The ascendant (or declining?) current state and future of western culture

[ummester]

6 hours ago, Jo498 said:

in any case, even without entertaining such a conservative stance many would agree that e.g. corruption, waste, neglecting of infrastructure, making money by conning and rent seeking more successful than  "honest work" are all bad and signs of decadence. Because they all presuppose that there was a stage when infrastructure was built and kept in good repair and there also has to be considerable productivity and wealth present for the wastefulness to be possible or con artist business models to be successful in the first place.

Indeed - I think you have covered some important elements that help pin down this elusive concept of decadence.

Waste and neglect of infrastructure for sure - these are the points I was on about with wasting food and allowing our cities to fall into disrepair, outward signs of decadence. And of course corruption - I think this corruption can be simplified as 'do the members of society seek primarily to contribute to it or take form it?' In this way a bloated welfare state like Greece is just as decadent as a kleptocractic plutocracy like the US - in either case members of a given society are seeking to take more than they contribute.

Re the points about homologous culture being akin to Nazi-ism, I think that it depends on how race is viewed in relation to culture. Nazi-ism was about genetic purity of Aryans, not socioeconomic purity of a functioning state.

Lets say a culture is founded on these principles:

Anyone can be a citizen. The state will educate all citizens. All citizens will work for at least 60% of their adult life and contribute 25% of their income to the state. If a citizen can not find meaningful work of their own accord, the sate will provide it for them.  If a citizen's life after retirement extends beyond 40% of their adulthood, the state will gently euthanize them.

Say this arrangement works peacefully for hundreds of years and the state goes on to develop and invent incredible things, like the ability to travel time and space. People may start thinking 40% of an adult life is not enough time to enjoy that. There may be a social push to change the euthanasia or work laws. Changing the laws will lessen the structural integrity of the state. Is the state in decline if the laws are changed?

5 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

And isn't the other argument that Greece stopped the "East" (meaning the Persian Empire) from pushing on into Europe? 

Yes, that is likely another aspect.

[Equilibrium]

Both western culture and western civilization are omnipresent and unstoppable now, as there are no rival cultures and no outsiders that can threaten it. It is also constantly evolving, and there are people who think of that as ascending of declining, but it really is point of view. Cyclical cultural trends are social counterpart of Newton's Third Law. Much is relative and even if we know how people lived in the past it's hard to know how they felt about it, like the old Hollywood paradigm of lonely miserable rich people and happy and loving poor people, maybe medieval peasant were far more content and happy with their lives. 

Even today how may homeless or really poor people would rather be coal miners during robber baron capitalism or even slaves on the plantations. You don't appreciate freedom when you are hungry, dirt poor, and afraid about your existence or even worse when that freedom made you so. That is why it's Maslow's Hierarchy of needs not Maslow's list of equally important things.

It's important not to confuse western culture and civilization with democracy, as West was very undemocratic just a few decades ago, democracy may go into a corner in the future and equality we have today (yeah right we have it) may vanish but it will still be the same culture and same civilization, just evolving and going into another direction from what we see now.

[ummester]

2 hours ago, Equilibrium said:

Both western culture and western civilization are omnipresent and unstoppable now

Surely that kind of statement is arrogant, at the least naive. And surely, at it's height, the Roman's thought their civilisation was omnipresent and unstoppable also.

Alternatively, people could just cling to the dream of something already dead, or a cause already lost, because they know no better.

2 hours ago, Equilibrium said:

It's important not to confuse western culture and civilization with democracy, as West was very undemocratic just a few decades ago, democracy may go into a corner in the future and equality we have today (yeah right we have it) may vanish but it will still be the same culture and same civilization, just evolving and going into another direction from what we see now.

Yes, I did think revisiting ideas in this thread with definitions was important.

Culture is generally defined as the artistic achievements of a society, or the customs and behaviour of individuals within that society. Therefore, all one has to do to show that culture is in decline is that the rate of artistic achievement is decreasing or the customs and behaviour of individuals is becoming worse for society.

Therefore it is not possible to discuss cultural decline without defining society. Surely, simply defined, society is any group of people existing together in some orderly fashion. Civilisation just seems to happen when society gets big.

