We work to make a place for ourselves in the world, to fit in, to make ourselves valuable to others while still being ourselves, to support ourselves as well as help others, to apprehend and work with as successfully as possible what we have been given. Not that we all necessarily succeed, but when we do people come along later only to say OK that is all wrong, everything you have learned is wrong, and you are a criminal.
I was flowing along in full agreement and then pow! I got such a surprise.
"when we do people come along later only to say OK that is all wrong, everything you have learned is wrong, and you are a criminal."
For sure, others will sometimes disagree with our choices or actions - maybe on rare occasions most people. And yes, there've been times in my life when things I was taught as a child were later discovered to be wrong - either mistaken, or new scientific evidence destroying an old theory. Over time, social mores do shift and change. Societies swing on a pendulum from liberal to conservative, permissive to highly controlling, or libertine-profligate to wowser-prude - and back again. Sometimes the swing takes centuries, other times only decades. I remember when AIDS came in, and suddenly in the West, sexually mores swung back to conservative almost overnight.
But I felt shock when you said "criminal." I can't imagine what changes in law have suddenly made someone a criminal. Rather, the opposite. We have decriminalised marijuana. Gradually prostitution is being decriminalised but legislated and controlled, as in Amsterdam.
Hi. Is not just a matter of law but of people's attitudes. How they think of others. And what I and many people my age grew up with - it was a matter of if you wanted something you has to work for it and that was considered normal and right. We were responsible for our lives - the responsibility of what we did with our lives lay with each of us as individuals. Now collectivist politics teaches that there is no such thing as private property or individual freedom by itself - that any of those must come from and through the state. That everything we think of having in terms of property that we have worked for in effect no longer belongs to us but to all others collectively. Thus to work for any private interest or gain or self-sufficiency is regarded as immoral and criminal behavior. Because not all are able to achieve the same things therefore because of that no one should be allowed to achieve anything. We should not longer any one of us strive but look to "the state" for everything. Marxism/Leninism taught in the institutions of higher learning if not in the public schools as well. So all who have worked to earn their livings and to any degree have succeeded in doing so have become "the enemy". When all we have been doing is just trying our best to fit into a system as we found it rather than to be a drag on anyone else.
Many people have no objection to marijuana in and of itself but certainly don't want the neighborhoods and town in which they live to be controlled by it and turned into cheap clip joints and marginal neighborhoods which drive away business and are not safe to live in. Same with prostitution, and actually in most states it is soliciting for prostitution - on the part of either party - which is legally criminal, and not getting together which is simply a matter of consenting adults. Many housewives operate out of their homes doing outcalls and entertaining incalls at motels and it stays there free of drug-dependent kids trying to support their habits to survive. Legislated and controlled - I don't know if I agree with that because I would rather see on all levels the private enterprise than any government taking their percentage. I believe rather a government should exist as a guarantor of personal freedoms rather than as a body in and of itself. Because it is after all only an assemblage of people subject to the same temptations as individuals we all are subject to.
I left CA shortly after AIDS became a big thing so cannot comment on any trends in that area at that time. But I guess most of us became certainly more careful and perhaps we used that energy to work on other aspects of our lives rather than the affectionate ones. It was timely though I would not say, from what I observed or participated in, "conservative", at least sexually.
Off-hand, I can't think of something that I would like to explore. It happens more often when I'm reading the newspaper or watching something on TV that I hear for the first time or which I've heard but not delved into at length.
Technology as it relates mostly to computer applications can be difficult for me to grasp. If an application is working for me and does what I need it to do, I don't need to have it "improved." That just makes it more complicated. I will also never understand the "new" math and, fortunately, I don't have to!
Perhaps a good start would be to not view discussions and conversations as contests where the goal is one-upping and/or converting the other person to your point of view; to recognize that our different life experiences shape our perspectives and that just because someone sees the world differently from how we do it doesn't mean they're wrong or brainwashed or an idiot. Unfortunately it's easier to dismiss and denounce those with a differing view; it's more difficult to try and understand them and put yourself in their shoes. If we all put in a little more effort, we might not all be at each other's throats over politics, religion, whatever it happens to be.
SpunkySenior 