So what do you think of "traditional" values?

I was just reading this article on Cracked, and it does a good job highlighting the mess of cultural contradictions and hypocrisy that started this economic mess to begin with.

I also saw a comment that went a little bit like this:

This guy also makes some good points. What he's thinking is the problem is the abandonment of "traditional values," and that we should return to them.

Okay, fair enough, but the thing is, we can't go back to them.

No, seriously. We can't. You want to raise your kids without television? Good luck explaining to them how they'll be better off without it, because they won't be able to understand. To them, the only thing being denied television would ever mean is torture. I'm exaggerating, but really only slightly, growing up without television in 21st Century America means that you'll have no friends, and every other kid will either mock you or pity you and tell you how awesome TV is.

And even if you don't have TV or video games, you'll likely have internet, you pretty much need it to get work done, and the internet provides a reasonable substitute for both video games and television. You can forbid your children from using the computer, but they will hate you for it, and eventually, they will find a way to break that rule and get on the computer. And if you punish them for breaking that rule, it won't deter them, they want what you have so much that they'll just try harder to break the rule without getting caught.

And then there's this part of the comment:

While I do agree that corporate greed isn't the whole problem, it is a very large part of the problem, possibly even most of it. True, many media teach kids to think that all businessmen are evil and corrupt, but while this is an exaggeration, it is close to truth. The problem lies in both corporate greed and the fact the government does so much to support it, and we need to protest both, while OWS seems to focus on corporations exclusively. True, corporate greed is probably what caused government support of corporate greed in the first place, but focusing exclusively on the corporate side of the problem, like OWS is doing, will result in them being overpowered. Start with the smaller part of the problem, the government, and then work your way up from there.

Going back to the issue of "traditional" values, I do believe that, while many of them are valid, many of them are also outmoded. For example, many people who believe themselves to be fighting for "morals" are actually fighting for Christian dominance over American culture. I'm sorry, but forcing your own religious beliefs on others is wrong. Don't pressure the government to avoid legalizing gay marriage because some passage in the Bible says something about it. Don't ask for abortion to be banned because you believe life begins at conception. Don't ask people to avoid having sex before marriage because you think it's a sin. Some people believe that the "soul" doesn't exist, and that killing a baby before it's even aware of itself isn't a sin. Some people recognize that gay people should have the same rights as everyone else, and that using the Bible to deny them that is just a flimsy excuse for bigotry. Some people realize that, unlike 4,000 years ago, birth control is actually a thing now, and you can have premarital sex without ruining someone's life through an unwanted pregnancy.

Long story short, I'm saying that "traditional" values are no longer traditional today. While it would be good to go back to a few of them, going back to these values would hurt our society in some ways as well, and, to be perfectly frank, we really can't go back to them now. We're going to have to find a solution to our problems that involves both adapting our values to the modern world and creating solutions that work withing them.

"Man's primary need is that his nascent reason should be curbed under a double yoke; it should be frustrated, and it should lose itself in the national mind, so that it changes its individual existence for another communal existence, just as a river which flows into the ocean still exists in the mass of water, but without name and distinct reality."

There are sound reasons for banning the idiot box from one's home. Is it better to give up one's own individual reason so that their children will better fit into communal existence? That's not just saying traditional values are bad, but that liberal ones are too.

Here's the thing about TV; parents are completely capable of turning the damn thing off and taking their kids outside to play. You know, actually interacting with them? My sister does that plenty, as well as reading to him and taking him to play with other toddlers. All things considered, if you and your child are in the same house it's not that hard to make sure they're not on the internet or watching a TV. Also, there is no guarantee that your kids will hate you for only allowing these things in certain doses. So basically stop saying "they're going to be absolute brats about it, so why bother?" That's just being too permissable with bratty selfishness.

See, my parents pretty much made us go outside or read books. And I never hated them for that, or for not having videogames when I was growing up. In fact, because I didn't have them much, I didn't really think of them much at all; I just read the damn books I had. If a parent is consistent, kids will quite often be content with whatever entertainment the parents provide.

What I'm really confused about is why exactly is books considered a better medium than say, Television and Video Games? What is wrong with actually advancing with the rest of society and not being a Luddite prick who shuns anything that isn't purely physical labor?

Because New Media Are Evil. I once heard that even books were considered bad way back in the day.

edited 10th Nov '11 2:06:35 PM by RedViking

Some people think that watching too much TV is damaging to young brain development. Which there have actually been studies on confirming this idea; it's not TV I don't like, it's having a child having only TV as a way to learn and be entertained. That does not encourage or develop imagination. From where I'm standing, there's pointless hostility towards teaching children to read a damn book. Also, there is legitimacy to the argument that some people are just dumping their children in front of the TV to keep them quiet instead of actually interacting and spending time with them. You know, like a parent is supposed to do.

Right, because parents never just tell a child to read a book and dump them off to do that without too much interaction. Or that books are inherently better suited for conveying stuff you want the kid to see.

As for traditional values, hunter-gatherer society for the win.

edited 21st Jun '17 5:18:21 AM by ArlaGrey

I grew up watching educational and cultural shows on PBS, and fairly intelligent series like Star Trek, as much as I did Saturday Morning Cartoons. I also read like crazy, and played Atari and NES, and used my CoCo 2 and C64. I also loved to write and draw, and play with my dolls and Legos.

