Not only has American decadence been characterized by a decline in the quality of Americans, it's also exhibited a marked decline in the quality of American decadence. Compare the party culture of the 90s rave scene or the 80s punk scene, or really any previous era, with the modern. The fashion is ugly and bland, the women are fat and unpleasant, the music sucks, the sexual climate is bizarrely prudish. Incels and femcels are probably the largest plurality amongst millennials and younger. The general climate is one of ennui and malaise.
We're basically living in the Great Hangover.
High quality decadence seems to require maintenance by high quality humans, who in turn cannot be produced by decadence. Another way of saying that if you want to play hard you need to work hard.
I can go back further to the 70's disco scene and the 60's rap sessions. Both were decadent compared to 50's social mores: marijuana and then coke fueling what were formerly alcohol-only party gatherings. Generally people were still in some kind of shape mentally and physically if not always emotionally. The pot made you mentally uninhibited in the way alcohol did physically. Things and topics could be spoken that would never be broached now. And the dancing kept you in shape. I notice how dispirited rave dancing is comparatively. Seems to me the lack of actual songs w/ singing, lyrics and music that seldom changes would itself produce boredom in the ravers and defeat the purpose of sexual flirtation at the communal watering hole. Where's the eros? Maybe the robotic throbbing contributes to the incel scene rather than being the opposite of it.
That doesn't really match my experience of raves. At the time I remember thinking that it was a validation of Nietzsche's prediction of a revived Dionysian spirit in the 20th century. The combination of the flowing, rhythmic music and a social context in which everyone is everyone's best friend for the night (thanks, MDMA) was an effective means of inducing what felt like ecstatic transcendence, an experience sharpened by the underground, borderline-criminal setting of illegally occupied warehouses. One was going outside the boundaries of safe, acceptable society to do dangerous, fun things - that was largely the point.
Of course being a 90s kid I don't have a point of comparison with previous Dionysian revivals, but I'm also not knocking the various scenes of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
In any case I don't think you can blame incels on raves. Rave culture died two decades ago, whereas incels are a phenomenon of the 2010s.
Glad to be corrected. I 'm taking my observations on raves from various recent movies I've watched. They were depicting post 2000 scenes. I stopped going to clubs around the time you started (90's) I had very limited experience w/ MDMA. I enjoyed dancing on it once, but the music was 80's post-punk. Am I wrong about the robotic music at 2000+ raves?
No, you're not wrong in that context. The scene started to suck in the 2000s. The music went downhill (beat-matching is a dead art now, so there's no flow), the underground aspect was crushed, and the drug mix moved away from MDMA and towards alcohol, coke, and I guess more recently opioids. There's still a festival culture that has elements of 90s era rave culture, but it's fairly sanitized in comparison, and mostly only appeals to thirty-something tech workers with a lot of money to burn (eg Burning Man).
If it makes you feel any better, my misspent youth didn't help my GPA any. It's a minor miracle I was able to survive, let alone complete a physics degree.
You have a good analysis here, but no need for despair. As Christians, we are to live out our faith in all aspects of our lives daily, so the separation you mentioned shouldn't be relevant to God fearing people. Each of us can only manage ourselves and we must live with hope and have love for each other and in everything we do. The fear that too many live with needs to be shed like an old, outmoded outfit. Mother Teresa or the great GK Chesterton would remind us that what is wrong with the world is "me".
I have always proposed that postmodern thought, collectivism, and the idea of “social justice” are symptoms of the disease of progressivism and progressivism is the disease of prosperity, of generations never having to face the fires of Hades in a fight for survival. Like the foppish and frivolous people of the Roaring Twenties, the current blizzard of our precious, special snowflakes was created by such a historical period where hardship is defined as not having the latest iPhone or suffering with slow Internet.
Post-modernism, deconstructionism and progressivism are all the result of individuals seeking to explain their lack of success, societal mobility and meaningful achievement in the face of the objective success of productive members of society and individual self-determination. They are incapable of coming to terms with their own limitations; therefore they must construct an alternative explanation for their lack of tangible value to society through a system of pseudo-logic.
That we would be here today seems a historical inevitability and entirely predictable.
"From hunter-gatherer to washer-dryer is a long, strange trip."
LOL, too true!
