Degenerating times?

Tibetan lamas and other teachers refer to "degenerating times" as a benchmark of especially Western behavior, culture and economies. Although people like the Dalai Lama seem to tone down such critic labels, they are "in the wings" none-the-less. Organizations which represent the Tibetan refugees and Tibetan people in the West wrestle with the stresses and strains of label karma which would understand and work to change things successfully. This peaked at the time of the Olympics in China, and has taken a back seat since then, seems to me.

How would our ethicists, philosophers and religious figures respond to a charge of degeneration coming from the East? Recently in a film on PBS shot in China to dramatize the plight of countless small town people who work in sweat shops far from home (people who sew in this case) trying to get home and back to work during the annual celebration of Chinese new year. This huge migration by train primarily is beset by terrible facilities, equipment, military and police traffic and confusion management, angst and heartbreak. There is what could be called degeneration here.

Change cries for labels to try for understanding. One of the Chinese critics of the film mentioned suggested that it was not "patriotic," that it sought understanding and yet made understanding impossible because it implied criticism. The filmmaker was, as I recall, was angered by this remark, and rightly so. What will change the plight of the workers who are caught in the desire to be at home and travel there? And how will American viewers take to heart the lesson to be learned about the need to deal with changing infrastructures as a part

of their futures?