Have cultural standards gotten lower?

[Avon]

the difference is old people now have access to the intenet to spread their tedious 'in my day..' rose-tinted nostalgia bullshit to the world.

also that elephant webcomic was terrible.

 

[Triskelion]

I bet we could take a sample from every generation of someone bitching about how culture is degrading, starting with Plato (which is the is the earliest example of which I know), through to today, and prove something -- though I doubt it would be the perpetual down-spiral into buffoonish mediocrity the authors attempt to project.

This is going to sound harsh, so I want to preface it by saying that I mean no disrespect, because many people whom I admire greatly throughout history have expressed the same viewpoint as the OP and some other people in this thread, however, it is indeed the very prolific nature of this observation that demonstrates how ridiculous it is. Honestly, I find the question funny -- the notion that simply because pop culture doesn't suit one's tastes means we are living in some kind of cultural and artistic dark age is so blatantly egotistic and so void of perspective as to be laughable. Pop culture always regresses to the mean. That's why it's popular! If you're too out of touch to find the awesome, innovative, and intelligent art, music, and drama that's being made these days then, like these seemingly endless rants about the seemingly endless devolution of humanity, it says more about you than it does about anything else.

This is going to sound harsh - but this post reminds me of Naomi Wildman saying "It's a small ship." She has limited basis for comparison. Still, you're an awesome person and I respect you. I just don't share your generalized assessment. Talk to me in a couple decades.

I, on the other hand, mean every disrespect to people who have the gall to claim the rest of the world is "going through a dark age" because popular media is full of mediocrity, while at the same time shamelessly advertising his crappy webcomic.

I think my irony detector just went off scale.

Who are you referring to? The OP? Advertising refers to monetization. Sharing refers to free distribution of hobby activities. Not quite the same thing as mainstream culture, but points for trying.

If you were referring to my links, I wrote those while living a life around the planet. A small oasis of familiar experience in a bewildering mass of alien humanity - far outside my little culture that used to seem like the whole world. If you haven't tried it, you should.


I didn't mean to put the young people here on the defensive. Of course young people have a right to self-expression, same as anybody else. I'm not trying to start a generational dichotomy, although that does seem to arise.

I was devouring Plato before some here were born. Those facts do not inform my perspective, they had already been assimilated along with decades of others. Still, a black belt can learn from a green belt. Absolutely. Certainly the green belt does not have to learn from the black belt.


Generation gap aside, concerns about culture don't equate condemnations. I am sorry if people feel I was condemning them, I wasn't. I am instead asking questions - something Google can't do - about what contemporary culture may be depriving the younger generation of without their knowledge or informed consent.

Thanks for responding all! I am learning from each post.

 

[thestrangequark]

I bet we could take a sample from every generation of someone bitching about how culture is degrading, starting with Plato (which is the is the earliest example of which I know), through to today, and prove something -- though I doubt it would be the perpetual down-spiral into buffoonish mediocrity the authors attempt to project.

This is going to sound harsh, so I want to preface it by saying that I mean no disrespect, because many people whom I admire greatly throughout history have expressed the same viewpoint as the OP and some other people in this thread, however, it is indeed the very prolific nature of this observation that demonstrates how ridiculous it is. Honestly, I find the question funny -- the notion that simply because pop culture doesn't suit one's tastes means we are living in some kind of cultural and artistic dark age is so blatantly egotistic and so void of perspective as to be laughable. Pop culture always regresses to the mean. That's why it's popular! If you're too out of touch to find the awesome, innovative, and intelligent art, music, and drama that's being made these days then, like these seemingly endless rants about the seemingly endless devolution of humanity, it says more about you than it does about anything else.

This is going to sound harsh - but this post reminds me of Naomi Wildman saying "It's a small ship." She has limited basis for comparison. Still, you're an awesome person and I respect you. I just don't share your generalized assessment. Talk to me in a couple decades.

Tell me, can you actually argue any of the points I made? Or are you just going to continue waving your Kids These Days banner in my face? The truth is that the insights you had in your original post have been had by countless other people from every generation in recorded history, and yet art and science continue to progress. You seriously lack perspective if you think the handful of years you have on me (or may not have on me -- I have no idea what age you are -- do you even know what age I am?) lend you any greater insight over a cultural phenomenon spanning all of recorded human history. Or are you arguing that people haven't been whining about the devolution of culture for the past 2500 years?

That being said, I'll totally defer to your wisdom if I ever need to learn to drive a stick.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

So there is a price to pay in the way we use our technology to produce music and other media, and part of it is that while people can become known much more easily, they can also lose it all just as quickly. Flash in the pan, I believe, will become more common as our technology and time move forward.

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."
-- Andy Warhol (1968)

I think we're there.

 

[sidious618]

Kanye is a talented but not to my taste. However, just because something isn't to my taste doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad. I'm not a fan of the show Girls but it's undeniably an intriguing show. I just can't get through a Cormac McCarthy book even though he's clearly talented. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's bad.