Democracy is just an ideology of how to govern a given society, or civilisation - and given that it is inclusive of customs and behaviour, vould be termed part of culture. It's all fairly entwined.

Had a discussion with a workmate about the decline of Western Culture and they raised an interesting point - it started either with the Age of Enlightenment or the French Revolution. Western democracy may be part of it's decline, rather than the result of some kind of ascending society. Their reasoning was that, just as GrekoRoman civilisation developed cultural norms around the Hellenic pantheon, so to did Western culture develop cultural norms around Christianity and those norms started to be disestablished long before now.

My workmate suggested we are in the late stages of Western cultural decline and doesn't know quite yet what we are heading into. Would a Roman in 300 AD have known that Christianity was going to control the way the world turned for millennia to come?

[Equilibrium]

13 minutes ago, ummester said:

Surely that kind of statement is arrogant, at the least naive. And surely, at it's height, the Roman's thought their civilisation was omnipresent and unstoppable also.

Alternatively, people could just cling to the dream of something already dead, or a cause already lost, because they know no better.

Yes, I did think revisiting ideas in this thread with definitions was important.

Culture is generally defined as the artistic achievements of a society, or the customs and behaviour of individuals within that society. Therefore, all one has to do to show that culture is in decline is that the rate of artistic achievement is decreasing or the customs and behaviour of individuals is becoming worse for society.

Therefore it is not possible to discuss cultural decline without defining society. Surely, simply defined, society is any group of people existing together in some orderly fashion. Civilisation just seems to happen when society gets big.

Democracy is just an ideology of how to govern a given society, or civilisation - and given that it is inclusive of customs and behaviour, vould be termed part of culture. It's all fairly entwined.

Had a discussion with a workmate about the decline of Western Culture and they raised an interesting point - it started either with the Age of Enlightenment or the French Revolution. Western democracy may be part of it's decline, rather than the result of some kind of ascending society. Their reasoning was that, just as GrekoRoman civilisation developed cultural norms around the Hellenic pantheon, so to did Western culture develop cultural norms around Christianity and those norms started to be disestablished long before now.

My workmate suggested we are in the late stages of Western cultural decline and doesn't know quite yet what we are heading into. Would a Roman in 300 AD have known that Christianity was going to control the way the world turned for millennia to come?

Well we know better then Romans, don't we, since there are no barbarians in our frontiers and all the rival civilizations are westernized to the extent they don't pose credible threat at least in existantial sense to Western civilization, they can influence it, sure, but replace it, no way.

I don't think that is the case, Western culture is direct continuation of Greco-Roman culture, and while now secularized Christianity left enormous influence on Western culture, it is in a sense Christianized Greco-Roman culture, and every change makes it slightly different so compound changes sine French Revolution produced seemingly vast difference, while it was just a natural evolution.

[ummester]

1 minute ago, Equilibrium said:

Well we know better then Romans, don't we, since there are no barbarians in our frontiers and all the rival civilizations are westernized to the extent they don't pose credible threat at least in existantial sense to Western civilization, they can influence it, sure, but replace it, no way.

Do we, really? Could Muslim terrorists be considered analogous to Roman barbarians in the fullness of time? And believe me, I have no problem with this next point, I don't even like the direction Western civilisation is heading, so have no interest in protecting it's cultural purity, but could the influx of Muslim and Asian peoples into most Western cities be considered analogous with the influx of Germanic, Slavic and Christian peoples into ancient Rome?

Civilisations don't get replaced overnight.

13 minutes ago, Equilibrium said:

I don't think that is the case, Western culture is direct continuation of Greco-Roman culture, and while now secularized Christianity left enormous influence on Western culture, it is in a sense Christianized Greco-Roman culture, and every change makes it slightly different so compound changes sine French Revolution produced seemingly vast difference, while it was just a natural evolution.

Yes, I would agree that culture is, in the long term, a constantly evolving thing - have you seen this graphic:

http://i.imgur.com/DEUq4QT.jpg

More or less sums up not only the theological guiding force for humanity but the major cultural influences also. It's possible that civilisation, not culture itself, is the thing that rises and falls constantly.

So I guess the question is more is Western Civilisation in terminal decline - are Western cities and so forth either deteriorating or diverging enough for their Western roots to be considered in decline?

