Is the West in Decline?

[Ecmandu]

I don’t see you as a person who dreams big.

Those are the only people who get things done btw.

Everyone should pay attention to the consent problem, the pleasurable exclusive access problem and the negative zero sum problem.

You make it too small. A human in your philosophy is an infinitesimal. So is a plant.

In your philosophy everything is infinitesimal but adds up to 1. And we just have to accept that.

I don’t accept it.

I have a song for you.

youtu.be/cadvn16N188

[pood]

I guess I don’t see what the supposed extra resilience of older people, and how older nurses being doughtier than younger ones, has anything really to do with religion, or with the alleged decline of the West. I think the West and the rest (of the world) are in decline because of climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation.

[felix_dakat]

Shermer’s argument against decline in a nutshell:

" Shermer argues that the rise of trade and rise of literacy through the Industrial Revolution’s need for highly educated knowledge workers, has created a “moral Flynn effect” and led to cultures with lower rates of violent crime. Shermer argues that the rise of full democracies around the world, combined with the spread of human rights and civil liberties has led to greater human flourishing.

Shermer has stated that “[my] thesis is not for inevitable moral progress, we have to earn it, fight for it and argue for it.” He also stated that he used “a lot of Utilitarian thinking, but in the end, the individual natural rights to survive and [the] flourish[ing] of sentient beings, [are] what counts”.

Shermer criticises historical religious justifications for slavery, cruelty to animals, misogyny and homophobia, and writes that the spread of scientific and enlightened values has created a better foundation for civil society."

And Pinker’s

"The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago which brought a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death.

The Civilizing Process: Pinker argues that “between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century, European countries saw a tenfold-to-fiftyfold decline in their rates of homicide.” He attributes the idea of the Civilizing Process to the sociologist Norbert Elias, who attributed this surprising decline to the consolidation of a patchwork of feudal territories into large kingdoms with centralized authority and an infrastructure on commerce.

The Humanitarian Revolution – Pinker attributes this term and concept to the historian Lynn Hunt. He says this revolution “unfolded on the [shorter] scale of centuries and took off around the time of the Age of Reason and the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries.” Although, he also points to historical antecedents and to “parallels elsewhere in the world”, he writes: “It saw the first organized movements to abolish slavery, dueling, judicial torture, superstitious killing, sadistic punishment, and cruelty to animals, together with the first stirrings of systematic pacifism.”

The Long Peace: a term he attributes to the historian John Lewis Gaddis’s The Long Peace: Inquiries into the history of the Cold War. Pinker states this fourth “major transition” took place after the end of World War II. During it, he says, the great powers, and the developed states in general, have stopped waging war on one another.

The New Peace: Pinker calls this trend “more tenuous”, but since the end of the Cold War in 1989, organized conflicts of all kinds - civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks - have declined throughout the world.

The Rights Revolutions: The postwar period has seen, Pinker argues, “a growing revulsion against aggression on smaller scales, including violence against ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals, and animals. These spin-offs from the concept of human rights – civil rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, gay rights, and animal rights – were asserted in a cascade of movements from the late 1950s to the present day.” "

Source: Wikipedia

[Bob]

@pood

I guess I don’t see what the supposed extra resilience of older people, and how older nurses being doughtier than younger ones, has anything really to do with religion, or with the alleged decline of the West. I think the West and the rest (of the world) are in decline because of climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation.

That is because you don’t see the church (or other religious gathering) in the way that people earlier saw them. It wasn’t just about sermons and hymns, but it was about a common direction for life and community and looking after your own. This made people psychologically more resilient than today. Today the individualism causes many problems that we won’t see because it is the ruling dogma. A person who had lived for ninety years in Europe during the twentieth century had lived through two world wars that took place in their land and the economic crisis of the thirties. I just hope the present generation isn’t faced with something similar.

The nurses I spoke about weren’t particularly religious, although when my friend and I held a devotional talk (mostly as a dialogue), we were applauded. And when it came to the push, they upheld Christian values and criticised those who didn’t. This meant that our nursing objectives weren’t in doubt, and we were quite successful because of it. Everyone pulled their weight. Unfortunately, it was only exceptions amongst the younger staff that did the same. I see it as a transmission of values in second generations, who were still affected by the faith of their parents or grandparents.

[Bob]

@felix dakat

Shermer’s argument against decline in a nutshell:

" Shermer argues that the rise of trade and rise of literacy through the Industrial Revolution’s need for highly educated knowledge workers, has created a “moral Flynn effect” and led to cultures with lower rates of violent crime. Shermer argues that the rise of full democracies around the world, combined with the spread of human rights and civil liberties has led to greater human flourishing.

