Where I live at least we are becoming a society divided somewhat simply. It's not a complex demarcation nor is it the old "have and have nots" or the classic "rich and poor" although it may seem that way. Those factors do come into play but I think it's far deeper than that. We've come a long way since the sixties and seventies when racial, ethnic and economic lines were departmentalized with absolute clarity. Rather I think we are divided by a significant segment of society that had come to believe that everyone was entitled to anything they wanted without real effort to achieve it.
Now we are almost five years into an economic downturn that doesn't seem to be turning around we are sorted out by resentments. There are indeed people who have fallen through the cracks and that cannot help their situation. Far more so we are in disunion due to so many losing much of which was not truly earned and they resent it not really understanding why. The stratification of society that once was along racial and poverty lines had become leveled out by providing too much money for consumer goods that gave the wrong sense of equality. It was not an equitable distribution of wealth by raising standards of those capable of doing so regardless of racial, ethnic or economic background through true education and hard work. Rather it was a good old American quick fix of throwing money at a problem to instantly make people happy.
There are those who will argue with this point stating that it wasn't the people's fault but the leaders who foisted it upon our society. There is no responsibility in blaming "The Man" for our current condition of contrasting classes that is merely another shifting of and avoidance of facing facts. No advancement in society in history has been achieved without raising the standards and education of those capable of doing so and hard work. It takes effort, time and generational change and cannot be bought, given to someone or bestowed by wishful thinking.
