Are today's societies more superficial than in the past?

One's own possessions may seem to be considered more than personal virtues in nowadays societies. Advertisement focuses more on the items or services it’s selling, instead that on family and other values as in the middles fifties, for instance. Another example for this revolves around the length of relationships, which appear to be much shorter than before. In addition, a tendency to change partners and friends and to care less about families and elders may be observed. By contrast, other factors should be taken into consideration. Firstly, different cultures promote values that may vary significantly, so no generalisation should be done. For example, Scandinavian countries are known to care much more about collectivity than South European countries do. Secondly, past societies can be recalled to represent individualism and luxury as much as today's world could be. For instance, Europe in 1800 was usually criticised for its superficiality; French aristocrats spent more money than they could afford to buy status symbols many centuries before; even Ancient Romans are agreed to have been very item-oriented rather than virtue-promoting. Thirdly, some virtues such as honesty and honour are promoted by films and music and other important media. Love and heroes are among the most important themes considered in screenplays. Lastly, there are individual differences that should be taken into consideration, because personality traits cannot easily be influenced. In particular, altruism and empathy are scientifically proved to be intrinsically human, even though small categories of people are not able to feel them.

In conclusion, all considered, seeing a growing insensitiity and egoism in humans is not correct.