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David Spates The good ol' days: Were the good ol' days really that much better?
Are people meaner today than they were back when? You can make a case that society is going
to Hell in a handbasket. Take a look at the news lately. In the
Middle East, Jews and Arabs are on the brink of war. They're
killing one another because, essentially, they don't want the
other guys hanging around their Holy Land. Hundreds of people
are dying in the name of religion, and I cannot believe that
either one of the groups' gods would approve. This, of course,
is nothing new. Devout people there have been brutalizing one
another for centuries in the hopes that they'll finally get control
of that particular piece of land. And it doesn't even have any
oil! Closer to home, here in Tennessee, there's
the story of the 14-year-old who gave birth and left the child
to die in a shed in Townsend. I'm sure you heard about it. The
infant died from extreme dehydration. I'll spare you the details,
but let me just say that dehydration is one of the more gruesome
ways to perish. Even closer to home, in Crossville, there's
the story of the 4-year-old who was found living in the indescribable
filth of a chicken coop while the adults in his life were cooking
up meth in a nearby room. What I am wondering, however, is this: Are
stories like these any more common today than they were 30, 50
or 100 years ago? Or is it simply that news coverage is so much
more extensive today than it was in the good ol' days? Were these
same types of things happening in the 1930s and just going unreported?
I'm not sure these are questions anyone can answer with authority. There is such a demand for news today that media outlets, the Crossville Chronicle included, are publishing stories the likes of which you simply do not find when you look through our old issues dating back to the turn of the century. Did teen mothers not kill their newborns back then or did no one know about it? Were 4-year-olds living in chicken coops then or, if they were, did it simply go unreported? The Middle East has been in turmoil for centuries,
but did anyone in Cumberland County know much about it during
the late 1800s? I doubt it. The information simply was not available
at the time. Now, ALL of the information is available ALL of the time. In the good ol' days, I doubt anyone in Cumberland County would have heard about the 14-year-old Townsend girl and her baby. Now, even without instantaneous news sources
like TV, radio and the Internet, the information spreads incredibly
quickly. I know there had to be atrocities occurring
in the good ol' days. There are news records of some of them,
but certainly not with the same frequency of today. In addition to the more comprehensive media coverage of today, there's another factor, a fairly simply one, that may have something to do with the apparent decay of goodness. That factor is population. There are a lot more people strolling about
today, and with more people comes the increased likelihood that
something freakishly horrible will happen to one of them. Consider
this. In a group of 100 people, the chances of finding a baby
killer or mass murderer is pretty slim. However, in a group of
100,000, the chances are substantially better that one of those
people is capable of a hideous act. So, back to the original questions. Were the
good ol' days really that much better? Are people meaner today
than they were back when? The answer? I don't know. I do know, however, that about the only thing we have total control over is ourselves. If we all did what we knew was right and taught our kids to do the same, the front page of the newspaper sure would look a lot different. |