On the Topic of Respect

I noticed this past day or two....some political figure in Germany brought up a topic of respect in the public arena....dwindling.  It doesn't matter what the group you are talking about (the police, mayors, city council people, print-media people, journalists, sports figures, CEOs, bankers, charity managers, teachers, etc).....they are all getting less respect than they did thirty years ago.

Is there a trend line for increasing disrespect?  I think the majority of Germans would agree with this.  What triggered this trend?  I would go back to three causes:

1.  Social media allowed topics to flow, and people connected to like-minded people.  If you were angry about what the nightly news folks were saying....you could find like-minded people who felt the same way.  As your anger collected up, it simply became increased disrespect for the news folks. 

2.  TV managers and strategists felt that more public forums....would generate more public understanding.  At some point, people got the impression that the forums were 'faked-up' and disrespect took a whole new path that you could not have anticipated. 

3.  The fakeness of progress.  Some people will go to great lengths to suggest we live in a modern era, with plenty of respect to dish out.  I might go and suggest that we are in the same era as the 1970s, or the 1950s, or the 1920s.  Progress probably has not occurred, and we faked ourselves enough to think it's an imaginary world of peace and tranquility going on. 

A problem without a solution?  There was some point about three years ago that Chancellor Merkel made a blunt criticism that Germans needed to be taught how to openly 'talk' to other people and understand secondary opinions....basically, Germans needed to educate themselves to be more open. 

I know....you can laugh about the suggestion, but she was very serious about this.

If anything....I would suggest over the past year, the level of disrespect has increased, and you can include the Greta-kids at this point. 

No resolution or way out?  I would suggest that this landscape is locked in for the time being.