[Equilibrium]

11 minutes ago, ummester said:

Do we, really? Could Muslim terrorists be considered analogous to Roman barbarians in the fullness of time? And believe me, I have no problem with this next point, I don't even like the direction Western civilisation is heading, so have no interest in protecting it's cultural purity, but could the influx of Muslim and Asian peoples into most Western cities be considered analogous with the influx of Germanic, Slavic and Christian peoples into ancient Rome?

Civilisations don't get replaced overnight.

Yes, I would agree that culture is, in the long term, a constantly evolving thing - have you seen this graphic:

http://i.imgur.com/DEUq4QT.jpg

More or less sums up not only the theological guiding force for humanity but the major cultural influences also. It's possible that civilisation, not culture itself, is the thing that rises and falls constantly.

So I guess the question is more is Western Civilisation in terminal decline - are Western cities and so forth either deteriorating or diverging enough for their Western roots to be considered in decline?

No, they are to few and they are too impotent to pose a threat. If anyone in power (or enough of people without it) viewed terrorist as anything but a nuisance, they would be dealt with long ago. While your second point obviously varies from person to person and depends on the place of origin I would say the majority of newcomers to the West are very westernized, especially Asians from smaller countries.

You should read Norbert Elias Civilizing Process, it was written long time ago, but I think you would like the trend it presents, civilization is by no means fixed term with single meaning, but you could make a case for some kind of decline, while that same decline is most likely part of cyclical movement rather then ultimate downfall.

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, Equilibrium said:

No, they are to few and they are too impotent to pose a threat. If anyone in power (or enough of people without it) viewed terrorist as anything but a nuisance, they would be dealt with long ago. While your second point obviously varies from person to person and depends on the place of origin I would say the majority of newcomers to the West are very westernized, especially Asians from smaller countries.

You should read Norbert Elias Civilizing Process, it was written long time ago, but I think you would like the trend it presents, civilization is by no means fixed term with single meaning, but you could make a case for some kind of decline, while that same decline is most likely part of cyclical movement rather then ultimate downfall.

I have to agree with this. We are the melting pot. Go spend a weekend in places like Dearborn, Michigan or many of our large metro areas (Miami, Seattle, NYC, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.) and you will see immigrants from all corners of the globe being absorbed like a sponge.

It doesnt matter whether these immigrants are Lebanese, Vietnamese, Guatamalian, Cuban, Ghanese, Muslim, Buddhist or Atheist, within a generation they are absorbed and part of the fabric of our evolving, advancing culture. Or better yet go find the most remote possible Amazonian jungle tribe and look at what their children are wearing.......chances are at least one of them will be sporting a Rolling Stones or Nirvana Tee Shirt. Thats the way of it and its not changing anytime soon. Because what is enveloping everything is a sponge, the sponge doesnt decline very easily, it just absorbs and swells. You can get Sushi at your neighborhood 7/11 convenience store in some neighborhoods, we absorb steadily and it just adds to the mural.

Despite the rightwing propaganda that wants one to believe in a Muslim/Sharia boogeyman, this is what Dearborn really looks like- 

A normal well adjusted American community that illustrates the absorbtion. this community has been home to Middle Eastern ethnic families for decades. My Junior High Vice Principal and High School Sociology (both Lebanese) teacher from this community and they didnt even convert us to ISIS.

[Jo498]

Take the society described in Huxley's Brave New World. Suppose it encompasses the entire planet and there is no barbarian threat. It is obviously a descendant of Western culture. Would not many say that it also decadent, dehumanized, dystopic? I think we are obviously much closer to that vision than we were in the 1930s when it was written (I wonder if today's teenagers would even agree that the vision is dystopic) and many of today's cultural critics/pessimists think more along such lines, or at least consider this aspect as relevant as possible outside threats.

[ummester]

Dystopic - another word that has been somehow devalued in these past 20-30 years, making what it stands for more digestible. Huxley's world vision did at least present something sustainable, with population control.

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

Because Shakespeare wasn't a sarcastic misanthrope, was he?

 

Similar to Brave New World, have you read Jennifer Government Jo? The concept of having to give a credit card number before the ambulance attends, even for an injured person you do not know, still unnerves me - because it is such a logical place for medical services to go - 'until we get payment, we aren't even firing the machine up'.

