The cultural climate in the contemporary West - Thoughts?
From reading Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre and exploring ideas from Camus, then relating these to the current cultural climate in the West, I'd like to stir discussion on whether you think we are in decline, or in despair as modern individuals living in our times?
This video is also fascinating in my opinion, and perhaps sets the tone of what I'm trying to ask:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifbbaqwteEU
Is the modern West in decline? is the culture corrupt? Are we lost and in despair?
Happy for all of your thoughts.
This video is also fascinating in my opinion, and perhaps sets the tone of what I'm trying to ask:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifbbaqwteEU
Is the modern West in decline? is the culture corrupt? Are we lost and in despair?
Happy for all of your thoughts.
Comments (52)
:smirk:
Fair.
How would you measure this? Seems to me a lot of marketing, popular culture and Youtube posturing is energetically selling this idea. Probably aligned with the familiar whining that everything was so much better in the old days.
Could very well be the case. I guess as a very rudimentary starting point, perspectives here on the topic would be interesting to read, especially if they are backed up by accounts in your own cultural / societal contexts of what the climate looks like to you.
Who knows? I was just trying to use the contents of that one video to spark conversation on the overall topic, or I should say, my original question.
I think paintings tell us more about the artists who made them than anything else. So, for that matter, do videos like this one. I don't know the answers to your first two questions. I'm not lost and in despair, though listening to all those portentous pontifications read by the narrator was disturbing. I don't know how anyone else feels.
It seems to me that one can get a rough understanding of Gödel's ideas form watching a video.
But any depth in that understanding requires a concerted effort to engage with the argument step by step - that is, specifically seeing how to move from each step to the next. As one reads an argument one's eye flicks from premise to conclusion and then back to premise, until one takes in the path between them
I suggest that a video does not encourage such engagement.
This is testable; show one group a video of some mathematical proof, and another a document. See which group can solve related problems most effectively.
I'll put my money on those who read the paper.
Back to Gödel; the increase in nonsense around his ideas, displayed in this forum and elsewhere, might be directly attributable to YouTube encouraging folk to think a superficial viewing is sufficient for them to engage critically with the material.
It isn't.
It's because there isn't enough war and pestilence. Those things make people feel alive. See Fight Club.
Well, the West is in decline in demographic terms to begin with. And as Western culture is apparently being replaced with multiculturalism, probably in cultural terms too. Quite possibly, we will be speaking Mandarin and eating stir-fried bats in the near future. But I can't say that I'm despairing to be honest.
They don't actually eat bats. The vector was supposedly some animal that was bitten by a bat. Maybe a scientist.
leading edge of philosophical thought is regurgitating ideas from 140 years ago ( James, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard) and that passes for ‘new’ thinking. Since philosophy is the crystal ball pointing to the future of other cultural modalities we see the same stagnation in literature, music, the visual arts , film and dance, political theory. Lots of activity and passion but mostly centered around recycled ideas( news flash: physics is no longer the queen of the sciences). Why is this happening? One can point to slowing birth rates, especially among progressives, and an aging population. When life expectancy was only 55 years and there was an explosive birth rate in the West a rapid transformation of ideas took place from generation to generation.
I suspect populations will noticeably shrink over the next decades , which is a good thing. I think not only will economies survive this but in the long run it will allow them to thrive. We’re simply not going to need the numbers of workers we have now. But I think this trend is already impacting intellectual culture. Going forward I don’t think we will see the creative movements in the arts and theoretical fields we have been accustomed to in previous eras. Instead it will just be a tiny handful of individuals scattered around academic departments around the world. Meahwhile, rest of the culture will accelerate the current trend toward a lowest common denominator, with more and more derivative and bland product in the arts and ideas.
It was supposed to be a joke. But we might be eating scientists instead, who knows?
Indigenous populations, maybe. But chances are they will be replaced with non-Europeans especially Africans once they've run out of water or other resources. Colonization by China is another possibility if Western economies decline.
