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Comment by recursivedoubts | Hacker News Reader

Social trust has been falling for decades, and the blame lies at the feet of nearly all our major institutions: both political parties as well as the permanent bureocracy, corporations, churches, the media and so on. If we want a healthy society, of which independent children are a part, we should work to restore social trust.

"We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

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>all our major institutions: both political parties as well as the permanent bureocracy, corporations, churches, the media and so on

These things have been dysfunctional for decades. What's different now compared to when things were "good"?

The major difference is the vast, vast majority of households were single income. "Working mother" was a non-existent thing. Men went to work, mothers stayed home. So if you let your kids roam the neighborhood in the summer SOMEONE'S mom was there to keep an eye out.

I would say, in general, it also lead to more socializing in neighborhoods because while I would never claim that a stay-at-home mom isn't doing a full-time job, there was far more time for them to hang out during the (potential) afternoon lull. Or when kids were at school during the school-year.

Eyes on the street used to be provided not only by stay-at-home parents, but by other folks going about their lives: people walking through, shopkeepers, etc. Over time, modern suburbanism became more and more locked in: extreme separation of uses, strikingly non-through streets, non-street-interacting access to apartments, houses, and shops, lower density, etc. This isn't the only story, but it's certainly a part of it.

So would you say the times when "things were good" was before modern suburbanism, or in other words the 1940s and earlier?

No, I would say we're living in the best times we've ever seen, and I would not want to roll back history.

I do think that modern sprawl suburbanism has some harmful elements and that other styles of urbanism and of suburbanism that don't look like we've built the last 50 years in North America have benefits.

Also just general breakdown of people knowing each other in the community. When I grew up, I was a "latchkey kid" with a single parent, yet I was allowed to freely roam the neighborhood on bicycle. The idea was (or at least the perception was): If I ran into a problem, I could knock on any random neighbor's door, and 1. wouldn't get kidnapped or murdered and 2. the neighbor would know my dad and either watch over me or call him. Today, nobody knows the people who live in their neighborhood. Some people don't even know their next door neighbor. Nobody answers their door anymore either, so if you're a kid your only island of familiarity is at home.

>If I ran into a problem, I could knock on any random neighbor's door, and 1. wouldn't get kidnapped or murdered

Crime is much lower now than the past.

That's why I said "perception". People believe kids are going to get kidnapped or murdered, even though the crime statistics don't bear this out, therefore they don't think knocking on a random door is OK anymore.

So why does the truth not change people's perceptions?

TV and movies reinforce the misconception. News is also global.

Our neighborhood is really good at this. As far as walkability and weather goes I hate it, but we know around 20-30 of or neighbors on a first name basis. And pre-pandemic we would have somewhat regular block parties where we would grill food and setup activities for kids.

We would like to move for other reasons, but what keeps us here is because you just never know what kind of neighbors you're going to get.

> Eyes on the street used to be provided not only by stay-at-home parents, but by other folks going about their lives: people walking through, shopkeepers, etc

Not just eyes but they were empowered to police kids as well, the local shopkeeper could "order" you to go home and confiscate the lighter you're burning leaves with without repercussion, but doing so now could just as likely end up with an angry parent coming back with the big "don't tell my kid what to do" speech. Similarly spanking was a punishment that friends parents could dish out, but this slowly faded out and now everyone is scared to make any physical contact whatsoever.

The accepted rules on what sort of justice could be dolled out by non-parents changed slowly and unevenly leaving many confused to the point where they just stay out of it entirely, or maybe just call the police for the worst infractions.

>"Working mother" was a non-existent thing.

It very much was but not at the relative income level most of HN is at or was raised in so people forget about it.

We must be talking about two very different decades. In the 1950s, which is generally the time people think to when talking about the "good old days" the number of women in the workforce was 27%. It had very little to do with income level. Both of my parents grew up dirt poor, both of them had mothers who stayed home. As the children were old enough to all be attending school, one of my grandma's got a job at the elementary school some of her children were enrolled in a few blocks from the house.

It was 34%. Which is quite literally one in three women.

Labor participation of men was much higher, but it is absurd to claim that 34% represents nearly non existent phenomenom.

I think the popular opinion nowadays is to have either parents equally likely to stay home and raise the kids, with a negative bias against that being the female's responsibility, where historically there's been a strong positive bias for that.

People should do whatever works for them and their partners, but I think the underlying point is that raising children requires more than just a single parent.

Society converging more and more into a "global" culture. Maybe we're just in a transitional phase, or maybe trust doesn't scale. Probably both.

I don't think many people who were not white, christian and straight felt a ton of social trust in the era you are harkening back to.

Agreed. So is the solution to reduce white social trust as well or to empower non-white social trust?

I think it might be. When those who benefit from the current paradigm are forced to experience the pain that everyone else has been dealing with, they get motivated change things and they have the power to make it happen.

In practice, this doesn't happen. Instead they vote for people like trump.

Well actually… Thomas Sowell (who is black) talks about how he felt safe going around on his own in Harlem in the 40s and 50s, and never heard a gunshot. So there actually was a fair amount of social trust / actual safety in black communities even then. With the obvious caveat of course that interracial violence was still a risk. But at least within black communities then, yes there was more social trust.

I dont think it is reasonable to take history of one place as told by literally one person and extrapolate from it whole nation.

You have failed to provide an alternate source.

Maybe lack of churchgoing is contributing to this. Weekly meetups of the whole community under one roof really does wonders for social cohesion.

Of course then you have the church abuse stories...

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