Is the West in Decline?

I believe it is and below are some of my arguments, which we can develop as we go along.

The word decadence, which at first simply meant “decay” in an abstract sense, seems most applicable to our situation at the present time. Today it is most often used to refer to a perceived decline in standards, morality, dignity, religious belief, honour, discipline or governability among members of the elite of a very large social structure such as an empire or a nation state. But it could be taken to mean the decline of the rich nations on a global scale. We often forget that, by comparison, even our poor people are better off than poor people in third world and developing countries. The decline in standards shows a lack of awareness that we are responsible to maintain standards, and not just expect them to be given.

This could be seen as a politically conservative approach, which is about maintaining order in society and protecting it from chaos, which could be seen as more of a left-wing attribute of people who want to change society so that these standards apply to all people and not just an elite. This, of course, has an impact on poorer countries and, as a consequence, means higher costs and fewer privileges for those who are more fortunate today, which has been interpreted by some conservative governments as a threat to national security. Considering that many of these countries are Christian or claim to be morally superior, perhaps this shows the level of decadence that exists there.

With regards to morality, the “sexual revolution” changed the moral landscape. This was generally said to be due to the fact that the contraceptive pill reduced the number of pregnancies in women and the spread of pornography, but there are indications that there was more going on. The moral corset of society enforced by the church was considered too tight by privileged groups a long time before that, and men could do what they wanted (were even considered gallant for their escapades) whereas women were called at best “permissive” and at worst “whores” for the same behaviour. The problem underlying this behaviour was revealed by the treatment of women for so called “hysteria”, which, it turned out, was an orgasm. Obviously, such women were suffering under sexual depravation, whereas their husbands were only out to satisfy their own desires.

But it wasn’t only in sexuality that moral standards were not upheld. In wars and in the colonies of western countries, men were murdering, raping, and pillaging at will. There was an obvious hypocrisy maintained regarding moral standards, which men brought home with them. They often didn’t want to speak about their experiences, and many were suffering und post-traumatic stress disorder when they returned. It was an attack on their moral standards that these men (and women) had suffered, leaving them in a sorry state and unable to cope with everyday life. Domestic violence was very often a result, but also impotence and depression.

But it is not only morality that has suffered. Looking at the above, it is clear that dignity has also suffered, especially among people who previously presumed a certain dignity. The basic attitude towards indigenous peoples in the colonies robbed them of their dignity, they were considered savages and their social and religious structure was described as primitive and pagan. This continues today in many expressions of racism. But due to developments in Western countries, with their many disputes and wars, people also denied their Western enemies the dignity they claimed for themselves. The stigma of having been an enemy still clings, for example, to Germans who lost a war in the 1940s, but subsequent generations still have to endure the stigma eighty years later.

Dignity also falls victim to “coolness”, an attempt to overcome the rigid grandeur of past generations, but which degenerates into over-familiarity at the expense of respecting the person, their responsibilities, and their achievements, and instead seeing themselves as equal, as it were, without having anything to show for it. Respect for others is questioned and is probably due to a lack of self-respect often found in people who lack due respect for others.

Of course, this also has to do with honour, which has also declined over the years. Honour has a lot to do with deportment and behaviour and integrity, which in turn has to do with the adherence to moral and ethical principles or soundness of moral character and honesty. It seems to be the scoundrel that is held higher in reverence than the honourable person, providing one isn’t the victim of such a rascal. The person who is seen to be “street-wise” is the one who finds shortcuts and overcomes obstacles by "hook or by crook ", an English phrase meaning by any means necessary, suggesting that any means possible should be taken to accomplish a goal, even dishonourable ones. The main thing is not to be caught.

But to maintain honourability, one also has to maintain a certain discipline, which has a lot to do with self-discipline and less to do with disciplinary methods. The fact that one has overcome one’s own weakness (pigdog in German) provides a person with the ability to show self-discipline in many areas of life. The lack of this experience often leads to people shirking their responsibilities, running from their duties and generally becoming unreliable. This is seen, for example, in the number of women who are single parents, and the men who consider themselves scot free (‘Skat’ is a Scandinavian word for tax or payment and the word migrated to Britain and mutated into ‘scot’ as the name of a redistributive taxation, levied as early the 10th century as a form of municipal poor relief. ‘Scot’ as a term for tax has been used since then in various forms - Church scot, Rome scot, Soul scot and so on. Whatever the tax, the phrase ‘getting off scot free’ simply refers to not paying one’s taxes.)

