Effects of permissive society

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32567, 29 March 1971, Page 16

Effects of permissive society

The increase in venereal disease had made it the most common communicable disease in the world after the common cold and measles, a well - known English psychiatrist (Dr A. Hordern) said in an address in Christchurch last evening.

He was speaking on “The Permissive Society, Today and Yesterday,” at a meeting of the Christchurch Hospi-

tals Post-graduate Society, attended by about 70 persons. Dr Hordern, who is a consultant psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital and is a former chief of research for the State of California Mental Health Research Institute, strived in Christchurch yesterday from Australia to begin a lecture tour sponsored by Merck, Sharp and Dohme (New Zealand), Ltd, in conjunction with hospital postgraduate societies. Dr Hordern said that a sexual revolution had taken place. Openness about sex had made the way clear for the production of hitherto taboo things and greater frankness on the subject had enabled family planning to make headway. Two adverse points, however, were that it had also brought about a rise in pornography and an increase in venereal disease. This was now the most common commicable disease in the world after the common cold and measles.

“The main problem about the rise of pornography is not that it depraves and corrupts, but that it cheapens and debases,” he said.

Speakir* on the family under pressure, Dr Hordern said that life-long monogamous marriages were becoming less frequent and to be married several times was no longer unusual. “The family as we know ft may be rendered obsolete,” he said. Elderly people were no longer venerated and their wisdom was no longer valued. Many waited out their lives in idleness and about a quarter lived in poverty. The status of the man who was once regarded as a source of discipline, a model for his sons and a romantic figure for his daughters, had been reduced, women had taken over much of the responsibility of the children’s education as well as support On the other hand, the status of women had been enhanced as young and old women, plain and comely, white and black had joined in the women’s liberation movement Many women were not prepared to lead a life of unpaid drudgery. Dr Hordern said that another effect was the deprivation of infants and children. Children were forced to become mini-adults while at the same time they felt the need for a relationship with other children. In the United Kingdom the number of unwanted children had befen checked only by the pill and the Abortion Act.

The sweeping changes since 1945 had led to a generation gap between the young and the middle-aged. The young people wanted no part of the society in which their elders lived, he said.

Many wanted to discover their own identity and “do their own thing.”

The tremendous recent technological advances had led to over-production, depletion of resources and wastefulness, the doctor said. Western cities accumulated

mountains of garbage daily and seas, rivers and the air were polluted. In medical and sociological terms the disease of affluence had resulted in such things as obesity because of over-eating, and boredom with “over-entertainment." The need for stimuli In films and television had brought about a new brutality and violence.

The church progressively had lost its charismata and many other forms of religion, even “do-it-yourself” religious activities, had sprung up. The universal availability

of education, television and city living had helped to bring about a more classless society. Unconventional forms of dress and behaviour were less frowned upon and there was less hypocrisy. New laws governing abortion, censorship and divorce had fulfilled the development of a social need. Dr Hordern gave a brief outline of the development of historical parallels with regard to permissiveness, discussing matristic and patristic periods. “Perhaps in the future we will have the best of both worlds,” he said.