Shermer has stated that “[my] thesis is not for inevitable moral progress, we have to earn it, fight for it and argue for it.” He also stated that he used “a lot of Utilitarian thinking, but in the end, the individual natural rights to survive and [the] flourish[ing] of sentient beings, [are] what counts”.

Shermer criticises historical religious justifications for slavery, cruelty to animals, misogyny and homophobia, and writes that the spread of scientific and enlightened values has created a better foundation for civil society."

There is no doubt that in most countries, there has been a general reduction of violence in comparison to the past. This has been due to the development of democratic structures, although the feudal structures already had a police force in many cases, and the surrendering of arms into the hands of authorities has made the large difference. Where that hasn’t happened, like in America, violent crime is much more prevalent than where it has. This is obvious when we see that in Germany, even after WWI, there were private armies and militia who became the backbone of Hitler’s anti-democratic movement before WWII and enabled his rise to power.

There was also already a Trade Union movement that had started in the 1850`s or thereabout, which began to flourish after WWI but fell victim to the Nazis prior to WWII. It came into its own after the war and had a lot to do with how societies came back. Countries like Germany had a more constructive relationship with the unions, and this contributed to the boom that the country experienced. Other countries experienced a struggle between Unions and Political Parties for status and power, which slowed development. In the UK, for example, the Unions were beaten by a conservative Government and the country suffered austerity afterwards.

I think Shermer is right about having to earn, fight for and argue for moral progress, but this isn’t what I am seeing. Instead, democracy is too much hard work for many people, and they vote for people who promise to take it out of their hands for them. After WWII, I think people were more willing to fight and argue for values, having fought for the survival of democracy in Europe, but after that individualism sneaked in and although there were positive developments, there were a lot of shadows being neglected. We forgot that we had to earn the progress we had attained, and people started talking more about their rights, and in Europe people thinking that they fell from heaven.

What we have also noticed is that enhancements in daily life rapidly reduce our adeptness in certain areas. The more technology enters our lives, the quicker we become reliant, and we overlook the fact that a loss of electricity takes those enhancements away. A whole industry could collapse due to a sun eruption, which we know has happened in the past. Our mobility comes at a price and our infrastructure takes added mobility into account, taking things out of housing areas. We also don’t value sustainability, and our products have an expiry date - products have even been made worse to guarantee that sales continue. Penicillin was once a life saver, but now we have multi-resistant microbes due to misuse. In fact, the Pharma-Industry is making us dependant on them.

The fact that much of what we enjoy today has been hard worked for, that people have given their lives for progress is overlooked by teenagers who take everything for granted. People have forgotten how to improve things and seem to assume that someone else will do that. It all amounts to the fact that decline comes quicker than we generally expect. We can experience that ourselves if we become bedridden for a while and then try to rebuild our strength. It is the same in society and our achievements can be forgotten after a single storm, as people experienced here recently. Suddenly everything they had is gone. People becoming destitute for no reason of their own suddenly find themselves homeless. It is so easy to neglect or ruin something and a mountain of regret in people’s lives are witness to this.

And Pinker’s

"The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago which brought a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death.

The Civilizing Process: Pinker argues that “between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century, European countries saw a tenfold-to-fiftyfold decline in their rates of homicide.” He attributes the idea of the Civilizing Process to the sociologist Norbert Elias, who attributed this surprising decline to the consolidation of a patchwork of feudal territories into large kingdoms with centralized authority and an infrastructure on commerce.

The Humanitarian Revolution – Pinker attributes this term and concept to the historian Lynn Hunt. He says this revolution “unfolded on the [shorter] scale of centuries and took off around the time of the Age of Reason and the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries.” Although, he also points to historical antecedents and to “parallels elsewhere in the world”, he writes: “It saw the first organized movements to abolish slavery, dueling, judicial torture, superstitious killing, sadistic punishment, and cruelty to animals, together with the first stirrings of systematic pacifism.”

The Long Peace: a term he attributes to the historian John Lewis Gaddis’s The Long Peace: Inquiries into the history of the Cold War. Pinker states this fourth “major transition” took place after the end of World War II. During it, he says, the great powers, and the developed states in general, have stopped waging war on one another.

The New Peace: Pinker calls this trend “more tenuous”, but since the end of the Cold War in 1989, organized conflicts of all kinds - civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks - have declined throughout the world.