I’m not talking about a declining economy. I’m talking g about the paradoxical , contentious proposition of an increasingly roboticized and thriving economy run by progressively fewer people.
I think the creator of the video is interpreting historical artistic changes with a highly shallow perspective, i.e. psycho-spiritual.
The video's creator states that "prior to the 19th century, the great artists focused on works that beautified the world and transfigured the human being," but this is true only at a cursory glance across art history. First however, it needs to be said that much of the famous Renaissance and Baroque artwork that the video's creator describes were commissioned by the church or wealthy individuals, so it is understandable why so much artwork in this time depicted a famous biblical scene or a idealized individual or "transfigured human being", etc. The market was dominated by money.
But of course, his statement is not unequivocally true. Take, for example, Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death? Or the panel of Hell within Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights? Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, while religious, has one of the most sickly-looking depictions of Jesus in art. What about Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John, depicting a religious event (the beheading of Saint John the Baptist) in a strikingly irreligious and brutally insignificant manner? There are numerous examples of course, showing the shallowness of his thesis.
There is in fact a lot of questionable material and analysis in this video, and I'm not sure how much I care to analyze a Youtube video essay, but I don't see any issue with humanity or religion being de-focused from art, nor do I see it as de facto evidence of cultural decline, as if Mark Rothko, Fernand Léger, or Jackson Pollack and many others could possible be offering that suggestion in their artwork. Seems like the video creator is just glib about modern art, as are many people, unfortunately.
Well, we aren't even out of the pandemic situation yet. So it's all very much in the air at the moment. God only knows what's coming our way next.
I'm vegetarian these days, so not unless it's a black bean scientist.
Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus didn't invent despair or anxiety. History has had many episodes where people felt like a Christian Scientist with severe appendicitis. [That's a joke; it means suddenly discovering that one's beliefs are decidedly not up to the demands of the moment.)
Society is always in decline, always being renewed. Culture rises and falls like waves on the shore. The details depend on who is pontificating at the moment. There IS real decline and renewal, but it isn't society wide, generally. Not unless events shred the very fabric of society -- such as what happened to the society of dinosaurs when the big rock hit the Yucatan 65 million years ago. Even the plague didn't wreck societies, even when 35% of the population died.
How's the cultural climate? You can't tell in the middle of it.
Or, there's my plumbing diagram. 500 days and no blowback :grimace: (what's that sound...)
Haha, yeah, big fan of Fight Club :ok:
An interesting take, I too have often wondered about a kind of intellectual stagnation in the contemporary West. It will be interesting to see how this will evolve (or not), in the coming years.
It needs to be said that much of the famous Renaissance and Baroque artwork that the video's creator describes were commissioned by the church or wealthy individuals, so it is understandable why so much artwork in this time depicted a famous biblical scene or a idealized individual or "transfigured human being", etc.
Agreed. I thought that too while watching it. I'm sure if it was the common folk of that era commissioning paintings, the work itself would be very different. I suppose the thesis of the video does still raise interesting questions (at least to me), and it's exciting to read all the wonderful replies and analysis on this Forum.
So it's all very much in the air at the moment. God only knows what's coming our way next.
Well, Aliens, apparently :brow:
Society is always in decline, always being renewed. Culture rises and falls like waves on the shore. How's the cultural climate? You can't tell in the middle of it.
This I very much agree with, however, I often wonder if we are in the decline phase. Suppose we'll find out.
Well, we could be -- depending on how you define "our culture" or "my culture".
I'd say that the average person who completes high school this year is in general less well educated in general than someone who graduated 50 or 60 years ago. The function of high school for the hoi polloi has changed, as has the nature of labor (to some extent). This has resulted in a cultural decline among the majority of the population who are younger (under 55 or 60, say). For a minority of high school graduates, the function of high school is college prep, and for this minority of students who go on to professional work, the culture of education, and their lives later on is excellent.
