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Is Western Civilisation in Decline?

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    #46
    Originally posted by Superman Falls View Post
    It's a bit of a headscratcher discussion but I think it's because it's one that is very much informed by perspective.

    For example, it no doubt feels like it's a positive point of view to be concerned about the decline in society and it moving away from a prior paradise state or mankind becoming self-absorbed or destructive of the planet. However there's the counter perspective that it's negative to take that view because it's can be seen as idealistic of the past. There has never been a paradise on earth, there never will be, life in the universe is the briefest and rarest of events and the whole time it's happening it's a brutal battle for survival. From human to animal every day hosts countless acts of cruelty, disease, suffering and death. In terms of time it was the briefest of moments since humans could expect only to live into their thirties, that plagues ran rampant across continents, that leaders lead the genocide of millions on a global scale. They'd only live till probably their twenties at best but you'd have to go back to early man to get to a time when large scale slaughter and resource destruction wasn't on mankinds agenda and that was a time of a tiny global population. That over 7 billion people exist in the current day with access to the facilities and medical knowledge they do, and that warfare has lessened and does so the more developed a nation becomes is a staggering feat of optimism and accomplishment above and beyond anything of the past which is why discussion in threads like this ends up being polarising because each argument frames the other as negative.

    Climate Change is a funny one, the current second wind push has made it a big talking point even if a lot of it is preaching to the choir. Pushing countries that are already reducing their contributions to reduce their contributions rather than looking to the actual worst contributors that continue to rise dramatically unchallenged year on year. It's a bit like the plastic straw ban, campaigners can pat themselves on the back for a couple of years before looking on in horror as deforestation increases and recreates the 80's problems that led to the rise in plastic. Too much focus on quick fixes without due thought put to long term effects. Want air improved by forcing cars to rush into being electric only? Sure thing! But you also better like the sight of those extra Nuclear Power Plants that will be commissioned. Everything carries a price. The plus side is that none of this threatens the Earth, never did. The Earth will endure us all and reclaim any land in just a few short years as nature moves back in via animals or even just plant life.

    That's all something of a detour but it kind of comes back around to the point I'm leading to. Life isn't easy and it never will be, there will always be problems. Modern life is no different and ultimately civilization will have to deal with its problems and larger threats such as climate change etc but if the aim of any generation is to leave the world in a better state for the one that follows it then that process hasn't stopped and life on this planet remains better now than any period before.
    I was smoking my hookah last night (strawberry shisha flavour ) when God popped in and said "Hi" and I said, "Hey there, Fella, it's been a while" and God said "It has" and I said "Do you like 14th century Ethiopian clay pottery?" and God said "Sure. Are you familiar with the similarities between the building techniques of the Ancient Egyptian and Mayan civilisations? and I said "I had heard that's the case, yes" and God said "Has it ever occurred to you that the laws of the universe are not be fixed as is commonly believed but might actually be evolving, albeit so incredibly slowly compared to the age of man and science that it is almost undetectable?" and I said "No, but it sounds plausible".

    We talked deep into the night at great length about several topics and I said "Listen, not many people believe in you these days, what's going on?" and God said "They've lost their sensitivity to what exists separate to the five senses, they believe and trust in form and form only" and I said "I know. But why is that?" and God said "You ask too many questions" and I said "I guess" and God said "Look, if you want to converse with people who love form, who love science, who love proof and rationality and evidence then that is the language you must use to converse with them" and I said "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" and God smiled and said "Do you really want an answer to that?" and then God left.

    So, yes, rather than talk about my feelings and thoughts on the state of society, let us see what science, what rationality, what imperial evidence has to say about the health of the planet and the people on it:

    The percentage of people with obesity has trippled between 1975 and 2016. The rise in consumption of processed foods has seen an epidemic in heart disease and diabetes and today 1 in every 2 people will develop cancer. Narcissm, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and other mental health problems are all on the rise according to statistics. Research carried out by the MET Office warns that core crops like wheat, maize, rice and soy are in such critical risk that there is a real danger of worldwide food shortages. Furthermore the rapid extinction of insects due to pesticides, intensive farming and climate change is threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.

    Our form of democracy is a sham. In a true democracy citizens exercise power by electing representatives from among themselves. A genuine democracy is a government formed by the people for the people. As Aristotle famously remarked "In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme." You only need to see who has the power to see we don't have real democracy.