[Jo498]

It might be sustainable (such mundane stuff is simply not discussed in the book AFAIR). Sustainability on a limited planet is of course another important point where we see parallels with empires of the past but their problems were of course more local (like Rome depending on grain from Egypt).

I suspect that many things that were clearly intended as bad or at least decadent for Huxley and this way of thinking was still quite common when I read this in the late 1980s are today often viewed as desirable. Maybe not yet biotechnologically generated castes but designer babies, transhumanism (one aspect of which could correspond to something like genetically optimized "alphas" while not "transhuman" in the strictest sense), euthanasia etc. are all considered good by some people. We do not lock up Shakespeare's works but our BNW-style mass entertainment is sufficiently powerful to put "high culture" into niches (and the very concept of high culture has become dubious) etc.

Anyway, I mainly mentioned this to show that there are widespread conceptions of "decadence" that could be used to characterize a society/culture as in decline, regardless of external or "hard" economical/ecological threats to its stability. In BNW the society seems stable enough.

I was not aware of "Jennifer Government" -  sounds interesting, I will try to get a copy.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

17 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I have to agree with this. We are the melting pot. Go spend a weekend in places like Dearborn, Michigan or many of our large metro areas (Miami, Seattle, NYC, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.) and you will see immigrants from all corners of the globe being absorbed like a sponge.

It doesnt matter whether these immigrants are Lebanese, Vietnamese, Guatamalian, Cuban, Ghanese, Muslim, Buddhist or Atheist, within a generation they are absorbed and part of the fabric of our evolving, advancing culture. Or better yet go find the most remote possible Amazonian jungle tribe and look at what their children are wearing.......chances are at least one of them will be sporting a Rolling Stones or Nirvana Tee Shirt. Thats the way of it and its not changing anytime soon. Because what is enveloping everything is a sponge, the sponge doesnt decline very easily, it just absorbs and swells. You can get Sushi at your neighborhood 7/11 convenience store in some neighborhoods, we absorb steadily and it just adds to the mural.

 

This is basically where I see the world headed over the next few centuries. 'Western Culture' will essentially become a melting pot of all world cultures, very similar to what we have today. Take music for instance, go visit any country today and their popular music in a lot of cases will be very similar to western pop music, but with a specific domestic twist. I can go to spain, turkey, bulgaria, thailand and everything is slowly becoming homogenous. 

Yes there have been huge backlashes to globalisation recently, Trump and Brexit being symptoms, but its a technology led idea. We are global as a society because we CAN be. We can travel anywhere in a day and that will become quicker and quicker. We can communicate across the globe in an instant. The world is smaller and everyone is sharing and merging into one big pot. Where there are divisions its becoming less and less about Nationalities and more about political views or which tribe you feel you belong in. 

As for decadence, I'm not quite sure what we are classing as decadent, and can that ever be an impirical definition or just an opinion based on your own personal political view. 

 

[Jo498]

Of course it can usually not be empirical in the sense of a physical experiment and cultural decadence is obviously dependent on a certain historical position. But decaying infrastructure would be an empirical data point most would agree on, no matter what they think about the relative merits of Shakespeare vs. GoT

Again, take the Brave New World society. Until maybe 20-30 years ago, I guess almost everyone who read this book would have viewed the obsession with shallow entertainment (and a huge entertainment industry), the Soma use, the sexual libertinage and the banning of "Great Books" as evidence of decadence. (And several of those points would be the same ones writers would have seen as decadent from ancient Greece and China on. It's a perennial complaint through at least 2500 years and across many cultures.)

Travel actually has not become much faster in the last 3 decades (in the West, of course it might have become faster in regions that were below the infrastructure level Western Europe or the US had in ca. 1970-80). We abolished supersonic air travel, largely abolished monorail magnetic trains (there are some but it does not look as if they would become common any time soon), greatly reduced space travel (this might bounce back but I am sceptical) and are basically on a plateau with what seems an "optimal" travel speed (fast trains in France and Japan, subsonic air travel) since the 1980s.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Quote

The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, or skill at governing among the members of the elite of a very large social structure, such as an empire or nation state.