Those who like classical music are alive at a time of abundant high quality live and recorded performances. This area of culture is better off now (IMHO) than at any time in the last 100 years. Bookstore (local or Amazon/Barnes & Noble, etc.) now have more high quality science fiction than ever before. They also have a lot more schlock. I find too many interesting historical and sociological studies to read should I live another 25 years (I'm 75 now). The INTERNET makes a huge amount of interesting and at least very good quality material available that would once have been very inconvenient to access. That's a cultural improvement.
Do popular music consumers think the culture is getting better or worse? (I don't know -- I'm too old to judge; there are current bands that I like the sound of, but most not so much.). I don't think fast food is improving; good Chinese restaurants are getting harder to find in the midwest, alas. Are sports teams improving or deteriorating? Don't know.
We have a very good technical culture. Smartphones are remarkable pieces of tech. On the other hand, a lot of stuff one buys at big box stores (Walmart, Target, Cosco, Amazon, et al) is quite often cheap plastic junk. That part of the culture is in the dustbin. I can buy excellent shoes (costs an arm and a leg) or I can buy cheaper tolerable shoes which won't last as long, won't be as comfortable, and so on. But... I don't have to go barefoot in the snow.
So, it all depends.
Or it could be evil spirits. Don't count them out.
For what it's worth, according to the web, more than 60% of high school graduates go on to college. That surprises me. I can tell you from my family's experience significantly fewer graduate in four or five years. It took me 17.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm not a classical music fan, but the sentiment of this section is paragraph is correct. There are thousand and thousands of books written in English every year. If only 5% are good, that's more books than I can ever read. That doesn't even count older books, which are often available electronically for free from libraries and other sources. I'm not a big movie or TV watcher any more, but an incredible amount of good video is easily and cheaply available. My children are pretty sophisticated music listeners. They like a lot of the music around today, but they also listen to and know more about the music of my youth than I do. You can take free college courses by famous professors on-line. Wikipedia is wonderful. Google Earth is fantastic. If you can't find high-quality culture, you're not trying. "Caddy Shack," "Animal House," "Evil Alien Conquerors," "Dumb and Dumber."
I think you and I are fortunate. We came along at just the right time. We can pick and choose the aspects of the newer technologies that we want and discard the rest. My children; 39, 36, and 31; can also. Partly because of their age and partly because I was too cheap to get a computer and cable until they were mostly grown. Anyone younger than them will be immersed in the technology like fish in a pond.
Agreed. I suppose the sense of cultural decline depends on what part of the culture you're looking at. Although, I sometimes wonder about the very real possibility of the meta-narrative being controlled and manipulated by a technocratic / corporate elite through the media. If that narrative is one of hopelessness and despair, then it seems like the potential for us (the masses) to be influenced negatively is quite plausible.
Of course, not all of us are so easily misdirected, but those a probably in the minority. Perhaps we are being divided and conquered, and are being "nudged" in the direction of government intervention and control, by making it seem as though we were already lost and divided to begin with.
More Huxley's Brave New World, rather than Orwell's 1984 though...
And yes, those darn evil spirits. Can't rule them out either.
It should surprise you. In 2019 29% of students aged 25 to 29 completed a BA degree. [nces.ed.gov]
The percentage of the population 25 years and older holding at least a bachelor's degree has increased by about five percentage points across the 15 years. In 2005-2009, 27.5% of this group had a bachelor's degree. That increased to 29.3% in 2010-2014. And in 2015-2019, the percentage reached 32.1%. [Census Bureau]
The college drop out rate is fairly high because a) college is more difficult than high school; b) college expenses may be unexpectedly high (living expenses, books, fees, tuition, etc.); c) success in college requires more motivation than success in high school; d) students fail and/or drop out sometimes because they do not know how to self-manage in college.
Many students are not well advised to attend college. They are not well prepared and they are not very interested. There are other manual/technical kinds of work that pay well that may be far more suitable (not talking unskilled or semi-skilled labor).
