Progress Doesn't Always Mean PROGRESS

We here at Bloody Nib Manor try to maintain a positive view of life in the United States, but to tell the truth, while walking down the street or going to the local emporium, we find it difficult not to believe that manners and behaviour are undergoing a de-evolution.
Be it known that this writer is no prude. And that this writer is no snob. Your faithful correspondent is a working man who works in the manufacturing industry in order to put bread on the Nib table.
But this writer is often taken aback by the, to put it mildly, the lack of self respect with which some people dress themselves while in public. In other words, they dress like idiot children or just plain slobs. A trip to the local Wal-Mart did nothing but re-enforce this thought. Men and women, all chronologically adults, walking about wearing tee-shirts, singlets, short (often very short) pants and thong sandals as if they were at the beach scaring the fish in the ocean.
Is there no sense of propriety? In fact, one the way home this writer saw a young woman wearing short cut-off jeans with lace tights.
We live, despite the current economic downturn, live in a much more materially rich world than people did during the Great Depression , and yet, if one watches old films of the Dust Bowl, bread lines and strikes, one can see that the people then dressed more properly than they do now. The men wore proper shirts and pants and hats, and the women wore dresses that did not make them look like refugees from some sort of adult-child summer camp.
Why is this? Is it because we have become more "free" or because we have just become a bunch of lazy slobs?
It's a sad thing to see.