The Rights Revolutions: The postwar period has seen, Pinker argues, “a growing revulsion against aggression on smaller scales, including violence against ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals, and animals. These spin-offs from the concept of human rights – civil rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, gay rights, and animal rights – were asserted in a cascade of movements from the late 1950s to the present day.” "

Source: Wikipedia

There is no doubt that this is all true, and it has provided a peak of prosperity and health in the West, the problem is that every peak has a trough (otherwise it wouldn’t be a peak) that follows, and I feel that we have been negligent of that fact. In fact, I think that we have been working inadvertently towards that downturn in our conflicts and failure to secure a sustainable advance for the whole world. In fact, we in the West have exploited nature and peoples less developed to such a degree that the consequences are now dawning on us. I don’t believe that climate change is only human made, but I do believe that we have provided the peak percentage that could make it devasting for us. The interdependency of the world will be very apparent if the changes in sea-levels occur as forecasted, and we must hope that we can cope with that without other problems, like pandemics and the like.

That would change the game and frantic people are more likely to become violent than those in comfort. The real danger is that complex societies, not realising how fragile their societies are, will over-reach, much like the UK has done with Brexit. In fact, some of the verbal diarrhoea coming from the government recently has been sounding very sabre-rassling and the rhetoric has sounded as though they were preparing for war. Imagine the economies of the West confronted with masses of refugees fleeing from rising sea levels. I think that the decline of the West is imminent, unless radical changes in attitude take place.

People in the West have been “spoiled” by developments that they assume are a result of them being so nice. The fact is that we have built our societies on the backs of slaves and oppressed colonies, profiting from the cheap but backbreaking labour of people not so fortunate. We have destroyed functioning economies in the interest of globalisation. We are so misinformed that we are bigoted beyond belief, which particularly comes to mind when, after a conflict that we have helped to cause, people come looking for our help. The chaos in Afghanistan springs to mind, where we first destroyed the progress that had been made by employing the mujahideen to fight against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet–Afghan War, then we invaded and thought we had beaten them, only to withdraw and leave those who had built up hopes over twenty years to the rule of the mujahideen again.

The West is, I’m afraid, so muddled, that I think that we can only be thankful for this phase of history and had better start preparing for the next.

[pood]

There is no doubt that this is all true…

On the contrary, it is doubtful that any of it is true, and to the extent that some of it may be true, those truths are largely irrelevant to the bigger picture, which is that civilization is showing every sign of being self-terminating because of the climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation that it perforce engenders.

Take Pinker’s first thesis:

The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago which brought a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death.

Wow, that’s mightily presumptuous, and unsupported by evidence. In fact, the evidence goes the other way. See Jared Diamond, for example, on why the development of agriculture and civilization was the worst mistake in the history of the human race.

[felix_dakat]

@pood

There is no doubt that this is all true…

On the contrary, it is doubtful that any of it is true, and to the extent that some of it may be true, those truths are largely irrelevant to the bigger picture, which is that civilization is showing every sign of being self-terminating because of the climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation that it perforce engenders.

Take Pinker’s first thesis:

The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago which brought a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death.

Wow, that’s mightily presumptuous, and unsupported by evidence. In fact, the evidence goes the other way. See Jared Diamond, for example, on why the development of agriculture and civilization was the worst mistake in the history of the human race.

If you believe Diamond is right that the hunter-gathering life is better, then why haven’t you become a hunter-gatherer?

[Bob]

@pood

There is no doubt that this is all true…

On the contrary, it is doubtful that any of it is true, and to the extent that some of it may be true, those truths are largely irrelevant to the bigger picture, which is that civilization is showing every sign of being self-terminating because of the climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation that it perforce engenders.

Take Pinker’s first thesis:

The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago which brought a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death.

Wow, that’s mightily presumptuous, and unsupported by evidence. In fact, the evidence goes the other way. See Jared Diamond, for example, on why the development of agriculture and civilization was the worst mistake in the history of the human race.

I’ve heard of these arguments and would agree with them, if it made any difference. I’ve also read the two books of Pinker and found that it is all very statistical, but I saw no reason to doubt his statistics.

From what you (and Diamond) are saying, Mankind has been going downhill for about ten thousand years, which seems a little strange, looking at the developments in between. I would rather say that the cultural development of mankind has had problems to solve and that it is easy to criticise what you yourself weren’t confronted with. I do not doubt for a minute that some decisions were made in early history that were long-termed suicide and caused untold suffering but looking at human beings and having been a leader in professional life, I think that guiding them to the best outcome has always been difficult.