It is very clear that there has been a decline in religious belief, not least of all because of hypocrisy. However, it is also because of an increase in materialism, that holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. It is also the philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies. This is also applied to religious myths, analogies and metaphors, which are definitely not speaking materialistically, and so the criticism based on this understanding is unfounded.

The area of religion is concerned with the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, with an understanding that there are agencies that we do not understand that govern our existence on this planet. Science has transported a theory that denies any meaning to existence, and therefore undermines the understanding that we are all responsible. Science offers a relief for those who don’t want to be held accountable for their actions and is so often preferred over religion for this reason, without necessarily understanding the proposition of science in certain areas. Although the opposition of science to religion (or vice versa) is unfounded, since both operate from different propositions, science often goes uncriticised, and has taken on a dogmatic stance in many areas, that resembles the dogmatisms of the church, which are widely criticised.

Do you have anything to add?

What we are experiencing now, worldwide, may be just a sore transition, a fall into rising in the Miltonic sense. Our collective eyes are opening to the failures of our past as prelude to a vision of a more benevolent future for all.

If it weren’t for the evidence that we’re destroying the environment we live in and causing the 6th great extinction, I might think that civilization was merely changing, that is becoming better in some ways and declining in others. But with the population approaching 8 billion people, the habitat destruction and climate change, it’s hard to see civilization improving. We do have some smart people like Steven Pinker, and Michael Shermer who think things are getting better and have written books to prove it.

The question would be then, at what cost?

It has become very clear to me that it is all quite orchestrated - nothing to do with morality - justice - truth - accidents - or even reality. It is only about obtaining absolute godlike authority at any cost and by any means. Nothing else is real.

This is not an understanding on the part of religion. It is a guess, and a dogma. There is no empirical evidence at all for such agencies. There is also no empirical evidence that the universe has a “purpose.” Telos may be a dogma of religion, but science rightly has no use for it, as it is unevidenced and plays no roles in our best scientific theories.

Science does not have just one theory. It has a multitude of theories, as well as a multitude of methodologies including pure guesswork. The idea that there is a single “scientific method” is a myth.

No, science does not deny any meaning to existence. People make meaning, and meaning is found from within. If you mean that science denies that there is any meaning to the larger universe beyond humans, this is not accurate, either. Science does not deny such meaning. It simply finds no evidence for it. That’s not the same thing as denial.

On the contrary, in a Godless universe, which is what we live in, we are more responsible, not less, for our actions. Example: Plenty of evangelical Christians blow off human-induced climate change, which is real, and its dire effects, which are also real, either because they think Jesus will step in at the last moment to save us all, a kind of divine deus ex machina, or because they think our life on earth is no big deal anyway because an eternity of an afterlife awaits us. The Republican governor of Mississippi actually acknowledged the latter point with respect to the south’s resistance to Covid vaccines, saying many int the South are more concerned with the afterlife than this life, a confirmation if one were needed of Nietzsche’s point that Christianity is just another form of nihilism.

Just the opposite, see above. It’s the non-God besotted who are working overtime to get everyone vaccinated and prevent climate change, for example.

Rational people prefer science over religion because science has plenty to offer and religion has nothing to offer except for fairy tales, wishful thinking, escapism and nihilism.

There is not a necessary conflict between science and religion, but in practice there are plenty of conflicts, and in each case science has the winning argument. Usually religion doesn’t even have an argument.

Perhaps you could provide some evidence or arguments or examples to support the above assertion.

If science is the savior-of ourselves from ourselves, why are we in the current dire predicament of destroying our necessary ecosystem?

As just noted, it is mostly religious adherents here in the U.S., mainly evangelical Christians, who are blowing off climate change and ecosystem collapse. And I gave the reasons why they are doing this.

Please don’t erect strawmen. I never said that science is a “savior” of any kind.

Many of the findings of science are put to use in bad ways by politicians and others. Science showed us how to split the atom, and E=MC2 showed what we could expect from doing that. Science didn’t tell us that we SHOULD split the atom, or build nuclear arsenals that can wipe out most life on earth in an hour or two.

