A profile of modern Western views in the 2010s

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These are some views I notice most people seem to have in the West today:

*Against bigotry towards gays, though views on gay marriage are mixed
*Opposition to the combination of religion and politics
*A belief that most wars are caused by religion
*A punitive, vengeful attitude when it comes to crime and abuse
*A support for abortion
*Easy-going attitude toward divorce
*Children are seen as being more important than adults
*Though ironically, most people think kids aren't well behaved compared to past generations and need to be beaten more
*Ambivalence towards the environment and global warming.
*Opposed to war but unconditional worship of the military
*Anti-racist but equally anti-immigration
*Most people have a disdain for conspiracy theories
*It is taken as a given that women are oppressed
*The future is bleak

those read as a a mix between barnham statements and stereotypes

No.

Some of them seem a bit American (unconditional worship of the military, climate change denial), but I recognise all of them.

I think that the feeling that "the future is bleak" is the central issue. People believe this with a religious fervour. They enjoy believing it. It gives them an excuse to not care about making the future better.

If you look at history, one thing is clear. The future will have its own problems, but it will also be wonderful in ways we can't even imagine yet.

`Yes, but someone who wasn't born with modernity would not necessarly see a sense in having it.

I don't think I would be "better off" in the past. I would be completely different. However, on the whole, people probably were neither more nor less happy (but for a few catastrophic episodes and some occasionnal exceptions), because happiness varies with the possibilities offered.

(I think we are drifting away from the main subject, though.)

Those are some very general values, and they're vastly different in different groups. What I've taught myself is - you can only judge what you can see. Nowadays, it's very true that most of these values and beliefs are held by the people I communicate with. Many discussions I have with others are about immigration and gay rights. Then again, most young people I communicate with in any way generally come from caring ethnically or culturally European families, and are highly-educated, not to mention that half of them are self-confessed bisexuals or homosexuals, and one of them is gender-queer.

Whenever I'm in a large city, anywhere I've ever been, people are different. There are people - many of them - who live only a few miles from where some friends and myself live, but seem to come from different worlds. These are people continuously bothering others, mugging people, yelling obscenities, often involved in some degree of organised crime, and occasionally even using physical violence without provocation.

On a more down-to-earth scale, rather than full-blown sociological observations, take a look at the difference between your average YouTube argument or inner-city obscenities competition over something touchy and the relatively gentle way those topics are handled in places like this, or most places I visit, whether that be on the internet or in real life. While I'm bound to disagree with almost everyone on at least one touchy subject, I generally don't let it spin out of control to the point where obscenities and physical violence are anyone's only means left, and I expect them not to do so.

Though, one last note: as a lot of those people I communicate with are single young men like myself, expected but often refusing to take any initiative, we believe that, in the western world, men are oppressed rather than women. While women seem to be getting 'more equal', with more tolerance for women outside role patterns, quite the opposite seems to apply to men. Women are often granted special treatment in education and labour, with both suited more to their needs. Public money pays for anti-suicide campaigns aimed specifically at women while suicide rates among men are several times higher, yet casually dismissed as being 'just feeling a bit down' until it's too late and the man is blamed for it himself. And I won't even touch the subject of sexual abuse (no pun intended).