still, but more the superintendent, foreman types and less of the basic in the trench jobs. Joblessness may be low, but the widening economic class disparity is scary.

You make an interesting point, qt. It's true many of the good-paying jobs in factories, mines, etc. which workers could get straight out of high school have disappeared. But that's not to say there aren't decent jobs for skilled tradespeople.

In our corner of the Pacific Northwest, they are trying to push kids into career/tech center programs ... learning a trade that can't be outsourced. Electricians, mechanics, even nurses. In the rabidly non-union state of Idaho, there are severe shortages of these type of employees (in part because people who DO have those skills can move to an urban area with better pay and lifestyle).

 

[Buck]

For the most part, I reject the premise that the 1960s and '70s were a better time or a less divided time.
I think you feelings and emotions about your youth are just that, feelings and emotions recalled from distance.
You may have more positive feelings and emotions related to that time for any number of reasons. I won't speculate.

Economies ebb and flow. Things change over time, but change is not really better or worse, just different.
One of those changes over the past 50 years is the ubiquity of information, and our culture as a whole is wrestling with that.
I think it causes angst and dissatisfaction among many, but that doesn't mean it will always be a source of angst and dissatisfaction.

Further down the road, generations will handle the ubiquity of information with more alacrity, but there will be other change that will be their sources of angst and dissatisfaction.

That is the nature of civilization.

 

[Earthman]

60s and 70s had better sound track. More endorphins released creating more positive vibe

 

[Neutral Corner]

Change the drinking age back to 18

My little brother turned eighteen, and the drinking age was promptly raised to twenty-one shortly after. He was rather vocally pissed.

 

[Neutral Corner]

One of the things he mentioned was that people are at their best when times are at their worst. You referenced the quake, he referenced post-9/11 and how crime rates (he said) went down in New York after the attacks.

If there's a disaster there will be a certain percentage of people who will pretty much have to help, they won't be able to help themselves. There will also be a percentage who will sit in FEMA trailers until they are forced out months later.

 

[qtlaw]

For the most part, I reject the premise that the 1960s and '70s were a better time or a less divided time.
I think you feelings and emotions about your youth are just that, feelings and emotions recalled from distance.
You may have more positive feelings and emotions related to that time for any number of reasons. I won't speculate.

Economies ebb and flow. Things change over time, but change is not really better or worse, just different.
One of those changes over the past 50 years is the ubiquity of information, and our culture as a whole is wrestling with that.
I think it causes angst and dissatisfaction among many, but that doesn't mean it will always be a source of angst and dissatisfaction.

Further down the road, generations will handle the ubiquity of information with more alacrity, but there will be other change that will be their sources of angst and dissatisfaction.

That is the nature of civilization.

This is truly something I wrestle with frequently. The 60's and 70's have fond memories for me because I have good memories of my childhood and adolescence, notwithstanding having a single mom, when that was basically the scarlet letter for not only my working mom, but also for kids of a single divorcee. Then we became a mixed race family with my stepdad. I do not think I'm romanticizing though that there was a more robust middle class then.

Today, given the opportunity to attend college and law school, and the opportunity to have an established legal career, life is pretty darn good for my family and me. However, I look around and see that the middle class of my youth is few and far between. It takes at least two good wage earners to afford a home in the SF Bay Area, and even then its very tough. You can say move to find better opportunities, but where for those who do not have advanced degrees and who are not in the professional services industry or the programming field?

IMHO its about the economic disparity, which fuels the social dissatisfaction, which gets directed not at the upper economic classes, but gets directed at the other races/homosexuals/religions.

 

[Earthman]

This is truly something I wrestle with frequently. The 60's and 70's have fond memories for me because I have good memories of my childhood and adolescence, notwithstanding having a single mom, when that was basically the scarlet letter for not only my working mom, but also for kids of a single divorcee. Then we became a mixed race family with my stepdad. I do not think I'm romanticizing though that there was a more robust middle class then.

Today, given the opportunity to attend college and law school, and the opportunity to have an established legal career, life is pretty darn good for my family and me. However, I look around and see that the middle class of my youth is few and far between. It takes at least two good wage earners to afford a home in the SF Bay Area, and even then its very tough. You can say move to find better opportunities, but where for those who do not have advanced degrees and who are not in the professional services industry or the programming field?

IMHO its about the economic disparity, which fuels the social dissatisfaction, which gets directed not at the upper economic classes, but gets directed at the other races/homosexuals/religions.

it gets directed at those groups perceived to have things handed to them