Science showed HOW we could mine the earth for carbon-intensive resources and then dump all the carbon into the sky to the point where we now face species extinction. Science didn’t tell us that we SHOULD do that.

Science also gave us the internet and computers that you and others use to denigrate science. Prayer didn’t give us any of this or any damn thing at all for that matter.

And so on.

  1. Social “decandence”, as you laughingly call it. Is freedom of expression.
    Another name for permissiveness is free love.
  2. Sexual freedom
  3. Political activism
    These are at the pinnacle of progress.

If you measure the height of progress by the ability to crush your enemies either by military force or by economis pressure then China is on the ascendancy.

If you measure progress by being free to live your life as a “free” agent, then the West has suffered a small decline over the last 30 years, but is still way above China.

The only way to maintain progress is to bring the people of China along with the West.

You remedy seems to be a ball and chain

No strawman. I never said you said that. I did not quote you. I do not denigrate science. Yours are the strawmen.

You said, “if science is the savior of ourselves from ourselves …”

Where did I say that science is a savior of any kind?

This “savior” BS comes from religious presuppositions, specifically Christian, in which we all must have a “savior.” If we reject Christian salvationism, then, by implication, we are embracing another form of salvationism — if we go with science, then science is held to be salvational.

None of this is true. If salvation is needed, only humans can save themselves. But science is just a way of learning about the world.

Pood, Ierr’s statement was made to all, not specifically you which Ierr has already explained.

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.

It was in response to my post, so I think it’s reasonable to infer that he was suggesting that I was characterizing science as somehow salvational. But even if he wasn’t referring to my post specifically, I’m just pointing out that the idea that science is some kind of “savior” isn’t accurate. Science is a set of methodologies for finding out about the world, nothing more. It has no moral implications or moral content of any kind.

I understand. I only interjected to bring more clarity and hamper further accusations. Bob has started a wonderful thoughtful thread, be a shame for it to become less wonderful.

That’s funny, I think I’m making it more wonderufl. :wink:

The first thing I have to assert is that we need science, and I am not anti-science, but science isn’t everything.

Humankind has been experiencing the world for thousands of years before we had the scientific method and consequently used other methods to explain what they experienced. Unfortunately, many who are pro-science feel the need to ridicule these methods, despite the fact that the people who they are criticising were in fact creating a means to express themselves, and not relying on past creativity. Another thing that is seldom taken into consideration is that we are people who believe things, who develop a worldview, and we adhere to this worldview as something that helps us to make sense of our existence. Pro-science people can’t believe that scepticism of some of science’s explanation about existence could be valid, or even that it is a worldview.

Materialism is a core worldview, which claims to explain our existence and doesn’t just not find evidence for meaning, many speakers for the science community outrightly deny that existence could have meaning.

In your attempt to deny this, you simply quote evangelical Christians, with whom I have nothing to do, and their stance on climate change, which is another sign of the decline of the West. My thesis, if you want to call it that, was that, among other things, a critical stance towards religion has freed consciences from taking responsibility for their actions, which could explain the other signs of decadence that I mentioned.

You mention that science has “plenty” to offer, which is a quantitative expression, not a qualitative one, so what that quality should be remains unknown. Your interpretation of Religion is misinformed, but I question your real interest in the subject, if even to try and understand what I am talking about. Rather you rely upon hearsay and lack a personal well founded opinion.

You say that science is winning an argument that I have said is unnecessary, because we are both using different propositions. You doubt that science goes unquestioned, but there are scientists out there, who write books about the subjects. Take for example Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist who wrote “The Science Delusion”, or Bernado Kastrup, who wrote “Why Materialism is Baloney”, to name but a few. It is curious that many pro-science people do not read these books, even though the readers of such books are often informed about scientific discoveries.

But this thread is about the decline of the West, a subject to which you have not voiced an opinion. Instead, you came here looking for a statement about religion that you could attack, which isn’t very scientific, but rather just a means of passing time and enjoying yourself.

This is not twitter :wink:

You are not really interested, which is what I stated above.

I never said that it was. I specifically said that it was a way of learning about the world. It’s not the only way. Science can tell us nothing about values. It can’t tell me who to marry, who job to take, what I should have for breakfast, etc.

