Not all progress is really progress......

      You couldn't survive in our time and not learn somehow to focus on what was really important in life.  People's priorities were different two or three generations ago.  Not a news cycle goes by today when someone isn't in front of a camera or behind a microphone complaining about a violation of his or her rights.  Spill coffee in your lap?  Sue the restaurant that served you.  Want to prance around your high school in a headdress, disrupting the learning environment?  Plenty of lawyers are ready to take your case - free expression and all.  These were not issues fifty or sixty years ago.  People my age and older weren't concerned about their rights and privileges;  we were conscious of our obligations and responsibilities.   I learned early that I had an obligation to contribute to the family, and any income I earned would go straight to the family budget.  Sure, it might not have been "fair" for a nine-year-old to carry that kind of burden, but that was simply the way life was.  If you contributed nothing to society, you were not entitled to the rewards.  Work hard and you earned certain perks.  Do nothing and you got nothing.  I learned that before I could write my name (and trust me, L-O-U wasn't that tough).  The nebulous concept of "rights" never entered my mind until much later, and any thoughts that I might actually have rights didn't dawn on me until young adulthood.

-Lou Holtz,  Wins, Losses, and Lessons:  An Autobiography