Cultural decline

[Anonymous No.12148827]

Have you ever wondered
if people at the end of 19th considered their age immoral, they thought art was gone etc.
what would they think about us?
(symbolism, decadent movement, aestheticism)
Aren’t we living in the nightmares of dead artists?

[Anonymous No.12148835]

>>12148827
Yes they did. But you hear that kind of complaints since Antiquity. People are just pissycunts, they like to complain. Literary people even more so.

>what would they think about us?

Some mix of scorn, disgust, terror, amazement and legitimate wonder, depending on the artist. They were not all the same you know.

>Aren’t we living in the nightmares of dead artists?

We're living our own nightmares, as we have always been, like our Sumerians ancestors. There is only one epoch in the past 5500 years of human history, and it slowly changes without breaking.

[Anonymous No.12148840]

Yes there was a moral panic around the 19th century about society becoming immoral or degenerate if you well. You may learned of a few of the results in history class

[Anonymous No.12148841]

>>12148827

Yes, for the most part I would say so. Whatever was going on in the collective unconscious to influence artists the past centuries has diminished for us in some respect. However, I theorize that it's simply a matter of people finding new things to tap into, and building from there. There can't be another Illiad, Wasteland, Divine Comedy, or what have you because whatever muses fueling those sorts of ideas have been utilized to great extents already. The trick today is to find the new muses, recycle old archetypes, are make something fresh. Just look at artists like Death Grips or Aphex Twin. These things couldn't have existed in the 19th century but they're brilliant today because they're from a school of innovators. We can't worry about making high modernist or romantic art anymore and we can't compare ourselves to them in a holistic sense but rather, what can we procure from the post-modern zeitgest and make brilliant.

[Anonymous No.12148915]

>>12148835
Is it possible that everyone complaining has been right all along and things truly have gotten worse over thousands of years?

[Anonymous No.12148979]

I have an impression that we can see a real degradation at present;
a degradation of quality of culture due to its ongoing massification

[Anonymous No.12148992]

>>12148841
>Just look at artists like Death Grips or Aphex Twin
Of all the ones you could have mentioned...

[Anonymous No.12149008]

>>12148840
>19th century
ah yes

[Anonymous No.12149012]

Shut up, Wyndham Lewis, you're dead now too.

[Anonymous No.12149105]

[Anonymous No.12149205]

>>12148840
There was nothing wrong with burning Hirschfeld's books and shutting down his Institution for Sexual "Research".

[Anonymous No.12149207]

>>12149105
Funny looking dog

[Anonymous No.12149223]

>>12148835
>Yes they did. But you hear that kind of complaints since Antiquity.
But they were right. Societies have gotten stronger and stronger over the years, but humans are getting weaker and weaker.

[Anonymous No.12149236]

>>12149205
I love the rumour that they burnt it first because, besides Hirschfeld, the other people really into same sex nudism and special uniforms were the Nazis and people presumed the Nazis wanted to burn their own files as they now regretted helping with the research.

[Anonymous No.12149350]

depressing times

[Anonymous No.12149459]

>>12148835
>everyone said it therefore it's wrong
What sort of logic is that?

[Anonymous No.12149593]

>>12148835
It's a lot different now. Infinity artistically incapable nonwhites weren't being imported into their countries at replacement levels. There are different priorities now.

[Anonymous No.12149630]

>>12148840
Beautiful.

[Anonymous No.12149659]

People assume their angst is due to adjusting to the new becoming but I think it is in response to living with the corpse of the dying, and their own corpse-in-becoming, people often mistake the consequence for the cause, as Nietzsche said; conservatism is disgusting and anti-life

[Anonymous No.12149820]

>>12148992
Like who?

[Anonymous No.12150129]

[Anonymous No.12150449]

[Anonymous No.12150472]

>>12149012
Sadly the post wasn’t angry, interesting or comically contrarian enough to be Lewis

[Anonymous No.12150483]

>>12148827
It's caused by liberalism. Art is always curated by an elite. In the past this was the Church or aristocracy. Now, it's professors, the CIA, and Jews on the boards of literary magazines. The latter just has poor taste.

[Anonymous No.12150546]

>>12149659
Fuck that was good. I might use a derivative of that in a book.

