Times have changed so much and its not really for the better ( no politics)

[sourland]

There are some values of the past tat have been lost though. Sense of community Has been lost. There are few people who hold this value. People don't help each other enough . I am not saying nobody does but it is a fading from our society and it is all driven by greed, materialism, and overpopulation. People won't help put their neighbor because they see no benefit for themselves.

Maybe and maybe not. I live in a rural part of New Jersey and neighbors here are just that. When we lost power for a week + last Oct., a neighbor showed up with a generator. Within a half an hour of the end of a snowfall another neighbor shows and plows our driveway. Just the way things have been for the 47 years that we have lived here. Are all like that? Heck no, but the good guys make up for the rest.

 

[WinklerFarms]

I know there are some people that are good neighbors and are willing to help. But it does seem that people think more about themselves these days. I guess I wouldnt know from experience, I am only 28. I admire cultures like the Amish, and Hutterites that rely on a community based way of life.

 

[ScottnLydia]

Maybe and maybe not. I live in a rural part of New Jersey and neighbors here are just that. When we lost power for a week + last Oct., a neighbor showed up with a generator. Within a half an hour of the end of a snowfall another neighbor shows and plows our driveway. Just the way things have been for the 47 years that we have lived here. Are all like that? Heck no, but the good guys make up for the rest.

I know how Winklerfarms feels, but having grown up in the 50s and 60s, I don't recall any sense of community THEN either. We knew the neighbors directly adjacent on the north, south, east and west, but never knew the people who lived diagonally, let alone the rest of the block!

Today, we live in a small town. When we had our feet kicked out from under us a few years ago, friends, and friends of friends donated fencing,building materials, and livestock to help us get this place started.

An adjacent small town is home to one of the Aurora Theater shooting victims who is still in a coma. The whole community (both towns) have rallied to support him and his wife with numerous fund raisers that still go on.

Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black said; "People are dumb! A person is smart, but people as a whole are dumb." Perhaps that applies to caring as well. A person is good, but people as a whole don't care. There IS caring out there, and sometimes it has to be US that starts the ball rolling. Others will learn by example.

Just my 2 cents.

~S

 

[mom'sfolly]

I'm almost 50, and I don't think there is less of a sense of community than there was when I was growing up, at least where I live. I grew up in a small town in Alaska, and now live in the suburbs of a major Texas city. What I see daily is people walking their kids to school, volunteering in their communities, watching out for other people's kids (I saw your son...), interacting with their neighbors, and helping where needed. My neighbor with cancer had meals made for her family three nights a week when she was undergoing chemo, my friend whose entire family was in a car accident had rides to doctor's appointments, meals, playdates for the uninjured toddler, lawn mowing etc.

I love going to the Friday night football games, and not because I love football. It is a community event. I see people I've know since my child was in preschool, I see neighbors, and friends. We come together as a community in the same way my small Alaska home came together for weekend highschool basketball games. For me, it is about community, not football.

I think a lot of this is the perspective of a child vs. adult. I think it is also the immediate awareness of all the news from all over the country and indeed the world. When a child is kidnapped in California, we lock our doors in Texas. When I was a kid, unless it was a famous person's child, no one would have known the kidnapping had happened. They certainly would not have been bombarded with the news, and made to feel the threat at home.

Violent crime levels have been dropping in this country for decades. The streets and towns are safer than ever before. The reason we don't feel safer is the atmosphere says that crime is everywhere, and we must always be careful. I think the whole "stranger danger" thing has just put fear in our hearts.

 

[thaiturkey]

There are some values of the past tat have been lost though. Sense of community Has been lost. There are few people who hold this value. People don't help each other enough . I am not saying nobody does but it is a fading from our society and it is all driven by greed, materialism, and overpopulation. People won't help put their neighbor because they see no benefit for themselves.

Perhaps that's a very local and personal experience for you that's not universally true. If you think carefully, you may be able to recall many recent examples of people helping one another. Perhaps you've helped someone yourself recently. Your world is what you make it.