If college were free, and people didn't have high expectations for employment afterwords, then millions would benefit from higher education. Their cultural sophistication would get a boost, if nothing else. They would be able to appreciate finer grades of porn, for instance.
You can rest assured that the technocratic / corporate elite is, or would like to control and manipulate the masses for purposes of enhancing their return on investment. Their efforts include the media, but a lot of their effort takes place in the workplace and marketplace. It may be pervasive, but it's not all that difficult to evade. You can tune out, for instance, and turn off. You can pursue ends that are quite different than those which the techno-corp elite pursues. Sure, there are some costs [you won't be invited to the annual elite Christmas Party, for instance] but you will be free of a lot of their corrosive influence.
The corporo-technik elite is more likely to lull you with hope and happy talk rather than despair. Hopelessness and despair are not useful corporate values. People without hope and who are deep in despair are unlikely to either produce or consume at the desired Level. If they are hopeless and despairing enough, they might blow up the factory, office, or the store--and then where would we be?
If they are hopeless and despairing enough, they might blow up the factory, office, or the store--and then where would we be?
Or, they might buy into more governmental intervention - when this intervention is sold as hope and happy talk. Why work, when we can pay you a basic income, and we can give you all the drugs and porn that you want to tune out and live out your life as cattle. Don't think about it man, don't worry, let us shoulder all your burdens. You go back to sleep now.
It takes too much effort to blow up the local factory or store, wouldn't it be better if you could just stay at home on the sofa, eating your potato chips, and getting paid for it?
I don't think there is a conspiracy either way here. Having some strong personal connections to media (TV, radio and on-line news) the one thing all producers I've known agree on is that bad news and tales of disaster and woe provide the strongest interest, bringing in the highest potential revenue. Through a lens of perpetual crisis is how news and 'non-fiction' media locate and deliver their narratives.
If you insist on an oligopolistic conspiracy - a divided public that thinks everyone is corrupt and nothing changes is less likely to vote and take actions to maintain civil society. Instead they'll simply look for distractions and buy shit to cheer themselves up.
For me history is at the centre - it is the central science, the central study. In comparison physics seems a simple if quite an esoteric field, mathematics a self-evident logical game with only fairly mechanical complexities etc. etc. About the structure and workings of the subject matters of all natural sciences we understand so much more than about our inexplicable human experience of being in the world. We have next to no penetration of this chaotic process, being immersed in it, seeing only dimly and never far. We have ever more minute comprehension of the nature and dimensions of space-time but have no theory of historical causation.
We can explain the physical universe in the language of hard science but can't do the same for the smallest of historical events. Perhaps that is why we have only a very limited perception of the strangeness of our path, of this mad shooting arc that has brought us to this completely unique new society, only mere decades old. One can only wonder what is yet to come - will the explosion into more complexity continue or will it all come to arupt halt at some stage? In any case there is no control of our direction, we ride a huge wild wave without any meaningful way to influence its course.
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It is interesting to note that so far the attack has mostly concerned the Christian part of the twin pillars: the chipping away of the non-materialist universal values, of compassion and kindness, of charity. The cancer has also manifested in the many perversions of Christianity witnessed today (especially in the US), that have not much common at all with the old universal church and it's traditions variously kept and stressed in the traditional Western and Orthodox denominations (including the church of Rome which is no universal church). Instead there is a kind of mock-"Christianity" as fashioned by Capital: brutal and non-compassionate sanctioning all sorts of moral sacrileges.
Athens, I suppose, remains at the core: the rebellious idea of emancipation and personal liberty. But without the influence of Jerusalem it was a savage, barbarian creed - narrow to the very point of meaninglessness. And it might easily be the next target with this feast of greed and hatred and willful ignorance. For without christian-humanist values why should we be overly concerned with notions of citizens' rights and impartial justice, wouldn't they just be empty, undefended, uncomprehended past citadels then?
Well, this is history - we had lazy days of blind hedonism, minding our private businesses (as one should in a civilized society) but that might prove to be only a temporary pause and now those interested in maintaining the structures of enlightenment and reason might have to find another mode of passion and fighting to defend them.