Every medium has its fair share of intelligent and brainless stuff (anyone claiming books are inherently intellectual has never picked up a romance or Danielle Steel novel...), so I see no need to cut off any entire mediums as opposed to just trying to encourage the more engaging sorts of fiction in every medium.

And I got my allowance... which I earned by doing chores. I also helped my best friend with her paper route. I learned the value of a dollar and work ethic just fine.

The problem is never the technology, it's the people. Lead by example, working hard and smart, playing hard and smart, and being good to your neighbors and the people around you, and your kids will learn just fine.

edited 10th Nov '11 2:59:03 PM by Jeysie

If only it was that simple.

Me and many people I know prove it can be that simple. Of course, it means work, in the sense of living so that you will, in fact, be expecting your kids to do as you do.

I have no TV.

I already waste enough time on a computer, and what with Youtube and Netflix, if you have a good data plan, who needs TV anwyay...?

I don't have too much of a problem with traditional values. Could be a side-effect of me being somewhat older than the forum average, and the fact that I'm one of those rare-breed "Married Christian Middle-aged Father" types that appear to number perhaps three or four here. I've also been called a Fundamentalist. I'm still not sure if it was meant as an insult, a compliment or a mere statement of fact.

But I don't want to discount new things just becasue they're new - discounting older things just becasue they're old is just as silly as the flip side.

Why do I get the impression that the person who wrote that article is a hilariously sad person who fits every stereotype of a "get off my lawn kids!" senior?

Being considered a fundamentalist is generally considered to be a bad thing. It implies that your irrational, dogmatic and extremely controlling person. That's just part of growing old. No matter how liberal and progressive you are in the past. You'll become a red-state motherfucker once you reach past your 30's. You simply can't be old and a liberal/communist/socialist whatever. That's why there is no such thing as "Granny Anarchists".

I guess my thing is... to me, traditional values are close family and friends, working hard, using your brain, being financially responsible, being good to yourself and others, and generally trying to be a good person.

Technology changes the way those things are carried out, but it doesn't have to degrade or ruin them. You can be just as good a person with an iPad and a cell phone as you can without them. You can even use the iPad and cell phone to assist you in being a good person. Technology is nothing but tools that we use to do things. It's as good or as bad as you make it.

OP, what the hell are you doing reading comments on cracked.com? Especially from a person with a hate-on for John Cheese.

too late.

edited 10th Nov '11 3:55:37 PM by GreatLich

@Great Lich

What the hell are you doing on TV Tropes? Get out of here while you can!

^^^^

(joking mood) Well, I suppose the only recourse we have left is to kill everyone once they've reached the penultimate peak of their mental faculties, which would be, where, 20? 25?

?

He lost me there. Corruption is tolerable to the extent that it's "smart" corruption — not leeching off your own banks and investment firms, letting them collapse and/or get bailed out so you can live in godlike luxury.

Were it not for the bailouts, those banks would've collapsed through reckless gambling, rabid greed and stupidity and taken the lot of us with them. And it's still early yet.

As for the author's call for Rugged Individualism: Well, you know, I wasn't there in the Great Depression. But it's my impression that it wasn't as hopeless as, say, the Gilded Age. There were opportunities, you could change your life and make things happen.

We're all pigeonholed today. I think he would make his point better if he spent less time lecturing about hiking through snowstorms and suggested a new form of the barter system; local-based economies where people can apply their skills, whether or not they're 'employed.' Sounds good.

edited 10th Nov '11 4:09:39 PM by johnnyfog

Traditional values? Fuck them up the arse with a mining drill.

edited 10th Nov '11 4:36:31 PM by SavageHeathen

@Pink Heart Chainsaw: Did you mean that seriously or as a joke? Because my parents would refute that idea (being over-50 and both being highly liberal) if you're using it seriously, and so would many of their friends and other people I know.

I've actually met plenty of old anarchists, most of'em Wobbly veterans around the greater Seattle area. They didn't become right-wing with age.

I meant that seriously. Every old person I know is completely conservative. Then again most of the people I know in general is conservative.

Edit: What I meant though is that while a good lot of conservatives were liberals back in the damn. Many conservatives are liberals simply due to the fact that old people simply do not like fighting and changing their values. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Thus whenever the liberals win, they become conservatives because they believe they already won.

edited 10th Nov '11 5:05:22 PM by PinkHeartChainsaw

@Pink Heart Chainsaw

What definition of "conservative" and "liberal" are we using here? Because there's the American political party definitions of "Republican" and "Democrat" and there's the more general definitions of "usually hates change" and "loves new things and changes" and there are probably other shades of those definitions and connotations as well. To be specific, I thought that Pink Chainsaw was implying that ALL old people vote Republican when I made my rebuttal. However, if this is talking about how someone can be stubbornly a Democrat and never want to change or think about new ideas then that person could count as being politically liberal but personally conservative. Or is this about how ideas that used to be seen as new and progressive are now part of the status quo?

edited 10th Nov '11 5:18:36 PM by Rainbow