For decades, I’ve said that American arrogance (due to being the only super power), run-away consumerism and growing debt of all kinds coupled with how the average American child is being raised by parents obsessed with the child’s self-esteem above all else would lead to the inevitable end of the American experiment in personal freedoms and a rapid decline in living standards followed by chaos and anarchy.
Then I had an e-mail this week from an American friend and expatriate living in China, who recently returned to teaching English to Chinese children.
I asked him in an E-mail how it was going.
He replied, “You’ll be interested to know the kids are WAY fatter and noisier than they were in 2004. I asked some other teachers about this. They attribute it to McDonalds (3 all on the same 3-kilometer street in this very small city). In 2004 there were none (in that city), and Chinese parents spoiling their kids more and more; that sense of entitlement carries over into the classroom….”
After teaching American children and teens for thirty years and experiencing the same decline in child health and behavior, I understood what he meant.
Could this cultural decay be a sign of the pending collapse of civilization?
To be continued on April 13, 2011 in Part 2 or discover Super Power Dawn
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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That’s interesting. The only thing holding the American economy together now is big business’ dependence on foreign markets. American standard of living declines while businesses don’t care. However, if the American influence (like McDonalds) bring down the foreign markets as well, maybe then SOMETHING will finally be done and we might see a change. How long will that take? And like you asked, will civilization itself fail before something can be done?
Even if the civilization we live in and know of falls, it takes time and something with a different political structure will replace it. When the Roman Empire fell, there were still kings and lords that formed into nations. Maybe we are better off with smaller sizes. That is if we can limit the number of wars.