 

[Triskelion]

^ Yes, you're right. And you're talking to someone who lived in a collectivist society for a very long time, and who appreciates the significance of individual thought and validity of opinion. Equality of rights, certainly - but not equality of opinion.

I'm not just saying it's bad, or invalid business, or that Kanye has no right to perform. I am saying he would have been kicked in the ass out of my high school music classes, and if people think that's talent, then they are ignorant about musical ability. Of course, stars aren't made of talent alone. I'd say audacity is a far more useful trait.

I do not fault ignorance. I personally am ignorant about a great deal, even in my own field. However, I would go to war against willful ignorance. Willful ignorance is the stuff of inhuman tragedies.

Anyway I just heard 2 songs by him so it's not like I'm summarily judging him. I'm happily proven wrong about such things. He is not the symbol of my argument. It was a glib example to illustrate a larger point - made half in jest - but taken as some sort of ageist attack, so be it, it's really none of my business what people hear or whether they understand what they hear.



I am not saying "The Bounds of Mediocrity are shifting! Waah!"

I am asking, are the bounds of mediocrity shifting?

If the question puts people ill at ease - damn good. I'll take condemnation and caricaturization as encouragement that the question needs to be asked.


Oh, and in addition - some of the issues I grappled with in my experience as an individualist in a collectivist society - raising a child globe-straddling, dealing with the harsh historical realities of collectivistic oppression - are hashed out in satire in my crappy "web comic" - a novel, actually - which will outlive me and inform, I would hope, others beyond my lifespan. Read "Seven in Red" (CH 33). You'll find my take on some issues that could otherwise have gotten my household into very real trouble, were it not couched in satire. I didn't write it for acceptance. I wrote it for myself. And I wrote it - not from crappy daydreams - but from living experience.

But if all people can see is a "crappy web comic" - that is all they need to take from it. Tweet tweet!

Now I'm off to follow the advice of this thread and give equal weight to every Youtube comment I read.

 

[Kestra]

You're coming off as increasingly condescending and closeminded. Also, they're referring to the comic that RJ posted.

 

[Triskelion]

tl;dr

 

[iguana_tonante]

I was talking about RJD's usual shameless self-promoting, but it seems I struck a nerve, eh? Something tells me you don't take criticism very well.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Yes, the existence and continued success of Oscar Mayer products inclines me to say yes. Standards have been lowered by the desire for easy to acquire, low price, and ease of consumption. Be it music, food, clothing or most else, the model of business for the consumer has diminished expectations, but its alternative is a model where only a few could afford the good, while the rest had cast off leavings. Overall, quality is improved for the greatest numbers of people, but that's OK. Where hardly in bad times, and the Western world, not even inconvenienced so much as bored by our success.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I hate these threads. Wah wah, stuff changed.

Yeah that was a useful contribution the discussion

 

[Gov Kodos]

I hate these threads. Wah wah, stuff changed.

Yeah that was a useful contribution the discussion

When folks start saying C/7 is OK standards have gone through the floor.

 

[Triskelion]

I was talking about RJD's usual shameless self-promoting, but it seems I struck a nerve, eh? Something tells me you don't take criticism very well.

Here's another version of events: you're not shaming anybody. Sorry to tell you. If you don't like RJD's posts - I don't know what you expect the world to do about it? Good luck.


Oh, and - criticism isn't the problem. The lack of criticism is the problem. But if it helps the "younger generation" to draw lines in the sand, feel free. Please excuse me for not learning from the obvious in order to talk about the insidious.

Yes, the existence and continued success of Oscar Mayer products inclines me to say yes. Standards have been lowered by the desire for easy to acquire, low price, and ease of consumption. Be it music, food, clothing or most else, the model of business for the consumer has diminished expectations, but its alternative is a model where only a few could afford the good, while the rest had cast off leavings. Overall, quality is improved for the greatest numbers of people, but that's OK. Where hardly in bad times, and the Western world, not even inconvenienced so much as bored by our success.

You bring up some good points, Gov Kodos. I read today where more people are dissatisfied with ill-fitting clothes off the rack, and there is a resurgence of custom clothing design. When you look at the increasing quality of factory production - for example, the cheap replication of handcrafted lace of certain European villages - those long-evolving skills threaten to die out with the older cultures. I have met many people who shrug at that.

They don't know the difference.

They don't know the difference.

That is the problem.

Not that culture "should" be preserved. But that monumental shifts have been occurring in the last few decades that are changing the global economy in ways no one fully understands. (Sorry if this offends the "smart" set).

 

[iguana_tonante]

At 35, I am ecstatic to be called a "youngster".

But keep digging. After your scornful reply to Kestra, you lost all privileges for a polite conversation.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I hate these threads. Wah wah, stuff changed.

Yeah that was a useful contribution the discussion

When folks start saying C/7 is OK standards have gone through the floor.