[Anonymous No.12150563]

>>12149820
Kraftwerk

[Anonymous No.12150716]

[Anonymous No.12150738]

>>12148835

Sure thing Romans weren't right when they suspected their empire was going downhill. Same thing with the Greeks before them.

[Anonymous No.12150794]

>>12150738
But is it always like that?
Or have we fianally reached the point when culture and art are (more or less) disappearing (by this I don’t mean ‘ changing their form’)?

[Anonymous No.12150811]

>>12148827
I'm not really all against literally everything new like some sort of ammish incel, but I really feel some sort of nostalgia or sadness for things I never experienced. I think that art was generally better, and things were intellectually more powerful for everyone before mass media, so the 19th and early 20th centuries were really the pinacle of our collective civilization.

[Anonymous No.12151492]

>>12148840
me on the left

[Anonymous No.12151501]

>>12151492
shut up marxist

[Anonymous No.12151532]

>>12149659
Can't wait for the new becoming of rape gangs, salafist states, woke capital, constant street crime/terrorism, and gulags. A mentally ill person assures me it will be so aesthetic and full of life.

[Anonymous No.12151704]

>>12151532
ah...the rare, luxurious moorish life...

armchair historians make the best philosophers

[Anonymous No.12151823]

>>12148827

It's been going on since Ug and Grug noticed Nug being a shit. Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.12151849]

>Ugh, music was so much better in the age of Bach and Mozart!
>Ugh, look at these ugly heaps of buildings today! Rococo was so much more beautiful!
>Skirts above the ankle? Hideous! Women have no decency these days!
>Dark Souls! What a contemptible game! Super Mario World is a REAL video game!
>Television? You're rotting your brain! Read a newspaper!
>A newspaper? You're rotting your brain! Read a book!
>A book? You're rotting your brain! Memorize things!

It's old people being left behind by new styles and cultures. This has been going on for millennia.

[Anonymous No.12151912]

>>12148827
You should watch "Midnight in Paris."

[Anonymous No.12152690]

>>12148827
Times of religious decline and increasing wealth were always associated with decadence, as much in the 19th century as in the Roman empire as today.

[Anonymous No.12152785]

>>12151849
Perhaps things have been getting shittier for millennia?

[Anonymous No.12152976]

>>12150472
I doubt anyone would be arrogant enough to use the term dead art without being Lewis, you pale imposter.

[Anonymous No.12153388]

Do you think that it might feel that way because only the “Good Stuff” survived because that was all that was worth preserving? Like “White Noise” looks like it’s going to stand the test of time and be around a long time because it’s becoming more and more relatable. Books like “Hunger Games” which was a million times more popular won’t.

So in a hundred years people won’t know about it but they will know about White Noise still. The same thing probably happened to the garbage that was popular 100 years ago.

[Anonymous No.12153446]

>>12152785
I think it has a lot to do with us straying further and further from the lifestyle that we actually adapted to.

[Anonymous No.12153678]

>>12148827
people in the 19th century didn't know dick about shit, who cares.

[Anonymous No.12154185]

[Anonymous No.12155046]

[Anonymous No.12156519]

[Anonymous No.12156646]

there’s nothing at all

[Anonymous No.12157488]

>>12148835
Jesus, what banality. Nightmarish in-fucking-deed.

[Anonymous No.12158435]

yes

[Anonymous No.12158445]

>>12148915
we need to go back

[Anonymous No.12158451]

>>12148827
>aren't we living in the nightmares of dead artists
nah mate this is all as stale as real waking life, nowhere near a nightmare. Don't dramatise everything like a 19th century sissy writer.

[Anonymous No.12158913]

>>12149659
Did Neetzsche ever consider that life is gay? He takes it as an axiom that it isn't.

>>12148915
Yes, provided you don't conflate technological progress with human progress.

[Anonymous No.12159748]

>>12148841
>Death Grips

[Anonymous No.12159760]

[Anonymous No.12159775]

>>12153388
this
bitter gigabrains on /lit/ complain about publishing houses only putting out books by and for women; if they only know the amount of utter shit that was published for women in the 19th century that has subsequently been forgotten. nothing has changed

[Anonymous No.12159783]

>>12148827
"even if music now weakens the mind by its effeminate tunes and womanish rhythms, this is no argument against the ancient and virile music" - Sextus Empiricus, some time in the 2nd century

[Anonymous No.12159834]

>>12158913
>Write an entire book on gay science
>Even call it The Gay Science
>Hundred odd years laters
>Did Nietzsche ever considered life as gay science
>I think he wrote a book called totally not gay science
He was right about there being no human progress

[Anonymous No.12160318]

>>12152785
Kali Yuga, my dude.

