> Interesting post. TV is certainly a factor, but what about air
> conditioning, which precipitated the decline in strolling through the
> park in the evening, or sitting on the porch (maybe not in the NW, but
> certainly in the Midwest, East and South)?
Or the auto, which enables us to find pastimes outside the family and
the neighborhood.
> On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, Ron Force wrote:
>
> > ANTHONY LEWIS: An atomized America
> > (snip)
> >
> > Making the values of commerce emperors of our souls, Dahrendorf said,
> > leads to "the destruction of public spaces and the decline of the
> > services that go with them, the weakening of health systems and public
> > education, transportation and safety."
>
> Then why did the overwhelming majority of advances in these areas come
> out of commercial republics? The history (and future) is hardly an
> unbroken rise to Utopia, but we always seem to need a periodic pendulum
> swing to correct some excesses.
>
> > When people in a society care only for themselves, when they are
> > taught by demagogues to sneer at government and the communal good...
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are these considered synonymous?
One of the tactics modern demogogues have used is to open the gap
between the government and the people, not thinking about what would
happen when they assumed power. The current low popularity of the
Congress partially reflects the carry-over effects of anti-government
rhetoric, even though they're pretty much carrying out the promises
on which they were elected.
> Bob Probasco
>
Ron Force rforce@belle.lib.uidaho.edu
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University Of Idaho fax: (208) 885-6817
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