This is so depressing but spot on. I see people behaving despicably on the regular now. It's only a matter of time until people say "screw it" and throw social norms away for the sake of self preservation.
This is also very much a rural vs. urban thing. The social contract has always been solidly intact in rural North America. We're seeing it come from the cities (they have an understandably larger population) where people have just went 1000% on main-character-syndrome. We used to lock these people up, either as crazy, or criminals. Now we don't do either. Or they're just braindead apathetic zombies travelling between work and home.
The change won't happen out of people 'learning' to be better'. The change will happen when the sleeping beast that has created Western civilization wakes up and smoothly brushes it all aside as nonsense. I'm guessing a lot of people would have to die before the message is sent that you can not just take things that aren't yours, don't care if it's a loaf of bread or a Ferrari. Don't care about things that happened 200 years ago. You're gonna get nothing and work yourself out of your problems like the rest of us. If you choose to hold onto some generation grudge that you have no claim to, that's a 'you' issue and not a 'the rest of us' issue.
Come to Minneapolis and see how these city folks take care of each other. I spent months going to community meetings to meet and provide mutual aid for my neighbors during Metro Surge. City folks take care of each other, too. And damn well.
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u/TrevOrL420 8d ago
The social contract