by 
How do we get from writing books about how a lady should conduct herself to books about the more seedy side of our culture? Pretty easily– as a culture degrades and moves more toward Sodom, there will always be someone out there to show us how to do it with “class.”
The first edition of Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage has been a guide for high society for some time.
But according to its editor, Jo Aitchison, the new book “Etiquette for Girls” is a sign that the traditional arbiters of civility are catching up with the times.
“It’s a nod to the modern day,” she told Reuters. “We’re pulling Debrett’s out of Victorian times and trying to make it relevant to today.” The book’s advice ranges from how to conduct a sleaze-free office fling or a disease-free one night stand, to how to smoke at social occasions and what to do when you meet a celebrity.
“Avoid dark-alley gropery and unladylike fumbling in the back of a cab,” the guide says on the subject of one night stands. “Discuss the necessaries to avoid planting any love children or disease, and you’re away.”
On smoking it decrees: “Always use a proper ashtray — never a wine bottle, flower pot or used plate — and avoid allowing smoke to billow out of the nostrils. It is also inelegant to leave the cigarette unsupported in the mouth…”
Certainly the article continues to say that there are still subjects that are covered in here that are less risque– such as manners on a bus regarding cell phones– but the fact that they have had to include instructions for things like these shows just how far those in higher places have fallen.
Nothing shows this more than what our conversation has sunk to in recent elections– where Presidents of the United States were asked what underwear they wore. We have gotten to the point that we are so saturated by sex and the things that go along with it that it seems natural to talk about those things that should only be between a husband and wife. We’ve made the special to be common or trash. And then we wonder why we have a high unmarried teen birthrate, rebellious children, and a general apathy among those of the next generation.
Everyone sane needs to move to the mid-west. Now. We’ll commune together and ride the waves, because they’re coming…and nowhere more prominently than on the East and West coasts…
Honestly, speaking from experience (born and raised)…the WC is no place to raise a family. Maybe the East is better, but I have my doubts.
Not that location is everything, but the cultural mindset~hedonism~is taking over people’s common sense/morals. It seems more pervasive on the coasts. What do you all think? Here in the mid-west, in the agricultural/hard working atmosphere, I think we see things more black and white.
Go ahead, tell me I’m naive. :O)
YES you said it Mary… let us all hang together in a commune! ROFL… I wish that was what the Lord would have us all do… but alas, we are to go forth, mutltiply, and spread the Good News to all the land. *sigh* I want to hole up sometimes with others who think like I do… But I have to take that bushel off my light and stand on a hill instead.
Praise God we are not called to change society, we are only called to spread the Word, and help people reach Christ.
Wishing we could all just hide out together… waiting eagerly for that time in Heaven,
Your Sister,
Meg
I actually have heard of a group of Christians that were going to all move to South Carolina and take it over so that they could run a God-centered government from there and have access to shipping, etc.
One wonders whether that would send an interesting testimony to the world or not. In many cases a group of Christians have decided to come apart rather than risk being effected by the world (just look at the pilgrims)!
I don’t think that there is an ideal place on this planet that we would be free from all the junk that is directed at us.
Our place is in heaven, that is our destination. I for one, am thrilled.
As I have been feeling a bit nostalgic of late, I feel that it would have been a lot better if we had stayed stuck in the mid-1800’s. Women were treated with respect (most of the time) and Marriage was sacred. Manners were important and the attire for that time, ideal, except the summers. lol!
There were no distractions from Hollywood, tv or smut magazines. It was a quieter time.
Oh….
What you put in, you take out. What you educate people to, you get from them later on. No wonder the society looks the way it does.
I read an interesting exchange today on a Polish usenet group. The question one woman asked was what to give her husband for his 40th birthday. The suggestions she got ranged from a trip somewhere ( a decent one) through a young lover, to a sex triangle.
A jaw-dropper, but a direct effect of the “culture” of self.
I think you’re right, Ann. I think these things are also becoming more mainstream because of our entertainment and the fact that all perversion and sexual sin is being made to be something great.
Certainly– what you put in is what you get out.
Gross! I know, why don’t you ruin your marriage for his Fortieth?!
*sigh* One day EVERY knee will bow and EVERY tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.
MML