Is Western civilization dead?

According to some historians, the Modern age actually ended in the 1970s, and we now live in what is called the "postmodern" age, which is defined by cultural relativism and the belief there is no truth.

The age we now live in, in 2009, is modern on the surface, but something of a new Dark Ages when you look deeper. Ironically, we worship both at the feet of consumerism and individualism at once. For example, getting a generic tattoo everyone else has because it's "self expression".

While the world of 2009 seems progressive on the surface, with rapidly advancing technology and prejudice quickly going out of style, in reality not much has changed at all. Kids still watch the same TV shows they did 10 years ago, listen to the same styles of music they did 20 years ago. People still vote in corrupt parties and accept the status quo, though more and more people seem to be waking up.

You know what's the real proof that Western civilization is dead? The death of pop culture. Pop culture is as prevalent as ever (if not more), but it's less and less relevant. How is the pop culture of 2009 THAT different than the pop culture of the early '90s, aside from being much worse?

Morals are dying. I'm only 19, and I don't want to sound like an Alex P. Keaton, but it's true. Of course, it's been happening for about 40 years, but people really don't have much morals anymore. Just about the only thing that shocks people these days is child molestation. Everything else is "gangsta".

So Western civilization is dying. I hope what replaces it is better.

Originally posted by Donnie Darko
While the world of 2009 seems progressive on the surface, with rapidly advancing technology and prejudice quickly going out of style, in reality not much has changed at all. Kids still watch the same TV shows they did 10 years ago, listen to the same styles of music they did 20 years ago. People still vote in corrupt parties and accept the status quo, though more and more people seem to be waking up.

I beg to differ in regards to your statement of kids watching the same TV shows they did ten years ago and listening to the same music they did 20 years ago. Have you compared current television and music to past decades? Man, what a difference there was. Every decade seems to usher in a new style of art and music and entertainment!

I think you may have a bit of a pessimistic view on things. Once you get out of the suburbs, stop watching tv, and start meeting and talking to people, you'll find that morals haven't died -- pop culture is still relevant and is all around! I think once you start walking away from mainstream media, you'll find a whole world full of people who are ready to do all they can to help the world and their fellow man. You can't judge a book by its cover and all that

It does seem like there's a huge amount of people who've completely bought into media and consumerism and the like -- but there's another huge group of us who aren't on tv or on the radio, and we're making the most amazing art and music you've ever witnessed, discussing topics that are relevant to the world today, and doing all we can to fight ... all this crazy stuff going on in the world today. I mean, welcome to ATS

Like how cars these days, will never increase in value like the cars of the 80s.
Fashion these days is a shadow of the 80s.
Games look appealing, but lack fun unlike 10 years ago.
Etc

In college I took an anthropology class and on the very first test, the very first question asked:

What is Culture?

The answer expected, or as far as my professor was concerned the correct answer was:

Culture is learned.

In a "post modern world" where highly trained specialists have learned just way too much culture, it is fashionable to declare that there is no truth. Yet walk up to anyone making such claims and ask them if they can make change for a five dollar bill. If they can, make sure you get six one dollar bills in exchange and see how truth suddenly exists in a very real and quantifiable way.

The reality of life is that what is true for you is true regardless of the truth, but this is not a post modern phenomenon, it is a universal phenomenon since time immemorial and any one who bothers to live in the present fully aware of their surroundings knows full well there is nothing at all post about now. We are not in some aftermath of a more relevant time, we are in this time and those who are aware, know full well the insidiousness of arguments made that we are less relevant than those who came before us.

We have been taught to question the validity of heroics, to dismiss the efficacy of individual achievement all the while being taught history lessons about individuals who dared to make a difference and that we are but merely the post product of their achievement as if we have no worth towards a meaningful future. They were the individuals of a more modern age than this post modern age of collective complacency. They were the individuals who dared to have audacity and create a modern world that we should merely wallow in their aftermath. They were the seekers of truth who taught us that there really is no truth and what is true for you is true.

Even so, truth still stands unmitigated and unwavering, knowing in its unflappable knowledge that truth, regardless of what you or I believe, is truth. In a post modern world where truth is non existent we still listen to over paid professors yammer on with empty rhetoric and teach us of such venerable men as Aristotle who uttered profound words of empty rhetoric, because in the pre-modern world he lived in, he had the audacity to call a spade a spade and declare that A is A. Later, in a post-pre-modern world, as we are taught, we learn of Shakespeare who took the very same empty rhetoric and uttered even more profoundly that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

We are not taught of these men such as Aristotle and Shakespeare because it is fashionable, for it is not, in this post modern world, not at all fashionable to discuss the meanderings of Aristotle and the iambic pentameters of Shakespeare. We are not taught these utterances of men from an age long gone by because it is our duty to learn such things, we are taught of these men because of what they said, and what they said rings just as true today as it did then. How odd in a post modern world where truth is no more that an A is still an A and roses still smell sweet.

Pop culture is still culture and all culture is, is learned. The questioned should not be what is culture but rather, what is learned? What meaning can learning have when all we learn is that there is no truth and modernity has faded into a bleak and tragic moment of timelessness where nothing is true and nothing is modern and we are but a collective bunch of obligated serfs to those individuals who've taught us all that we are subject to their whims? What good is learning if it contradicts what we all ready know...what we always knew...that truth is truth even if we get it wrong and believe what is not true to be true? We still know, deep down in the dark and desperate caverns of our non existent soul, that truth is truth and that while it may not be very fashionable to have a soul, we know, those of us who know, that we do indeed have a soul.

What good is learning if we can not know the truth? Why waste our time learning when we would be better off remembering what we know? Once we know its time to shed this knowledge that we've learned and return to the modern age of knowing, we will be happier and better for it and a rose will still smell just as sweet.

reply to post by Donnie Darko


This sort of critique has been going on a long time, and really came to a head over a hundred years ago:

Fin de siecle Europe

All the startling discoveries in the sciences (relativity, quantum mechanics), arts (impressionism, cubism, dada, surrealism), music (atonal), philosophy (existentialism, phenomenology), architecture and design (bauhaus, minimalism) were greeted with a "the world is ending" feeling of displacement, moral relativism, and discontinuity with the past.

Nothing's new under the sun. Society's judgment of its own decadence has always happened, and will always happen in the future.

Interesting theory, but living in something, makes it hard to judge.

Everything moves in cycles, and we all know that means peaks, and times of darkness.