There have been moral teachings and mythologies in the past that have tried to guide mankind to a place where there is less suffering, and statistically, they improved. The Enlightenment, building on a Christian foundation, improved the decline in violence as well, but was ultimately responsible for the two world wars and the rise of deadly ideologies as well. Unfortunately, good things often throw a shadow, whether we like it or not.

[Sculptor]

The “West” has just initiated a pact against China.
UK, US, and OZ have got together to design a “defensive” system of nuclear submarines.

Is is a sign of decline that a perceived economic threat is met with a military solution?

Is it also a sign of decline that the substance of the “defensive system” is composed of complete dinosaurs whose inital brief was first engineered in the 1950s in the cold war gainst Russia, and has failed to see the next technological innovation which is quickly making nuclear subs a thing of the past.

Lumbering defenseless nukesubs will not survive against an attack by the next generation of automonmous aquatic drones.

A low estimate for the cost of ONE nuclear submarine is in the region of £31billion. Ask yourself how many aquatic drones could be built to counter it for the same price?

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4 … ago-report

[felix_dakat]

It was Francis Bacon who became the greatest herald of the Modern Age when he that declared that “knowledge is power”–meaning power over nature.

The central question for deciding what is true became “does it work?” Once this question was accepted as the ultimate criteria of truth, metaphysics and theology were rendered irrelevant to matters of public truth and technological power.

Following this proposition as an assumption, David Hume could assert “No ‘is’ is an ought”. Reason and knowledge were now free from the restrictions and fantasies of speculative thought and religious power.

Only problem is: by conquering nature we are destroying it. And in destroying nature we are destroying ourselves. Hence the decline.

[obsrvr524]

@Sculptor

The “West” has just initiated a pact against China.
UK, US, and OZ have got together to design a “defensive” system of nuclear submarines.

Is is a sign of decline that a perceived economic threat is met with a military solution?

The CCP is far far far far more than a mere “perceived economic threat” – the CCP certainly hopes it is and pronounces its intentions to be - now largely controlling America.

AUKUS allows for AU to abandon its former ridiculous ancient and failed submarine plan with the French - already costing billions with no end in sight, no progress being made, and Chinese security issues built in.

Making any agreement with O’Biden and Johnson is all but pointless on any issue but in this one case - it allows for AU to leave a far worse situation.

I was a little surprised that the CCP allowed O’Biden to make the deal - perhaps they have something even worse planned.

@Sculptor

Is it also a sign of decline that the substance of the “defensive system” is composed of complete dinosaurs whose inital brief was first engineered in the 1950s in the cold war gainst Russia, and has failed to see the next technological innovation which is quickly making nuclear subs a thing of the past.

Lumbering defenseless nukesubs will not survive against an attack by the next generation of automonmous aquatic drones.

A low estimate for the cost of ONE nuclear submarine is in the region of £31billion. Ask yourself how many aquatic drones could be built to counter it for the same price?

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4 … ago-report

So your brightest thought is that bombers should be abandoned in favor of drones?

Maybe tanks should give way to RC-HumVees?

Why not just make your entire defense system remote controlled nanobots.

[Mr_Reasonable]

@pood

To address more fully the OP, insofar as I understand it — many of Bob’s claims strike me as rather opaque or lacking in coherence — I do think the West, and the world as a whole, is in decline, though not for the reasons he evidently adduces.

Unfortunately, a defect of message boards like this is that almost anything worth discussing requires a lot of in-depth knowledge and long, thoughtful argument and counterargument. The message-board format, which favors short, superficial posts and sound bites, does not lend itself to scholarship. The message-board format predated and prefigured the odious Twitter, in which every argument must perforce be reduced to 280 characters — hardly an improvement over Twitter’s former 140-character limit. The only thing Twitter provides is an opportunity for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to make as big a fool of him or herself as possible in the fewest possible words.

So maybe I’ll talk about how I think the West (and the rest) is in decline as I find time. I will not reduce such a discussion to slogans and sound bites.

you dont like twitter?

[Chakra_Superstar]

@obsrvr524

@Sculptor

The “West” has just initiated a pact against China.
UK, US, and OZ have got together to design a “defensive” system of nuclear submarines.

Is is a sign of decline that a perceived economic threat is met with a military solution?

The CCP is far far far far more than a mere “perceived economic threat” – the CCP certainly hopes it is and pronounces its intentions to be - now largely controlling America.