    Our capitalism is just a refined form of slavery. I'll try and keep this simple. Let's say you work in a place that makes chairs. Now let's say the raw materials and the tools and the equipment for every chair you make costs £100 and let's say that via your work you turn that £100 worth of 'stuff' into a finished chair with a value of £300 (meaning you created £200 of value) are you paid anywhere near the value you created? No. You're paid a pittance compared to the surplus profit. The profit goes to those at the top. But I think it's obvious to everyone capitalism has done. It's put 95% of the world's wealth into 5% of the world's population exactly as intended. In other words it's an awful system for the vast, vast majority of people.

    Taking all that into consideration,is it any wonder that, again, according to data, happiness levels are reportedly in decline as is the general sense of well being?

    Comment


      #47
      Originally posted by Wools View Post
      I disagree as even then, the teachings of these people leaded them to an organised religion with it's trappings of structured thinking and teachings that led people back to a non-existent god.

      In all honesty, I feel you've been poisoned if you've aligned with a religion and taken under their wing. It takes some attempt to withdraw yourself from their spell. The enlightenment you often speak of here is just uttering teachings you've heard from others that lead back to a deity of their own choosing.

      And despite you saying the religion has been twisted by others, I make the argument it was already perverted as the origins of these religions didn't teach love and charity as a single, noble cause; They teach love and charity framed around the cause of their own, made up religion. They didn't become an embodiment of their own teachings, they found salivation through a lord and then promote that lord, whether in a grand gesture or a subtle, underhanded promotional tool, such as charity.

      I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh towards you but I feel you're either acting coy and trying to promote religion through peace and love, or you're naive and feel all teachings about pace, love and charity are noble and should be championed. The former is frightening and should be discarded as an awful way to get a religious agenda through human kindness, the latter is something that is understandable as churches have morphed through the eras to appeal to new demographics, but something that should be called out. It's a Trojan horse that religion uses to appeal to kind and sweet people to recruit new subjects.

      If you're not either of those then I'm unsure of your true purpose as you expel the notion of organised religion, yet you seemingly enjoy reading the teachings of multiple scholars of various religions around the world that promote peace and love. For me, you can't have it both ways, as you're mixing the sermons of religion into the fabric of human spirit and feel the 2 are aligned. If you do, that's subscribing to the notion of religion. That's totally fair and that means you're religious or spiritual, I get that.

      But that's where I unsubscribe from your argument as you mention '...at its roots, it is still a force for wisdom' which I disagree with so strongly. It's not a force for wisdom, it actively works against all that is right with the world and pulls the wool over the eyes of humanity. I'm actively against such a notion that any religion is a force for good.
      No apology needed. I appreciate candidness. Besides which, I was highly skeptical of religion for the first 30 odd years of my life so I'm familiar and sympathetic with the position of non-believers.

      I think it's important to remember that Jesus wasn't a Christian. Nor was Buddha a Buddhist. Religions are born when those who are touched by the goodness or value or benefit in what people like Jesus taught, attempt to capture and propogate it by writing it down in teachings and stories. In trying to capture or convey experiential value in words, of course the essence is missing, but it can still serve as a signpost and a reminder to choose a way of life that leads to direct experience. Ultimately, religions still speak to us.

      I don't consider myself a Buddhist or a Christian or a Muslim or a member of any organised religion (if someone put a gun to my mother's head and told me choose a religion I'd go for Taoism and it's religious-like attitude for naturalness and Nature) but I do enjoy finding the similarities and common wisdom in the world's religions. I think I've said this before but if you look beyond the different cultures and customs and practices of certain religions, there is a common truth - a call to realise the unity in all things.
      Last edited by Zen Monkey; 01-05-2019, 13:04.

      Comment


        #48
        Part of the issue with the direction of this question though probably is the introduction of faith and religion to the talk rather than dealing with the question simply and head on. For example, rising obesity isn't the root cause of 1 in 2 risk of cancer, there's a ton of factors tied in to that statistic not least the scientific achievements of western civilization allowing the general population to live to an advanced age that exposes them to greater odds of having a form of cancer within their lifetime as opposed to dying of the pox aged 27. Even if the two were tied, mankind and civilizations didn't create that suffering, that's the work of nature and if you believe in it 'god'

        The base fact is that what western civilization suffers from is a major case of the First World Problems. It's a glass half empty population raised to seek the negative whilst ignoring the positive. It's great, for example, to care about the environment, but it's also great to live in a time and in a developed world where the normal standard educated person can enjoy being taught to a level capable of even understanding what global warming is (well, not in all cases as Pres Trump displays).