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There is really much in us that has come via Jerusalem - our vague, christian-agnostic humanism is basically just the New Testament translated into secular society. (In my personal case the connection is of course much stronger coming directly from a background of living, if very liberal, Christianity.) Liberalism, in the end is not a very Greek value. (And we don't hold it in the Greek way, but tepidly, half-heartedly.)
But the basic modern situation: freedom, passion, emptiness, is quite pure Athens. Not that many really would confront it. Some problems do arise in connecting liberal humanistic values with this Nietzschean condition of being in the world, but to my mind there is nothing inherently impossible in achieving a rational balance.
Art also is a very Greek thing - especially in the form where esthetics are seen as fusing with ethics (a view very close to my heart). Art is the central thing, next to it love and justice. Perhaps that is the fusion, our common inheritance - increasingly wasted inheritance, I suppose.
These recollections, echoes are indeed quickly fading. And not only of Athens but of Jerusalem as well, and there is a certain Roman luxury and opulence in our lifestyle, a certain decadence. One does wonder what is to follow all this, what rough beast.
https://stockholmslender.blogspot.com/2016/12/athens-and-jerusalem.html
https://stockholmslender.blogspot.com/2008/02/from-athens-via-jerusalem-to-shopping.html
https://stockholmslender.blogspot.com/2011/09/inheritance-of-athens.html
We wouldn't want to give too much away but actually, blowing things up doesn't take all that much effort. (that was a joke)
I don't think it's a conspiracy either. It's just business as usual.
Quoting Tom Storm
Aka, "If it bleeds it leads." Totally agree. We enjoy watching disasters that don't have anything to do with us. Quoting Tom Storm
Just so you know, my comments were following on @CountVictorClimacusIII's comments, above.
Yes, there's no doubt. With my bachelors degree in civil engineering, I tend t be very sophistomicated in my erotica selection.
Everything else you wrote makes sense. I know two of my three children were not ready for college and neither of them graduated. One is back in school now at 36, which is when I went back to get my degree.
Said the man from Minneapolis.
I've heard, although I don't know the details, that UBI would not cost any more than current welfare programs but would be more effective and much easier to administer. As a pragmatist, that sounds good to me. Even some Republicans are on board. Your homiletic position is all about virtue. I care about results.
"Homiletic" - preaching moral values. I was going to say "moralistic," but I wanted to soften it because I didn't want to be confrontational. Learned a new word in the process. Homiletic, homiletic, homiletic. Feels good to say. Love thesauruses. Thesauri.
The bottom line, old wine in a new bottle.
Minnesota is between Massachusetts and Rhode Island in spending--we are #5. Fine by me; my source for these statistics (American Experiment) lamented that so much was being spent [WASTED!]. Then there is the issue of state funds, federal funds, and NGO programs. Determining amounts spent for what becomes complicated quickly.
Paid for by premiums and investment returns. Private insurers don't pay anything unless they are bankrupt. Indeed, they skim enough off the top between doctor and patient to invest and gain returns for shareholder dividends, plus paying $60k per year to each individual in thousands upon thousands of sky scraper cubicles around the country who stamp "pay/deny" on a form, between posts on FaceBook and emails with family and friends. Don't get me started on CEO pay. Ross Perot would call it a giant sucking sound between you and your doctor.
Also, I want to whine about another point. Why is it when we talk defense and all kinds of other industries, we include the spin-offs of service and product jobs in the nearby community, but when it comes to servicing welfare, we don't count all the downstream beneficiaries? Seems to me if we paid someone $40k per year to burn money, we'd have to offset the loss by the benefits to that employee, his family, the store he spends the $40k at and etc. At least it's staying in the U.S. and trickling out, instead of going to emerging markets overseas and raising a Chinese man's boat from 30 cents an hour to 40 cents an hour, all while sinking boats at home (except for the CEO's nesting doll yacht, of course).
