Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've

Host: The evening hung over the city like a sheet of muted amber, its streets washed in the glow of streetlamps, wet from a recent rain. The air carried the faint smell of smoke, coffee, and the metallic trace of memory.

Inside a narrow, dimly lit pub tucked between bookshops, two figures sat across from each other in a worn leather booth. The walls were lined with old photographs — frozen smiles from another century, staring down like ghosts who once believed their world would never change.

Jack stirred his whiskey slowly, the ice cubes clinking like the echo of forgotten certainties. His grey eyes were sharp but tired, like a man who had seen too many revolutions that promised too much.

Jeeny sat across, her fingers curled around a cup of tea, steam rising like a fragile bridge between them. Her brown eyes glimmered in the low light — not defiant, but searching.

The silence stretched between them like a thin wire, vibrating with the tension of unspoken thought.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder how much we’ve changed, Jack? How much the world has — just in one lifetime?”

Jack: without looking up “Change is overrated. People call it progress to feel better about forgetting who they were.”

Jeeny: “Robert Harris once said, ‘Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've been astonishing to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then.’”

Host: Jack finally looked up, his eyes reflecting the dim bar light like tarnished silver.

Jack: “Yeah. Things shift. People adapt. But it’s not always moral evolution. Sometimes it’s just fashion. One decade’s scandal becomes the next decade’s normal. That’s not enlightenment — that’s amnesia.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s compassion. Maybe the world’s learning to see more, to judge less.”

Jack: half-smiling, half-scoffing “Compassion? You call this compassionate? We’re living in an age where outrage is currency. People don’t talk — they perform. You think acceptance has grown; I think it’s just been repackaged for social approval.”

Host: Jeeny’s hand trembled slightly as she set her cup down, the sound soft but steady, like the beginning of a storm.

Jeeny: “You’re too cynical, Jack. You see rot where there’s healing. The fact that people can hold hands in public now — that’s not performance. That’s courage. That’s visibility that saves lives.”

Jack: “Visibility, sure. But does visibility equal understanding? You can change laws and trends, but hearts take longer. You think the old prejudices vanish just because we stop saying them out loud?”

Jeeny: “They fade when we stop feeding them. Look at history — women couldn’t vote a century ago. Interracial marriage was illegal in parts of the U.S. fifty years back. Change starts with acceptance, even if it begins as performance.”

Host: The bartender wiped the counter absently, the faint sound of a jazz trumpet leaking from a dusty speaker above. Time in the pub felt suspended — like an old movie reel looping on slow motion.

Jack: “Acceptance is one thing. But don’t you think we’ve lost a sense of moral compass along the way? Everything’s fluid now — identity, truth, loyalty. You can’t build a world on shifting sand.”

Jeeny: “But the sand is real, Jack. It moves because life moves. Morality isn’t a fossil; it breathes with time.”

Host: Her voice softened, but her eyes burned with quiet conviction.

Jeeny: “You talk as if the past was better. But it wasn’t kinder, Jack. Just quieter. People suffered silently because there was no language for their truth.”

Jack: “And now everyone’s shouting their truth until no one can hear anything else.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what rebirth sounds like — chaos before clarity.”

Host: The rain began again, faint but insistent, tapping the windowpane in uneven rhythm. Jack’s gaze drifted to the glass, where two men passed by outside — laughing, arms linked, unashamed.

Jack: “In the ‘70s, that would’ve been a scandal.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “And now it’s just a Thursday night. Isn’t that something to be proud of?”

Jack: “Depends on who you ask. Some people would say we’ve lost restraint. That society’s too permissive now.”

Jeeny: “Restraint built on fear isn’t virtue, Jack. It’s just repression with better manners.”

Host: Jack shifted, his fingers tightening around the glass, the liquid trembling slightly.

Jack: “But where does it end, Jeeny? If every boundary becomes negotiable, what keeps society together? What stops everything from dissolving into moral confusion?”

Jeeny: “Compassion. Empathy. The very things you think are performance. They’re the glue.”

Jack: “You have too much faith in humanity.”

Jeeny: “And you have too much nostalgia for control.”

Host: The tension rose like static — invisible but palpable. The pub lights flickered, catching the sheen of rain on the window. For a moment, the city outside and the stillness inside blurred together — two worlds divided by a pane of glass.

Jeeny: “Tell me, Jack — when did change become something to fear instead of to understand?”

Jack: quietly “When it started erasing what little certainty people had left. We used to know who we were. Now everything’s fluid — gender, love, morality. It’s exhausting trying to keep up.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we were never certain, Jack. Maybe we were just pretending. Maybe what you call exhaustion is actually growth.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, the edge of his skepticism beginning to bend under the weight of her words.

Jack: “You think we’re growing?”

Jeeny: “Yes. But growth hurts. The old rules are dying, and the new ones aren’t written yet. That’s why it feels chaotic.”

Jack: “And you trust people to write them well?”

Jeeny: “I trust the ones who dare to love differently, live honestly, and question what they’re told. That’s how change happens — not by decree, but by courage.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long time — as if seeing not just her face, but the world she believed in. The rainlight shimmered against her skin, fragile yet fierce.

Jack: “You know, when I was young, my mother told me never to talk about politics, religion, or love in public. Now, it seems those are the only things people talk about.”

Jeeny: “Because silence was killing us. Talking is messy, but it’s the only way forward.”

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe every generation just fights for the right to be honest in new ways.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. What shocks one age becomes the heartbeat of the next.”

Host: The bartender refilled their glasses, his movement slow, as if unwilling to disturb the fragile peace that had replaced the argument. Outside, the rain had eased to a mist — a thin, shimmering veil over the pavement.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Maybe, in forty years, people will look back on us and say, ‘How primitive they were — still arguing about identity, love, decency.’”

Jeeny: “And they’ll be right. Because progress doesn’t stop; it shifts. That’s its curse and its beauty.”

Host: The pub clock ticked, marking time’s quiet indifference. Jack leaned back, the tension draining from his shoulders.

Jack: “So maybe social mores aren’t moral decay. Maybe they’re just… reflections — like ripples on water. The core doesn’t change, just the surface.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The river flows, Jack. The water moves, but it’s still the same river.”

Host: A faint smile crept across his face — weary, but genuine. He lifted his glass slightly.

Jack: “To the river, then. To all the fools trying to understand it.”

Jeeny: raising her cup “And to the brave ones who jump in anyway.”

Host: They drank. The rainlight glowed softly around them, the city whispering outside — alive, restless, ever-changing.

Somewhere between their silence and their laughter, the generations folded into one — past and present speaking through two voices in a pub, acknowledging a truth as old as time:

That what shocks today will be ordinary tomorrow, and what binds us, through every change, is not certainty — but the endless human effort to understand one another anew.