First, as noted above, there is no such thing as “the scientific method.”

Yes, people have used all sorts of means to explain what they experienced. But are they good explanations? The ancient Greeks invoked Gods — not just one God — to explain all sorts of stuff. Then Thales came along and decided this wasn’t a good idea. He wanted to explain things naturalistically. He then concluded, among other things, that the earth was a kind of giant cork floating on a presumably infinite ocean. This is because he inferred that water was the essence of everything. He was wrong, of course, but he is remembered for being among the first to try to explain the world naturalistically rather than invoking unseen and unknowable gods for which there is no evidence. The problem is that “goddidit” is just a placeholder for ignorance. Some people once believed that thunder and lightning and rain were caused by Thor hammering on clouds. Do you think this is a good explanation, or even an explanation at all, in place of the scientific account? Such placeholders for ignorance and called God of the Gaps arguments.

Right, some of them do that. Others find no evidence for meaning, which is not the same thing as denial of meaning, as I pointed out earlier. And, as I also pointed out, we must be clear about what we mean by “meaning.” I think human life has meaning, but the meaning comes from within. Whether the universe external to humans have a meaning is a different question. Science has found no such meaning, no evidence of telos, which is another way of saying that “meaning” of the universe as a whole simply has no place in scientific theories and therefore can be dispensed with.

Well, Bob, that’s where we disagree, and you have not addressed my disagreement, merely reasserted your own unsupported view. I didn’t bring up evangelical Christians to tie you to them. I brought them up as an EXAMPLE that rebuts your claim here, or thesis as you have it, that “a critical stance towards religion has freed consciences from taking responsibility for their actions …” What, pray, could motivate such a thesis on your part? My counterexample of evangelical Christian attitudes toward climate change and Covid was intended as a counterexample, to show how religious belief itself can motivate people to take less responsibility for their actions. MY thesis is that once you realize that there is no divine being to save you from yourself or from anything else, you are inclined to take MORE responsibility, not less, for your life, and for the world around you. You have not yet mustered a rebuttal to this.

It is a quantitative expression, but also a qualitative one, in that applied science has clearly improved the standard of living for many people. This doesn’t mean that science is salvific, or some kind of be-all-and-end-all enterprise, and the material standard of living clearly isn’t the only quality that counts.

Please explain how my interpretation of religion is misinformed, rather than merely assert that it is.

As for the rest, I was waiting to see how long you could hold out before going full-on ad hom and well-poisoning. Not too long, but longer than I supposed, I will grant.

Bob, you don’t know what I read and don’t read. I am fully aware of all these critiques as well as the Demarcation Problem, Undeterminism, the inability to demonstrate the truth of Metaphysical Naturalism, the unjustified and unprovable assumptions of the various scientific methodologies, the metaphysical pitfalls of the notion of hard determinism (which you would know about if you have read my other threads), Paul Feyerabend’s “anything goes,” the limits of Popperian falsificationism, the role of pure guesswork in science, the idea that things like genes and electrons are not real but just metaphors, and the pessimistic meta-induction, among many other critiques of science. Are you aware of all or even any of these things?

See my post above. I have said I do intend to voice an opinion but will not do so in sound bites. So I need time.

Wrong, Bob, and it’s very presumptuous of you to say this. I responded to a particular point that YOU RAISED. If you didn’t want someone to respond to that point, maybe you shouldn’t have raised it. This is, after all, a discussion board, and I will discuss points that others make as I see fit. I’m under no obligation to address the totality of your post, but as I have already indicated I will do so as I find time, but frankly most of it is not very coherent, which makes it difficult to respond coherently.

Dostoevsky, my favorite author, had one of his characters say, “If God is dead, anything goes.”

I’m inclined to disagree.

I think if God exists, then anything goes.

It isn’t atheists who shoot up abortion clinics, or brutalize women in Afghanistan and try to take away their rights in the American South. It wasn’t atheists who flew airplanes into the twin towers. (though I think that act had as much or more to do with politics and geopolitical grievance as it did with Islam. Most Muslims are peaceful, like most Christians.)

I’d go further and say, from my readings of Dostoevsky, especially the Brothers Karamazov, that the author was a Christian atheist, which is not a contradiction.