AUKUS allows for AU to abandon its former ridiculous ancient and failed submarine plan with the French - already costing billions with no end in sight, no progress being made, and Chinese security issues built in.

There were several viable reasons to dump the French deal and not include the French in the AUKUS alliance but the most important was that with the French involved we’d be called FAUKUS.
.

[Chakra_Superstar]

To get this thread back on track: Is the West in decline? Absolutely.

Of course there are countless ways you can measure decline but for me it’s pretty basic.
1: Is the average person gaining more power over their personal lives or are they being robbed of their power by governments and corporations?
2. Is the standard of living for the average person increasing or decreasing?

To me, it’s obvious. From around the 1980/90’s the average person has had to work more, for less. Since then, the standard of living has decreased even though there have been massive technological advances that have increased productivity (at least 10 times on average), prolonged life and made life somewhat more comfortable.

Again, I’m talking about basic stuff. Around the 1950/60’s the average man could buy a large home, in a great location and raise half a dozen kids on ONE wage (which my parents did) but today you need two people working if you want to buy a home half the size and support one or two children.

These are the fundamentals and I don’t care how ‘cool’ the latest technology is or if we can now live an extra 5 years on a concoction of medications, if the fundamentals aren’t right, then we aren’t ‘progressing’.

What’s this got to do with religion? Not much as far as I’m concerned. It has everything to do with moral and ethical priorities that put the well-being of humans before economic systems and political ideologies. Capitalism and socialism are simply human farming systems. Humans should not be discarded when a system fails; the system should be discarded.
.

[Ierrellus]

What is causing the decline in the West? The mindset of egocentric materialism. It is not an attitude of one for all and all for one. It’s me-ism.
I saw a radical change when the idealism of the young in the 1960s morphed to the materialism of the 1980s. Moccasins were traded for designer tennis shoes.
Jeans became designer and had to be name brand. The t.v. show "Family Ties’ captured the change with a materialistic child having “hippie” parents. I watched in dismay as my children sold out to the prevailing mindset out of fear of not belonging among their peers. I was outdated.

[felix_dakat]

@Ierrellus

What is causing the decline in the West? The mindset of egocentric materialism. It is not an attitude of one for all and all for one. It’s me-ism.
I saw a radical change when the idealism of the young in the 1960s morphed to the materialism of the 1980s. Moccasins were traded for designer tennis shoes.
Jeans became designer and had to be name brand. The t.v. show "Family Ties’ captured the change with a materialistic child having “hippie” parents. I watched in dismay as my children sold out to the prevailing mindset out of fear of not belonging among their peers. I was outdated.

A liberal/capitalist establishment is able to co-opt, exploit, absorb, utilize, transform, corrupt and manipulate every grassroots movement until it reaches it’s limit and morphs into something else.

[monad]

All systems from East to West are in decline, subservient to a power and wealth complex. Though there has always been corruption, the political, the economic and not least, the ethical cease to be viable pillars upholding nations who have relinquished the fight against their own corruption while hypocritically affirming the opposite. Also, if truth be told, far too many stupid people on the planet; among the worst are the educated holding most of the power positions in conformity with the organizations they serve. We’re slaves to a system we can’t seem to escape from, while turning evermore ineffective and corrupt.

All one has to do is observe the world. Nature itself is being corrupted with the infections WE created! Not much is left of what hasn’t gone wrong! Even our ideals are sinking with the ship replaced by more irrational versions of what they used to be. The time may come when the majority of humans will not decide anything except to survive.

[Ierrellus]

“I can remember when “liberal” was a respected word.”-- My mentor. (respected as in a liberal college)
“The times they are a -changing”–Dylan’
Century 21 embraces a new, radical conservatism that is supported by evangelical Christians, polluting both religion in general and politics in particular. It is s another attempt to to glorify and preserve wholesale exploitation of man and nature–a side effect of the enlightenment.
“Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.”-- Emerson, in a letter to his friend Channing.
“The time is out of Joint”–Hamlet
“An old bitch gone in the teeth. . . a botched civilization.”–Ezra Pound.

[Ierrellus]

The first step toward fixing a problem is to recognize that a problem exists.
I think materialistic capitalism’s immediate rewards obscures the fact of its toxic side effects causing one to look away from the problem.
Overlooked, the problem grows.

[monad]

@Ierrellus

The first step toward fixing a problem is to recognize that a problem exists.

Only half-acknowledged doesn’t solve the problem. A full acknowledgement by the powers that be wouldn’t be expedient. Procrastination therefore is the ritual outcome. Expect the problem to keep going!