Hey man, I'm on the side of looove.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

You bring up some good points, Gov Kodos. I read today where more people are dissatisfied with ill-fitting clothes off the rack, and there is a resurgence of custom clothing design. When you look at the increasing quality of factory production - for example, the cheap replication of handcrafted lace of certain European villages - those long-evolving skills threaten to die out with the older cultures. I have met many people who shrug at that.

They don't know the difference.

They don't know the difference.

That is the problem.

Not that culture "should" be preserved. But that monumental shifts have been occurring in the last few decades that are changing the global economy in ways no one fully understands. (Sorry if this offends the "smart" set).

You know this has been happening since the industrial revolution and alongside it happening people of all ages rediscover and explore old craft skills?

We no longer need those skills to clothe ourselves. Thanks to the efficiency of factories our children no longer go cold because we have no money to buy blankets and they no longer get ill because the couple items they have to wear are germ infested. They no longer have to stay home from school because we can't afford shoes for every one of them, fine made leather shoes hand crafted like all shoes used to be. That was reality not too long ago in the slums of big cities in europe and america.

And despite no longer needing beautiful lace or fine leather shoes or hand spun and woven blankets there has been a never disappearing culture of those who love to learn these old skills and recreate them. Knitting is huge now for instance, but much more specialized things such as hand tooled woodwork are also pursued.

You are wrong that no one understands. People do understand and value old skills and crafts, MANY people have devoted themselves to preserving these skills and teaching others. But people also understand that cheap mass produced goods have inestimably improved the quality of life of those without money.

 

[Avon]

They don't know the difference.

That is the problem.

'they' know the difference. 'they' just don't care. 'they' have to block out the noise of whiney people judging them continually for percieved faults when there are none.

if this was footloose, you're the guy that would ban dancing.

 

[Triskelion]

^No, I'm Kevin Bacon motherfukcer.

At 35, I am ecstatic to be called a "youngster".

But keep digging. After your scornful reply to Kestra, you lost all privileges for a polite conversation.

I'm sorry. I didn't intend to hurt anyone's feelings.


Clearly this thread has made some feel singled out which was never the intention.

But in this thread, I've been insinuated "limited in perspective," "condescending," and "unable to take criticism."

If these are undesirable traits to those citing them - then look no further than the mirror and overcome these failings in yourselves.

This topic - is not about "you."

If there's nothing wrong with you - there must be something wrong with the universe!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

How old are you Triskelion?

 

[Triskelion]

You bring up some good points, Gov Kodos. I read today where more people are dissatisfied with ill-fitting clothes off the rack, and there is a resurgence of custom clothing design. When you look at the increasing quality of factory production - for example, the cheap replication of handcrafted lace of certain European villages - those long-evolving skills threaten to die out with the older cultures. I have met many people who shrug at that.

They don't know the difference.

They don't know the difference.

That is the problem.

Not that culture "should" be preserved. But that monumental shifts have been occurring in the last few decades that are changing the global economy in ways no one fully understands. (Sorry if this offends the "smart" set).

You know this has been happening since the industrial revolution and alongside it happening people of all ages rediscover and explore old craft skills?

We no longer need those skills to clothe ourselves. Thanks to the efficiency of factories our children no longer go cold because we have no money to buy blankets and they no longer get ill because the couple items they have to wear are germ infested. They no longer have to stay home from school because we can't afford shoes for every one of them, fine made leather shoes hand crafted like all shoes used to be. That was reality not too long ago in the slums of big cities in europe and america.

And despite no longer needing beautiful lace or fine leather shoes or hand spun and woven blankets there has been a never disappearing culture of those who love to learn these old skills and recreate them. Knitting is huge now for instance, but much more specialized things such as hand tooled woodwork are also pursued.

You are wrong that no one understands. People do understand and value old skills and crafts, MANY people have devoted themselves to preserving these skills and teaching others. But people also understand that cheap mass produced goods have inestimably improved the quality of life of those without money.

Nicely put, Teacake. Would that everyone shared your balanced view here.


Moving forward from the industrial revolution to the information revolution of other recently industrialized countries, I wish the Australian economy and others like it the very best of health as global web companies suck the life out of their home economies - literally. Particularly the garment industries, among others.

Also, I'm sorry to say that no, things are not so evenly-keeled as we would like them to be. People elsewhere are in a race to overproduce and drop the bottom out of western markets - where the money is (let's not get ideological if possible). Simply put, the Web has created global free trade with players who a)do not reciprocate free trade, b)actively work toward zero sum economics to the detriment of global economy, c)do not share global good will.

Yes, I can certainly understand intellectually and emotionally the optimistic view of global Web communications. But the fact of the matter is no one knows how these transformations are going to change the world, and I can already say it is not ipso facto "All for the best" (if I may trot out a textbook reference).


By the way, although I've somehow been cast on a side, I'm not actually taking any "sides."