Our Society is Getting Worse Part 1

Eighteen Ways things are worse than ever.

One normal part of the course of human affairs is having to deal with the myth that the modern world is a great place. Centrists (especially those with a Libertarian streak) often talk about how the world is getting better and better. Poverty is decreasing! Hunger is becoming a thing of the past. Alright, that’s cool, that’s cool. But it isn’t nearly enough, and it simply shows the effectiveness of modern farming methods.

Socially, we’re in the middle of creating hell on earth. The society we live in is not one headed towards great places, but instead, it will face decline and stagnation unless it corrects its course.

To prove it, I’m going to share eighteen ways our society is measurably worse off than the past. The list is not original to me, it was compiled by The Distributist. But he stuffed his in youtube video where I’m relating this whole thing to you in a nice skimmable substack post. Plus, I’m putting some more research into it.

1: The collapse in Family Formation. Marriage rates and birth rates have both been steadily collapsing over the last few decades. In 1960 71% of adults were married. Now just 51% are (and most of those in the older generations). The marriage rate in the U.S Birthrate was 3.65 in 1960. Now it’s 1.75. Many other developed nations are below replacement. We are facing a crisis that involves the dissolution of our bedrock institution and a decline in birth rates. Without another generation, we have a future. Immigration isn’t the solution to this either. Latin American birthrates are plummeting and attempt to integrate Islamic peoples in Europe are largely a failed experiment at this point (plus, Islamic birthrates are falling to). Given the path we’re heading on, we have no future.

2: Collapse in Social Trust. Nearly 80% of Americans trusted the Government in 1960. Today that number nears around 20%. Trust in nearly every single American institution has declined along with it, Journalism, Academia, etc. While less measurable, this lines up with the oft-experienced decline in American culture. ‘Kids don’t play with each other anymore’. Across the Western World, we can see similar patterns of increased isolation and loneliness.

3: Collapse in Social Cohesion. It’s no secret the American and European communities have declined over the past century. Where once county fairs, festivals, Churches, clubs, used to dominate social life, now people see each other only at a select narrow range of venues. Just recently 67% of clubs reported that they were having difficulty finding new members. According to Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” it’s not only a recent development; community participation has been declining since the late 1950s.

4: The Collapse of the Middle Class. This one is well documented and experienced by all millennials and Gen-Zers. Thanks to a large number of jobs being shipped overseas, steady (and now rampant) inflation, over-regulation, and insanely costly College Diploma route, the Middle Class has slowly declined by every metric. There are fewer homeowners. Middle-class Americans formed 61% of the population in 1971.

5: Steady Decline of Happiness post-1950s. Studies both in the US and UK show that populations were consistently happier. Striking because while this makes material sense in the US, people in the modern UK are richer than their ancestors were in the post-war 50s. Yet polls by the BBC show 56% of Britons considered themselves ‘Very Happy’ in the 50s which declined to 36% in 2005 and has continued to fall today (Britain below five other countries in happiness in the lat few decades).

6: Depression rates have been steadily climbing over the past years and 7: The Increase of Suicide rates. Both of these are more recent problems. Depression has only been increasing since the 70s, where Suicide rates only started climbing in the 2000s.

8: The Disastrous consequences of widespread porn addiction. This one is more nebulous since rates are harder to find but it’s but the effects are clear. Widespread problems, physical, marital, emotional, have arisen from a porn-centered society.

Part 2 inbound on Monday, God Willing. Maybe will write my own part 3 to make specifically Conservative points on why Everything is Worse now. And perhaps a part 4 on specifically Christian points. The world has to know.