Well if we mean infrastructure as is general amenieties, schools, hospitals roads, rail etc.. then ok we can discuss that. I'm not seeing any evidence that those elements are getting progressively worse. In the UK I grew up in the 80s and the trains were awful, NHS was never that great, schools were pretty bad etc. But IMO things have improved. There is certainly no dramatic decline there. I don't see that in the US either. Things have stayed relatively the same or improved for some. If you want to see rapid decline go to the southern european countries hit by the Euro fallout. 

Its also difficult to say whether improvements in infrastructure mean anything. I've been to Eastern European countries and seen that most of their infrastructure was built during the very worst periods of centralised rule. Its easier to get large projects done when power is centralised like that, open democracies have trouble starting huge infrastructure projects. 

 

 

Decadence as defined above is obviously morally subjective. But if we look at using the above definitions:

1) Decay in Morals. You could potentially say this was true, but again is totally subjective. We live in a world of market freedom, where the self is good and the market is supposed to provide for the rest of society because of our own selfishness. I'd say people are possibly more selfish, but whats actually happened is that family and local groups have been separated and everyone is living in much smaller social groupings. Previously people were still selfish but looked after those closest to them. However I think charity donations are going up, people are looking for ways to fulfil themselves outside of work by helping others. Its debatable that morals have declined. The internet is full of social justice warriors who want to bang on about morals, so people are wanting to be moral.

I'd exclude sexual freedom from morals as well, as that is something that pushed onto us by a previous need to keep marriages together due to resource scarceness and working traditions. 

2) Dignity. Again subjective. I think most people have a level of dignity.

3) Religion. Irrelevant in a modern society.

4) Skill at governing. Well this is a difficult one, but for me a society that has a more open democracy will always be better off than those which have more centralised, harder to change societies. Its arguable the system we have is becoming less democratic because power is being taken out of the hands of governments and into those who have money. Its probably no different to how things were before however, we tend to have rose tinted glasses as to the past. But there is a move towards smaller more local governance and that might be a good thing.

 

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

 

Travel actually has not become much faster in the last 3 decades (in the West, of course it might have become faster in regions that were below the infrastructure level Western Europe or the US had in ca. 1970-80).

That doesn't mean it won't become faster, we are almost the point of commercial space travel and things will only get faster. The internet has created a global society more than anything.

[ummester]

29 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well if we mean infrastructure as is general amenieties, schools, hospitals roads, rail etc.. then ok we can discuss that. I'm not seeing any evidence that those elements are getting progressively worse. In the UK I grew up in the 80s and the trains were awful, NHS was never that great, schools were pretty bad etc. But IMO things have improved. There is certainly no dramatic decline there. I don't see that in the US either. Things have stayed relatively the same or improved for some. If you want to see rapid decline go to the southern european countries hit by the Euro fallout. 

The decay in Western infrastructure and public services is proved by a simple equation - there is less to go around. Class sizes are bigger, hospitals are more crowded, roads are more full - if our infrastructure was not in decline, it would keep up with the needs of the population and offer a similar, if not better service per person than it has previously.

38 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

1) Decay in Morals. You could potentially say this was true, but again is totally subjective. We live in a world of market freedom, where the self is good and the market is supposed to provide for the rest of society because of our own selfishness. I'd say people are possibly more selfish, but whats actually happened is that family and local groups have been separated and everyone is living in much smaller social groupings. Previously people were still selfish but looked after those closest to them. However I think charity donations are going up, people are looking for ways to fulfil themselves outside of work by helping others. Its debatable that morals have declined. The internet is full of social justice warriors who want to bang on about morals, so people are wanting to be moral.

The selfishness is an important aspect. Yet, when considering cultural decline/or a given civilisation's decline, I think all that matters is selfishness compared to broader society - as a whole are the people of a society/culture/civilisation taking more from it than what they give back. It's not even a matter of perspective - just whether the behaviour adds to or subtracts from the social group individuals are part of, overall. The rise of consumerism and individualism in the 70s kind of puts this one to rest  but just in case there is any doubt:

These people are not fleeing from a natural disaster, or even fighting in a war. They are shopping  They are preying to the only god they have left, in the only temple they have known - the Mall.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

6 minutes ago, ummester said:

The decay in Western infrastructure and public services is proved by a simple equation - there is less to go around. Class sizes are bigger, hospitals are more crowded, roads are more full - if our infrastructure was not in decline, it would keep up with the needs of the population and offer a similar, if not better service per person than it has previously.