[Anonymous No.12161389]

[Anonymous No.12161403]

no country for old men differs from text to film in what it says at the ending, can anyone spoonfeed me what it means

[Anonymous No.12161409]

>>12148827
Question: Why the hell are we turning a board on literature into /pol?

[Anonymous No.12161440]

>>12161409
Nothing in the OP has anything to do with politics, so what are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.12161449]

>>12161409
how can someone longing for higher art be /pol/?

[Anonymous No.12161863]

>>12148827
OP, Why did you choose such a painting called "Decadent Girl"?
You very well know about decadent literature and you create a thread like this? Cultural Decline?
You are looking for a specific kind of post to be made? One you can identify with. You looking for someone and couldnt care less about all the other people here posting their idle opinions about their oh so sorry 21st century society collapsing. You want something old, like 19th century old?
There is a purpose behind every action and you didn't conceil it well enough here. Obviously you are looking so you had to make the first step and go out on a limb, stick your neck out but any firther step I will be there right beside you. Don't pretend you jsut want to read "Les Fleurs du mal" and then go seperate ways, you sick fuck, I know you kinds.
Wearing mask and all. I've seen some of your films.

[Anonymous No.12162009]

>>12161863
I’m not disgusted by today’s immorality, I’m only sad that this immorality does not have any taste, is superficial and thoughtless

[Anonymous No.12162929]

>>12151849
You hear this shitty argument all the time and it doesn't make sense. First of all, the fact that people way back when made similar complaints doesn't A) mean they were right (or wrong), and B) doesn't mean we're right (or wrong). In fact, it doesn't mean anything; it is wholly irrelevant. Secondly, it's not like history and culture is some global interconnected continuum that has only ever been moving in one direction, it's entirely possible that things have gotten better in certain places at certain times, and that things have gotten worse in certain places at certain times.

[Anonymous No.12162977]

>>12149593
This. White people feeling uncomfortable = the end is nigh.

[Anonymous No.12163688]

[Anonymous No.12164508]

[Anonymous No.12165714]

[Anonymous No.12165816]

>>12149593
>artistically incapable nonwhites
My man never listened to jazz

[Anonymous No.12165835]

>>12148841
>but they're brilliant
Just the thought of you being an actual person that exists genuinely makes me laugh at loud.

[Anonymous No.12165848]

The consistency of a certain complaint over time only strengthens the suggestion that there must be something to that complaint.
I don't know why people act as if a lot of people saying the same thing through the ages somehow discredits what they were saying.

[Anonymous No.12166499]

[Anonymous No.12166639]

Yes, read Spengler. Anyone who attempts to discuss civilization/culture without mentioning Spengler is either ill informed or disingenuous. He was literally 100% right and we are living in the winter of Faustian civilization. Its decline formally began with the enlightenment and the French revolution.

[Anonymous No.12166674]

Old people have always hated the youth and people have always though their civilization was on decline, truth is nothing has changed in the last thousands of years, only technology.

[Anonymous No.12166682]

>>12166674
Or maybe we've been in a state of steady and continuous decline since then, and all the people complaining were right, from 1925 to the present day.

[Anonymous No.12166688]

>>12165848
Because the complaints were always "it's the end of the days!!!" tier shit but here we are, shitposting away. You must think highly of yourself if you believe this time, surely, we will descend into full retardation and never recover.

[Anonymous No.12166694]

>>12166688
Not really.

[Anonymous No.12166726]

>>12166682
>he thinks scared and confused old people have only existed since 1925

[Anonymous No.12166752]

ha ha ha what's the matter faggot don't you like big macs and spiderman? what could the past possibly have that the future doesn't that's why it's called PROGRESS duh I can't wait to have even more material comforts in the future haha we /atomized/ now

[Anonymous No.12166755]

>>12166674
This is patently absurd because rather a lot has changed in the "last thousands of years" and modern technology is itself a product of social, political, and economic changes that originated in Europe in the Early Modern Period.