Not only has American decadence been characterized by a decline in the quality of Americans, it's also exhibited a marked decline in the quality of American decadence. Compare the party culture of the 90s rave scene or the 80s punk scene, or really any previous era, with the modern. The fashion is ugly and bland, the women are fat and unpleasant, the music sucks, the sexual climate is bizarrely prudish. Incels and femcels are probably the largest plurality amongst millennials and younger. The general climate is one of ennui and malaise.
We're basically living in the Great Hangover.
High quality decadence seems to require maintenance by high quality humans, who in turn cannot be produced by decadence. Another way of saying that if you want to play hard you need to work hard.
I can go back further to the 70's disco scene and the 60's rap sessions. Both were decadent compared to 50's social mores: marijuana and then coke fueling what were formerly alcohol-only party gatherings. Generally people were still in some kind of shape mentally and physically if not always emotionally. The pot made you mentally uninhibited in the way alcohol did physically. Things and topics could be spoken that would never be broached now. And the dancing kept you in shape. I notice how dispirited rave dancing is comparatively. Seems to me the lack of actual songs w/ singing, lyrics and music that seldom changes would itself produce boredom in the ravers and defeat the purpose of sexual flirtation at the communal watering hole. Where's the eros? Maybe the robotic throbbing contributes to the incel scene rather than being the opposite of it.
That doesn't really match my experience of raves. At the time I remember thinking that it was a validation of Nietzsche's prediction of a revived Dionysian spirit in the 20th century. The combination of the flowing, rhythmic music and a social context in which everyone is everyone's best friend for the night (thanks, MDMA) was an effective means of inducing what felt like ecstatic transcendence, an experience sharpened by the underground, borderline-criminal setting of illegally occupied warehouses. One was going outside the boundaries of safe, acceptable society to do dangerous, fun things - that was largely the point.
Of course being a 90s kid I don't have a point of comparison with previous Dionysian revivals, but I'm also not knocking the various scenes of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
In any case I don't think you can blame incels on raves. Rave culture died two decades ago, whereas incels are a phenomenon of the 2010s.
Glad to be corrected. I 'm taking my observations on raves from various recent movies I've watched. They were depicting post 2000 scenes. I stopped going to clubs around the time you started (90's) I had very limited experience w/ MDMA. I enjoyed dancing on it once, but the music was 80's post-punk. Am I wrong about the robotic music at 2000+ raves?
No, you're not wrong in that context. The scene started to suck in the 2000s. The music went downhill (beat-matching is a dead art now, so there's no flow), the underground aspect was crushed, and the drug mix moved away from MDMA and towards alcohol, coke, and I guess more recently opioids. There's still a festival culture that has elements of 90s era rave culture, but it's fairly sanitized in comparison, and mostly only appeals to thirty-something tech workers with a lot of money to burn (eg Burning Man).
I'm sorry I can't contribute more to this convo but I was really boring back in HS and college.
If it makes you feel any better, my misspent youth didn't help my GPA any. It's a minor miracle I was able to survive, let alone complete a physics degree.
You have a good analysis here, but no need for despair. As Christians, we are to live out our faith in all aspects of our lives daily, so the separation you mentioned shouldn't be relevant to God fearing people. Each of us can only manage ourselves and we must live with hope and have love for each other and in everything we do. The fear that too many live with needs to be shed like an old, outmoded outfit. Mother Teresa or the great GK Chesterton would remind us that what is wrong with the world is "me".
Breathe deeply, tell the truth, turn to nature, and practice peaceful non-compliance.
Fantastic post.
I have always proposed that postmodern thought, collectivism, and the idea of “social justice” are symptoms of the disease of progressivism and progressivism is the disease of prosperity, of generations never having to face the fires of Hades in a fight for survival. Like the foppish and frivolous people of the Roaring Twenties, the current blizzard of our precious, special snowflakes was created by such a historical period where hardship is defined as not having the latest iPhone or suffering with slow Internet.
Post-modernism, deconstructionism and progressivism are all the result of individuals seeking to explain their lack of success, societal mobility and meaningful achievement in the face of the objective success of productive members of society and individual self-determination. They are incapable of coming to terms with their own limitations; therefore they must construct an alternative explanation for their lack of tangible value to society through a system of pseudo-logic.
That we would be here today seems a historical inevitability and entirely predictable.
Johnny could not read in 1955. Professionals are too busy reading for the job. The Vietnam War in my opinion destroyed the nation.