 

Yet at the same time more people are going to university, people are living longer, sickness and ill health are decreasing. The ways people are being educated and treated are different. 

 

9 minutes ago, ummester said:

 

The selfishness is an important aspect. Yet, when considering cultural decline/or a given civilisation's decline, I think all that matters is selfishness compared to broader society - as a whole are the people of a society/culture/civilisation taking more from it than what they give back. It's not even a matter of perspective - just whether the behaviour adds to or subtracts from the social group individuals are part of, overall. The rise of consumerism and individualism in the 70s kind of puts this one to rest  but just in case there is any doubt:

In what way are people giving less to society than they are taking back? I'm not sure I follow. 

Plus when did any population 'give' more to its society than it took back? And why is that a good thing. You could say that old medieval societies were full of people giving more than they took, yet that wasn't progressive or even a good thing, and didn't lead to any less of a decaying society. 

You could say the 70% tax rates of the 1970s led to more people giving back than they took, but that didn't help society at all, it actually made things worse. 

Could you go into more detail as to why you think consumerism and individualism will caused a deterioration of western culture.

[ummester]

6 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Could you go into more detail as to why you think consumerism and individualism will caused a deterioration of western culture.

It already has - it's not a matter of will. Did you see the video?

7 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yet at the same time more people are going to university, people are living longer, sickness and ill health are decreasing. The ways people are being educated and treated are different. 

And university is turning out more closed minded students. They are like conveyor belts for degrees now, no longer places of higher learning and open discussion.

Are people happier with their longer life? Is mental sickness decreasing along with the physical?

12 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Plus when did any population 'give' more to its society than it took back? And why is that a good thing. You could say that old medieval societies were full of people giving more than they took, yet that wasn't progressive or even a good thing, and didn't lead to any less of a decaying society. 

It did lead to less of a decaying society - it evolved. It had forward momentum, albeit slowly.

Progressive is more than just modern spin on social values - progressive is forward momentum. The only real forward momentum our species has now is technological, everything else is stagnant or in reverse.

14 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

In what way are people giving less to society than they are taking back? I'm not sure I follow. 

Many ways, in many facets. Manufacturing, that longer life you talked about (also leading to longer retirement and more taking). Wastage of food and the like as mentioned before. There is no balance, the mindset is consume, take, pay attention to me.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

32 minutes ago, ummester said:

It already has - it's not a matter of will. Did you see the video?

 

Yes. It just shows what happens when you create a shortage of something and increase demand. Thats hardly the deterioration of western society is it. Lets not exaggerate whats happening here. Plus you can't just look at incidences of people doing things you don't like and say that an entire society is crumbling.  It doesn't work like that. If you could actually write down WHY you think that consumerism is makign society crumble I'd be interested to hear it. Personally I think there are issues with it, but they are economic ones. 

 

Quote

And university is turning out more closed minded students. They are like conveyor belts for degrees now, no longer places of higher learning and open discussion.

Are people happier with their longer life? Is mental sickness decreasing along with the physical?

Yes you could say that, I think Uni tends to turn everyone into a left wing crusader, people who don't really think too much about their actual opinions before getting angry at others. Degrees might mean less now, but more people are educated than ever before. Thats progression.

Are people unhappier? What causes happiness or unhappiness. Status Anxiety is a great book, one thing that stood out in that book was that the peasants were often happy because their status in life was fixed, they had no worries other than feeding themselves. As modern western people almost all of our needs are met, and with that creates the need to find something to be unhappy about. We want to be better than our neighbour or have more money. But thats not true unhappiness, its a discovery that our lives have very little meaning, or we havent discovered a meaning. Of course we could add in false meaning, like religion but that would lying to ourselves.

 

Quote

It did lead to less of a decaying society - it evolved. It had forward momentum, albeit slowly.

Progressive is more than just modern spin on social values - progressive is forward momentum. The only real forward momentum our species has now is technological, everything else is stagnant or in reverse.