        Basically, the world isn't perfect but where it not for the continued rise of western civilization most of us would be dead already.

        Comment


          #49
          There’s seems to be some religion spilt on the forum, Clean up on isle common sense please.

          Comment


            #50
            Originally posted by Superman Falls View Post
            Part of the issue with the direction of this question though probably is the introduction of faith and religion to the talk rather than dealing with the question simply and head on. For example, rising obesity isn't the root cause of 1 in 2 risk of cancer, there's a ton of factors tied in to that statistic not least the scientific achievements of western civilization allowing the general population to live to an advanced age that exposes them to greater odds of having a form of cancer within their lifetime as opposed to dying of the pox aged 27. Even if the two were tied, mankind and civilizations didn't create that suffering, that's the work of nature and if you believe in it 'god'

            The base fact is that what western civilization suffers from is a major case of the First World Problems. It's a glass half empty population raised to seek the negative whilst ignoring the positive. It's great, for example, to care about the environment, but it's also great to live in a time and in a developed world where the normal standard educated person can enjoy being taught to a level capable of even understanding what global warming is (well, not in all cases as Pres Trump displays).
            The best thing we could do is get rid of our education system. As several essays from leading intellectuals and celebrated thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, Seth Goodin, Richard Wolff and Ken Robinson have pointed out, the primary function of public schooling is training for stupidity, obedience and conformity. We're not sent to school to personally flourish and become truly creative or to think freely or critically; we're sent to school in order to become obedient workers, to accept authority and feel hostility to those who are different. The system of education that we use in the UK (and many other nations) is called the Prussian Model. It was born during the military failings in the Napoleonic Wars when the German kingdom developed an “education” system designed to indoctrinate children, year-by-year, from age 6 to 16, into full compliance with the state and its military leaders. It's the very same school system that produced all those Nazis who followed Hitler so unquestioningly.

            The best thing anyone can do in leaving school is to try and unlearn everything as quickly as possible and I'm deadly serious when I say that. I'm not against a proper education that promotes deep thought, nor do I blame the teachers whose brilliance often shines through despite working in a system designed to dull intelligence, but the format itself is not geared towards serving the people.

            Basically, the world isn't perfect but where it not for the continued rise of western civilization most of us would be dead already.
            Tell that to the families in Egypt and Iraq and Iran and Pakistan and Yemen and Palestine and Libya and Algeria and Panama and Cambodia and Korea and Japan and Vietnam and Zimbabwe and the Congo and the families in all the other countries who lost loved ones due to imperial violence committed in the name of building Western civilisation. Tell that to the families of the black slaves who suffered building our 'beautiful', blood-stained civilisation. It's like all the Americans who hold their so-called 'founding father' George Washington in such high regard, proudly proclaiming that he brought liberty to all. He did no such thing. He was a slave owner. If you were black or a woman or a Mexican or a Native Indian then you had no freedom, nor even the illusion of freedom.

            Forgive me but I don't harbour feelings of loyalty or admiration or devotion towards our civilisation, I don't feel comfortable blowing the trumpet celebrating democracy. I don't expect perfection. I do expect equality. I do expect a society which is a whole lot better than it is now.

            But please know that I ain't havin' at go at you. I hate discussing politics because I'm always reminded how crooked our rulers are and it upsets me. If you want to see just how ruthless our leaders are and the horrors they unleash in the name of profit then watch Oliver Stone's 'Secret History of America' or the 'Zeitgeist' documentaries.

            Here's Groucho Marx to lighten the mood: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.”
            Last edited by Zen Monkey; 02-05-2019, 10:35.

            Comment


              #51
              You’re sliding around topics here. He said most of us, as in those of us in Western civilisation. Also while the effects are still felt today and there are still things being perpetrated today, much of that violence you cite is in the dark and nasty past you reckon we’re not as good as.

              Comment


                #52
                Imperial violence is ongoing. Whether it's the selling of arms to the Saudis and Yemens, the daily drone strikes that kill thousands of innocent civilians or the insertion of secret service operatives into third world countries to sow the seeds of unrest and revolution in order to bring about civil war and famine and poverty so that our governments can ride in on their white stallions and offer financial or military aid on the condition that their elite corporate friends have access to the country's resources, to their crops or their rubber or their copper or their gold.

                Be careful, dude, because the only thing worse than violence is an indifference to violence, is the normalisation of violence.