And then we have to deal with that stupid mantra about "Well, there will be winners and losers if this program goes through". As if losers should vote for and support the program in return for retraining opportunities.
Had a few moments and had to rant.
Goodness gracious! Almost 30 years since Ross got his charts out and cited that 'giant sucking sound' from 'South of the Border, Down Mexico Way'. About which he was at least partly correct: There are so many giant sucking sounds, one can be forgiven for not naming all of them.
I wish I had one of those vacuums putting money in my pocket. Well, maybe not. :chin:
Your homiletic position is all about virtue. I care about results.
Fair. We can only really assess these results (and the success or failure of the initiative) when we have sufficient data.
In any case there is no control of our direction, we ride a huge wild wave without any meaningful way to influence its course.
An interesting take. We have only really been able to evaluate in hindsight. We can see where the wave hits the shoreline, but we don't see the wave coming - or, we see it too late.
Instead there is a kind of mock-"Christianity" as fashioned by Capital: brutal and non-compassionate sanctioning all sorts of moral sacrileges... Athens, I suppose, remains at the core: the rebellious idea of emancipation and personal liberty. But without the influence of Jerusalem it was a savage, barbarian creed - narrow to the very point of meaninglessness...there is nothing inherently impossible in achieving a rational balance.
I think here is where the crux of it lies, if we are to interpret it in this way. If we see Christianity as the prevailing worldview, one of rapture / awe, its dying or death has left a vacuum of spirit. Yes, I think emancipation and personal liberty (or these Greek / Athenian values) are vitally important, but with the vacuum of spirit, an imbalance occurs.
This imbalance has to do with our connection to the infinite, as Kierkegaard would put it. The vacuum of an infinite (God / Awe), has left us in a loop of hedonistic despair that has arisen from an imbalance in our self relation (to the finite / infinite). We now end up searching for the infinite in finite things and lose ourselves. What's missing is a new connection to the infinite, one of rapture and awe. Nietzsche suggested that this could potentially be our connection to growth itself. To act as bridges for the elevation of our species, growth as the essence of life. To feel ourselves grow in strength and power in the struggle for growth itself. Interesting proposition, but does it bring the same rapture that a "God" might? Perhaps not. Unless we see ourselves becoming gods.
Agreed.
This imbalance has to do with our connection to the infinite, as Kierkegaard would put it. The vacuum of an infinite (God / Awe), has left us in a loop of hedonistic despair that has arisen from an imbalance in our self relation (to the finite / infinite). We now end up searching for the infinite in finite things and lose ourselves. What's missing is a new connection to the infinite, one of rapture and awe. Nietzsche suggested that this could potentially be our connection to growth itself. To act as bridges for the elevation of our species, growth as the essence of life. To feel ourselves grow in strength and power in the struggle for growth itself. Interesting proposition, but does it bring the same rapture that a "God" might? Perhaps not. Unless we see ourselves becoming gods.
Well, obviously there is a huge hole left by the primitive organized Christianity in our modern Western civilization, blown away fundamentally by very efficient, very much working and amazingly profound and far penetrating natural science - and its considerably less impressive applications. Mad Friedrich lamented this situation too. But I don't think magic tricks and insence would do the trick with our enlightened, rational and technocratic civilization still being around. Obviously if it would collapse we would get after a period of sheer barbarity and bloody chaos a new organized superstition as a certain improvement to the primitive chaos.
(Ps. Getting to be kind of gods through techonology and the end of scarcity would actually be one of the more realistic alternatives to either apocalypse or ever continuing cycle of primitivity and aggression. Iain M. Banks is hopefully a clairvoyant :smile: )
But I don't think magic tricks and insence would do the trick with our enlightened, rational and technocratic civilization still being around
I agree. The idea would be to create a new prevailing worldview that appeals to the enlightened, rational and technocratic individual within us (in the Western sense). Whilst simultaneously, providing the rapture we need for our spirit to thrive.
The Gods through technology is a good alternative.