It evolved yes. But why? Not because people were giving more to it. It evolved because of science, or external shocks (plague, wars) a different way of viewing religion etc. 

There were some societies that had forward momentum, that thought they were building towards something amazing.. they had great leaders looking to make a change and get everyone moving in the same directions.. you know, Hitler, Stalin, Mao.. turns out that was all total bullshit in the end, and millions died. 

 

Quote

Many ways, in many facets. Manufacturing, that longer life you talked about (also leading to longer retirement and more taking). Wastage of food and the like as mentioned before. There is no balance, the mindset is consume, take, pay attention to me.

I'm not sure why Manufacturing keeps coming up as an example of something we have lost. This is the 21st century now, the age of information and ideas. Sure some people are still making the tins you use or the plastic toys your kids play with, but so what. The world has become segmented into different markets and people produce different things, and have different jobs. How is a factory producing Pins superior to a creative agency who produce ideas. Its not. People need and pay for both. That is capitalism. Its an exchange of value. 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Its change, is the change for better or worse? It depends on how you measure. Im the eternal optimist that always takes the long run view. Take urban blight, as a child of the rust belt, this is an area I have some familiarity with. When I see an abandoned building my long run view sees a space going back to green. There are plots in some urban areas where people are now farming , growing produce on plots that were formerly redundant (cookie cut) row houses or polluting manafacturing enterprises. There are sections in Detroit that locals refer to as the "woods" because, as the population has moved to the Sunbelt, the spaces left behind are being recaptured by mother nature.

A city of 3 million becomes 500,000, as paint chips and iron rusts people bemoan that change, but its simply the economic law of rents playing out. The conservationist in me sees earth going back to green as the ,slow but sure, beautification of that space.

As the population abandons the infrastructure, it is reclaimed by Deer, Coywolfs, Beaver, an other indigenous species that were previously crowded out. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&q=detroit+wildlife+returning&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUoOfGw9rOAhWE7yYKHYd-BLwQ1QIIhwEoAA&biw=1024&bih=728 

For me, that is progress. It all depends on whether one is more a fan of a Trump tower or the call of Loons comfortably patrolling a area that humans have left. Some would choose to visit Vegas and think theyve visited the Southwest, tragically missing the splendor of Zion or Bryce just a short drive away. People are focused on different things, as I said in the begining its in how you measure.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

24 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Its change, is the change for better or worse? It depends on how you measure. Im the eternal optimist that always takes the long run view. Take urban blight, as a child of the rust belt, this is an area I have some familiarity with. When I see an abandoned building my long run view sees a space going back to green. There are plots in some urban areas where people are now farming , growing produce on plots that were formerly redundant (cookie cut) row houses or polluting manafacturing enterprises. There are sections in Detroit that locals refer to as the "woods" because, as the population has moved to the Sunbelt, the spaces left behind are being recaptured by mother nature.

A city of 3 million becomes 500,000, as paint chips and iron rusts people bemoan that change, but its simply the economic law of rents playing out. The conservationist in me sees earth going back to green as the ,slow but sure, beautification of that space.

As the population abandons the infrastructure, it is reclaimed by Deer, Coywolfs, Beaver, an other indigenous species that were previously crowded out. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&q=detroit+wildlife+returning&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUoOfGw9rOAhWE7yYKHYd-BLwQ1QIIhwEoAA&biw=1024&bih=728 

For me, that is progress. It all depends on whether one is more a fan of a Trump tower or the call of Loons comfortably patrolling a area that humans have left. Some would choose to visit Vegas and think theyve visited the Southwest, tragically missing the splendor of Zion or Bryce just a short drive away. People are focused on different things, as I said in the begining its in how you measure.

 

good post. I agree with that. I think my problem  with this discussion is that it comes from a starting point that one set of values is good and one is bad, even if not explicitly mentioned. All we are really talking about is change. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

38 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

good post. I agree with that. I think my problem  with this discussion is that it comes from a starting point that one set of values is good and one is bad, even if not explicitly mentioned. All we are really talking about is change. 

It seems heavy on short term snapshots that aent very useful for looking at long run subjects like the rise or fall of cultures. Over those rise or falls will be several peaks and valleys that shouldnt be confused with permanent trajectory imo.