[Anonymous No.12166799]

>>12166752
non-trads owned epic style! XD

[Anonymous No.12166803]

>>12148835
>>12148840
>>12151823
>>12151849
>>12153678
>>12159775
>>12159783
>>12162977
>>12165816
>>12166674
>>12166688
What motivates the status quo shill, sugary cereals? Taco trucks? Over a century of the compounded effects of a Prussian school system whose power to replace the family has been harnessed to emotionally retard generations of consumer whores?

[Anonymous No.12168262]

>>12166803
I always hear a lot of people saying that the prussian education system was what started the turning people into consumerist husks. But is it really that true? Where can i learn more about this? Or is this just a cope for trying to find what to blame?

[Anonymous No.12168601]

>>12149207
that's a pige you retard

[Anonymous No.12169480]

[Anonymous No.12169498]

me on the left

[Anonymous No.12170094]

>>12148827

My take is that there's always at least a low burn of decadence among the well-to-do's in society, as long as there's enough structure/wealth to consider it a cohesive society. When the general masses esp. the middle class has enough affluence, and can start to induldge in that same decadence, then it starts to trickle down through the whole society (if there's no counterforce) and erode social mores. Eventually, without mitigating outside factors (a war, richer neighbor states exploiting you) one of those decadence crests will happen when there isn't enough of a counterforce (religious dogma, Roman Republican sentiment, traditionalism, totalitarian force, whatever) and the unifying mores of the society will start to degrade. Less people buy into the essential collective narrative and become estranged from those around them. Poverty, social problems increase. Center cannot hold, blah blah blah. It's inevitable. Nothing lasts forever.

But, because there are crests and valleys, not everyone is blanket wrong or right about things being better in the past. A patrician living under Augustus lamenting the last days of the Republic was probably wrong. One living under Nero would be right.

[Anonymous No.12170201]

>>12151849
Reddit

[Anonymous No.12171072]

>>12170201
check out the big brain on this guy

[Anonymous No.12171108]

>>12148841
Actually, way more people should be making romantic art right now. A return to romanticism is exactly what we need. Post-modernism is honestly gay.

[Anonymous No.12171264]

People have been saying we're in decline forever which means nothing has ever changed ever, it's literally the same

Declinists BTFO!

[Anonymous No.12171318]

The agricultural revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

[Anonymous No.12171527]

>>12171264
Epic strawman, sperg.

[Anonymous No.12171608]

>>12171318
I think there’s a subtle difference between a decline in progress and a decline in (the quality of) culture.

[Anonymous No.12171610]

>>12169498
DEATH OR GLORY

[Anonymous No.12171891]

>>12148841
>Just look at artists like Death Grips or Aphex Twin.
If your post was like driving on a highway, this is the moment where the car spontaneously combusts.

>>12171108
>A return to romanticism is exactly what we need
We can't return into past, except as LARPing.

[Anonymous No.12173319]

[Anonymous No.12173346]

>"Am I being detained? I will not provide you with my id" the first amendment auditor asked as the Facebook drone manually extracted his social credit score from his neural jack. "This is going on youtube," he protested as he was loaded into the cremation pod

[Anonymous No.12173835]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12173899]

>>12148992
Aphex Twin is based.

[Anonymous No.12174008]

[Anonymous No.12174192]

>>12174008
For all I know, Socrates didn’t make any writings

[Anonymous No.12174201]

>>12174008
You’re missing the point here

[Anonymous No.12175031]

[Anonymous No.12176136]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12176265]

>>12148827
I think we are currently in a decline desu. After ww2 everything was going well, populations boomed, economies developed and this allowed people to become degenerate hippies and we are currently living in the aftermath of the degenerate hippy decline. There will be some big collapse or change in the status quo after which everything will start to improve again until people again have it good and throw it all away for more comfort.

[Anonymous No.12176864]

>>12148841
Postmodernity is dead senpai.

[Anonymous No.12177054]

>>12149205
>>12149630
>>12150483
>>12151492
>>12152785
>>12166752
>>12166803
Just take the mask off and admit you want to censor things that make you feel icky