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WW_III_ANGRY wrote:There was a time, not too long ago, in which decency, decorum, honor and integrity reigned supreme.
WW_III_ANGRY wrote:There was a time, not too long ago, in which decency, decorum, honor and integrity reigned supreme. Those are ones are over for US culture. It has been over an by hordes of the outrageous, attention gained through being crass has become more important. Maybe social media has something to do with the desperation for attention, maybe the lack of parenting. Surely there are a lot of reasons.
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-reach ... se-2017-12
"In The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon luridly evokes the Rome of 408 A.D., when the armies of the Goths prepared to descend upon the city.
The marks of imperial decadence appeared not only in grotesque displays of public opulence and waste, but also in the collapse of faith in reason and science.
The people of Rome, Gibbon writes, fell prey to “a puerile superstition” promoted by astrologers and to soothsayers who claimed “to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity.”
Would a latter-day Gibbon describe today’s America as “decadent”? I recently heard a prominent, and pro-American, French thinker (who was speaking off the record) say just that.
He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment.
I flinched, perhaps because a Frenchman accusing Americans of decadence seems contrary to the order of nature. And the reaction to Harvey Weinstein et al. is scarcely a sign of hysterical puritanism, as I suppose he was implying.
And yet, the shoe fit. The sensation of creeping rot evoked by that word seems terribly apt.
Perhaps in a democracy the distinctive feature of decadence is not debauchery but terminal self-absorption— the loss of the capacity for collective action, the belief in common purpose, even the acceptance of a common form of reasoning.
We listen to necromancers who prophesy great things while they lead us into disaster. We sneer at the idea of a “public” and hold our fellow citizens in contempt. We think anyone who doesn’t pursue self-interest is a fool.
We cannot blame everything on Donald Trump, much though we might want to. In the decadent stage of the Roman Empire, or of Louis XVI’s France, or the dying days of the Habsburg Empire so brilliantly captured in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, decadence seeped downward from the rulers to the ruled.
But in a democracy, the process operates reciprocally."
WW_III_ANGRY wrote:There was a time, not too long ago, in which decency, decorum, honor and integrity reigned supreme.
It is not like nutbags in power positions and systemic sexual harrassers were not present in the [fill in the decade of your choosing], it's that we now how someone with no moutneditor and women coming out in mass via social media on the latter.WW_III_ANGRY wrote:
He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment.
WendyDarling wrote:How can an empire not collapse when it is sustained by hollow idealism?
Karpel Tunnel wrote:It is not like nutbags in power positions and systemic sexual harrassers were not present in the [fill in the decade of your choosing], it's that we now how someone with no moutneditor and women coming out in mass via social media on the latter.WW_III_ANGRY wrote:
He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment.
WW_III_ANGRY wrote:Karpel Tunnel wrote:It is not like nutbags in power positions and systemic sexual harrassers were not present in the [fill in the decade of your choosing], it's that we now how someone with no moutneditor and women coming out in mass via social media on the latter.WW_III_ANGRY wrote:
He was moved to use the word after watching endless news accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets alternate with endless revelations of sexual harassment.
I don't think that's the problem that we are experiencing now though. It is not just those in power. It's everyone.
The smartphone addiction that is accepted as a norm is really quite incredible. I suppose one could call it a kind of decadence. Though hell, decadence should be more physical or why bother. All these people walking around staring into devices, never being where they are.
I think there is some truth in that. But look facebook executives, some with much regret when they explain this, have said they used the latest knowledge from cognitive psychology and neuroscience to make that shit addictive. They set thinks up with sounds and images and emoticons to go direct to certain systems in our souls/brains/minds where we are vulnerable. They did it to make it addictive and it is. The alcoholics first reaching for a shot of whiskey may be similar to reaching out for love, but they will not find love there.pilgrim-seeker_tom wrote:The smartphone addiction that is accepted as a norm is really quite incredible. I suppose one could call it a kind of decadence. Though hell, decadence should be more physical or why bother. All these people walking around staring into devices, never being where they are.
KT ... I shared your opinion about the smart phone phenomenon until yesterday ... let me share my epiphany ... which may be totally worthless.
My conjecture is based on the habit smart phone users have of checking for messages ... it's my impression ... not being a smart phone user ... it almost qualifies as obsessive compulsive behavior.
Why?
It occurred to me yesterday that these people may be starving for love and affection ... and a phone message ... is the closest they get to the real thing.
Just a thought.
Mr Reasonable wrote:In our democracy, most people are poor. Only a small amount of the overall population gets to live really well. How is that decadence?
Mr Reasonable wrote:In our democracy, most people are poor. Only a small amount of the overall population gets to live really well. How is that decadence?
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