Sorry i'm not native english, and my tought is tough even in my language.
Nowadays, if you read, listen news and talk shows, commentators and normal people, talks about how the people are downgrade, moral values are under the feet, and so on, and indeed the whole world will burn.
So I was asking myself, people did the same long time ago? They toughts that their generations were the worst ever exist? Any evidence?
I see many people says "humankind sucks, we need the extinsion" or "this planet sucks"
Sorry for the dumb question, but I must asked. Not sure if this is the right sub.
Sociologists will tell us about a transhistorical concept called "juvenoia" (juvenile + paranoia), the hostility of older generations towards young people and their belief that cultural developments are corrupting the youth.
Historians will look at specific cases to see if juvenoia or similar feelings about the state of the world were present, and explain how people expressed those concerns.
To take your time frame, 1600-1700, and focus on England: yes, people complained about the decline of morals and the world's downward slide in general. One of the most frequent literary metaphors for it was the metal ages. Writers described history as divided into, typically, a Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze (Brazen) Age, and the present Iron Age.
So Margaret Cavendish, in Animal Parliament (first published 1653), wrote:
Truth in the Golden Age was healthy, strong,
But in the Silver Age grew lean and wan:
I' th' Brazen Age sore-sick abed did lie:
And in the last hard Iron Age did die.
[...]
But now this Iron Age's so rusty grown,
Our hearts are flint and care not where Truth's gone.
As you see, Cavendish pictures her world descended even lower than an iron age, into the Age of Rust!
This metaphor of the metal ages, though, was not unique to her era. In fact, the writers of and after the English Renaissance drew it from ancient Greek literature, who used the different metals to describe the descent of the world from the age of heroes to the present.
As to the degredation of morals and the corruption of culture, I present the cover of this 1627 published sermon. Fancy clothes. Dice. ZERO MORALS. And while you might say, "Well, of course preachers are complaining about the decline of morals; their reason-to-exist is to get people to behave better," consider the importance of sermons in early modern culture. Although this is perhaps less true in the 17th century than in the 16th, they were still important cultural events and sources of news. After all, this sermon was important enough to be published--and it wasn't alone (...it's just the one I have a link handy).