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                  #53
                  And now you’ve hopped on that train and rode it out of topicsville. I did say that things are still being perpretated. Those were my exact words in that post. And yet still much of what you cited was in the past you glorify. You even said “in the name of building Western civilisation”. So now we’re in a complete turnaround situation where a declining Western civilisation becomes a really good thing and we should all embrace it.

                  And therefore we are still, no matter what way you look at it, in a better situation now.

                  Comment


                    #54
                    I disagree.

                    Comment


                      #55
                      Originally posted by Zen Monkey View Post
                      I disagree.
                      I disagree

                      Comment


                        #56
                        The trouble is specific examples can be brought out both in favour and against western civilization.

                        Education - If it's purpose is to enforce hive minded obedience and to not think independently then you wouldn't get things like all the students pushing for governments to address global warming issues, a subject they're able to make a decision on because western civilization has brought them the education standards and information to be informed about it, the individual civil liberties to speak out about it and the technology to enact that change. You can remove the existing model but you need a replacement, a system of unlearning or heavy emphasis on creativity will lead to an eruption of ignorance and suffering as mankind starts to roll backwards in its progress.

                        Imperial Violence - Is ongoing but like religious violence, nowhere near the scale it has existed to in the past. It's the same with forms of discrimination, slavery etc western civilization has certainly resulted and continues to contribute to all these things but all of them are also in a state of progressive improvement. That bell curve of advancement in practical, physical and social aspects counters the decline position.


                        But, I think fundamentally the issue is the question. I genuinely stand by, that in answer to the question, that western civilization is not in decline. However, I think the tripping point for you Zen is that you're less answering your own question and are instead giving your opinion on a slightly different question:

                        Is Western Civilization a Good Thing?

                        Comment


                          #57
                          Oh, don't for one moment think I'm calling for no education system or government at all. I just want better, fairer systems. Nor do I overlook religious violence. I'm against all violence, including violence towards the violent even when the violent are garbed in klu klux klan clown garb or Nazi uniforms.

                          But let's not forget that talk is cheap. It's very easy for me and anyone else to preach peace, quite a lot harder to put into action when confronted with those who seem so lacking in humanity that your gut instinct is to show none in return. I'll give you an example, I heard a news story on the radio some time last year about a fourteen year old girl who was raped. After the incident she made her way to a road and flagged down a passing car for help whereupon the driver, instead of helping the poor girl in her hour of need, raped her himself. Upon hearing that story I won't pretend my feelings quickly shifted from sympathy towards the girl to hatred for the two men who raped her, to thoughts of violent revenge. So yeah, it's a constant battle, fighting the evil within.

                          Do I think Western civilisation is a good thing? Yes and no. It's done good and bad. It's helped some whilst slaughtering others. I don't yearn for for an abandonment of civilisation. I want a better one. A smarter one. I don't want a world without electrical goods or entertainment but I want them produced in smarter ways. Why can't we build stuff like televisions and stereos and mobile phones modularly so that they can be repaired when they break, so that as technology advances we don't have to throw out the old, we can just replace certain modules (like the screen module, or socket module, or chipset module, and bring it up to date? Why is planned obsolescence built into the very design of our goods? Why is that when I spend a £1000 on a TV (not to mention the cost to the planet in extracting the resources to make it) and it develops a fault three years down the line, I'm told "It can't be repaired, buy a new TV". It's madness.
                          Last edited by Zen Monkey; 02-05-2019, 13:20.

                          Comment


                            #58
                            Originally posted by Zen Monkey View Post
                            But let's not forget that talk is cheap..
                            I guess this leads into: so what are you going to do about it? And by "you" I guess I mean both you personally and you as in all of us. What steps are you taking in order to improve all this and what else should the rest of us be doing? Are there active steps?

                            Obviously some of those problems are massive and systemic and I don't expect you to take down rampant capitalism yourself (unless... no... but then if... no) but what can you do to leave this world at least a little better than you found it?

                            Comment


                              #59
                              I don't know. Draw attention to it. Not look away. Not get so involved in it. Not buy into it so much. Make lifestyle choices and sacrifices that don't feed the systems. Protest. Activism. Try and be a little kinder to everyone? Sometimes I wonder whether all that is just lip service. Whether any of it makes a difference? Who knows. Not me. But then I'm not that smart. I think the most important thing is not to lose hope, not to surrender to feelings of helplessness.

                              Comment


                                #60
                                Kindness is a big one. I'm with you on that one.

                                And yes, not losing hope. That's why I always think it's massively important to see the good too. The bad needs to be recognised and called out but all the amazing things we do as people, as friends, as neighbours should be celebrated because people can be really good to each other too.

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