When I was young and in my prime I swore I would never become an old fuddy-duddy. You know the type; always crabbing about how society is going downhill and consistently hyping the good old days. I used to think these seasoned citizens were out of touch, stuck in the past, inflexible and maybe a little angry that their day was done. “Get over it,” I wanted to tell them. Above all, when I aged I wanted to be like the few seniors who easily adjusted to new mores, music, and language. I might get old, but I was going to remain cool.
Someone please pass the salt, because I’m about to eat my words. Now that I’m eligible for Social Security I find myself sounding more and more like those obstinate oldsters of my youth. I can’t help it. Everywhere I look and everywhere I go I’m nearly struck dumb by evidence of our declining culture. I try to listen when I’m told “things were always like this, it’s just out in the open now,” but I really don’t believe it. As much as I’d like to be a hip member of today’s in crowd, I simply don’t want to be part of a degenerating culture. So, from my lofty perch of aged wisdom, here are some examples of what keeps me bewailing.
Popular music has been going downhill ever since the Beatles broke up. Lennon and McCartney, Morrison, Hendrix and Presley were replaced by disco music. Disco music! That craze faded quickly (thank God), but was itself superseded by punk rock, the new country, and finally rap. I saw a bumper sticker that perfectly sums up my sentiments. It read, “I’m not old; your music stinks.” Take away the flashing lights, pyrotechnics and 130 decibel amplification and most of today’s performers couldn’t win a sing-off at the Arkansas state fair. Ironically, really good music — classical, Dixieland, old country, big band, and rock ‘n roll through 1970 — is the cheapest to buy in music stores and hardest to find on am or fm radio. Little wonder Sirius Satellite Radio has millions of customers.
More discouraging yet is the music heard today in most churches. My Gideon ministry takes me into two or three new churches each month, and boy do I get an earful. The standard Christian worship music — a poor imitation of secular bilge — is heavy on drums and light on everything else. Someone needs to tell the drummers they are not playing a lead instrument. Worse, the compositions are simplistic and the lyrics shallow and (awesomely) repetitive. Only the volume is out of this world. As my good friend Victor Cannon said, “God is not deaf.”
We haven’t had a television in our home for years. So, when I get the odd chance to view cable or broadcast T.V. — usually at my mother-in-law’s house — I’m dumbfounded by the fair delivered into American living rooms. Vulgar language, barely concealed sex, and violence that would make Rambo flinch are the order of the day. Would someone please tell script writers that the ”F” word is a poor substitute for intelligent dialogue? Pick any 10 movies from the 50s or 60s and watch them with 10 contemporary flicks and you’ll see and hear what I mean. Lucy and Ricky, Andy Griffith, Jack Benny, Bob Hope and many more could be funny without referencing bodily functions every 5 seconds. No doubt about it, we had better entertainment in the old days.
Then there is the disturbing trend of increasing numbers of Americans salivating at the prospect of being on the receiving end of a government handout. Most folks don’t know that when Lyndon Johnson signed the Food Stamp legislation into law, the federal government sent 100,000 shills into America’s inner cities to sell the idea. Once upon a time, even poor people in this country had some pride. Today, 1 in 10 Americans accept food stamps, over half of public school K-12 students eat one or more meals per day compliments of Uncle Sam, and millions of Americans believe they are entitled to housing subsidies and welfare checks. Fifty years ago the vast majority of Americans were self-reliant and self-supporting. Not any more.
Finally, there are the ubiquitous news stories confirming our culture’s decline. Have you heard about the pregnancy rate at a public school in Chicago? If not, I hope you are sitting down. “About one in seven girls at Robeson High School are pregnant,” reported Kristyn Hartman of CBS News. Out the school’s approximately 800 female students “115 young ladies…are either expecting or already have had children.” Jaw-dropping hardly says it. Back in the day female students got pregnant, a fact I have personal knowledge of. But, 1 in 7?! Not even during the wild and crazy, free love 1960s.
My age has nothing to do with it. Things are going downhill.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Core Values