Society is in decline!

[conuly]

Serva me! Serva me! Undae magnae sunt!

(I love that line. Latin for Americans, people!)

I hate that argument. Loathe and abhor it. Do you know how many times I've heard some self-righteous little mind cry that society is in decline? Wish I knew. And when I read back through the pitiful collection of historical documents I, um, read through, guess what? That's the unifying thread. No matter when or where you are, somebody is there getting up on a soapbox and declaring that society is in decline, that children don't obey their parents, that life was better when they were young, and it's a crying shame that we should Do Something About.

The books are all wrong now, the winters are too short, and we don't get proper sunlight nowadays. Why, when I was a young whippersnapper, I hiked three miles, in the snow, just to get to school, and I was happy for it! Uphill, both ways!

People were saying that before there were schools, and it was a lie then just like it's a lie now.

Society can't possibly be in constant decline. We'd've noticed. Among other things, at this point we'd all be pointing, grunting, and having sex with our brothers and sisters. Instead, what we've got here is a classic case of overexcited hyperbole by somebody who doesn't like Harry Potter, and who thinks that's linked to the current decline of society.

I wonder if I should take my time to argue. All this has happened before, and will happen again, right? (Look at me, all Ms. Pop-Culture-referency!) So I could correct her, but another three would take her place (and you know what I blame that on the breakdown of? Society!). So it's a bit of a waste of time, really.

Still irritates me. A lot. Grr.

As for "what is literature", that's just a stupid question. I note that nowadays many people reference Uncle Tom's Cabin as literature. I've read that. It's a piece of well-written, fairly-honest, useful propaganda, but I wouldn't deign to call it literature. I do suppose it's better than anything about a boy called Tom Swift, though.... (But, gasp, at least they didn't have Famous Harry Potter to idolize then!)

And now he says, when I call him out on his sexist, ageist, and racist language (and I still think that was racist): You're not the boss of me! This is a free country! And other such playground classics from the man who wants us all to graduate "highschool". I've removed myself from the discussion, because he apparently doesn't realize that it doesn't matter whether I rule the world or not, that sort of thing is not acceptable. We've all refrained from commenting on his age, race, gender, sexuality, the whole of it, the worse any of us has done is called him "stupid". He gets to try to do the same now. Fair's fair, right?

Comments

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

"...we'd all be pointing, grunting, and having sex with our brothers and sisters."

From what I've heard of that "Dukes of Hazzard" movie, then, society is absolutely screwed in some areas. ;-)

Though (to be slightly more serious) most kids *are* being raised to be more obxnoious here than they were when I was young. Even the last 10 years have been a major change for the worse.

[conuly]

I will take your word for the last, since you don't seem to be frothing at the mouth over here.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Today's literature is yesterday's pop culture. Who does he think Shakespeare's audience was? The patrons may have had the deep pockets, but there were a lot more of the groundlings.

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

I was just about to mention that very thing. Shakespeare's "classics" were the daytime soap operas of their day. He didn't write to be the next Great Classic WTF-ever; he wrote to entertain the masses.

I don't know of any Great Classic author of his or her time to ever puff up so much as to say that that's just what they are (or are going to be) gad dammit! Not like this person.

Heh. Just occurred to me; the OP at that link and Anne Rice share something in common: the full-of-onesself-ness. Wankity wankity wank. Talk is fucking cheap. I was just saying this the other day. Do something, or STFU.

[l33tminion]

Seriously. Dickens wrote pulp fiction. People waited impatiently for the next chapter. (People probably even complained when details were spoiled for them.)

Why should we expect the classics of today to be the same as the classics of the past? They're being written in a totally different time period!

[l33tminion]

Also, for some reason I now feel tempted to create a "Little Nell dies" icon...

[wordweaver.livejournal.com]

That post reminded me of a passage in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:

"...there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. "I am no novel-reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel." -- Such is the common cant. -- "And what are you reading, Miss --?" "Oh! it is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame."

[elfster.livejournal.com]

I like the little "rants" that pop up in Northanger Abbey.

[ex-chaos-by-699.livejournal.com]

When people bitch about how society is declining, I'm always tempted to give them a big ol'lecture about how much life sucked during the Middle Ages.

[conuly]

Forget the Middle Ages, what about the 50s? I've never understood what the appeal was of:

Racism, McCarthyism, Duck and Cover, the Korean War, Westerns, and women being paid 70 cents on the dollar. Maybe it's just me?

[fjorab-teke.livejournal.com]

"All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again."
"Please please pleeease!"
*dark maniacal laughter and a scream*
- Information Society. Good stuff. :-)

But yeah...society is always "in decline" one way or another, and it's also usually in some upswing one way or another. It just changes slightly in the focal points of that and of course the perceptions from people and societies that make it seem so.

[phibby.livejournal.com]

Our literary spirit is dying, and with it our culture.

Walk into any local supermarket or bookstore and gaze at the books being sold--proof enough of the filth.

Look at the spread of AIDS and other STDS, and couple it with the increased rates of divorce and remarriage.

Incidentally, I punctuate as I please.

You know.... *shakes head* I'm not going to start.

[conuly]

I know. Just stating that something is filth isn't proof that it is filth.

You know what? I'm a maintainer there. I'm going to call his ass out on some of the shit he's said, and tell him that if he keeps it up after I've left the discussion, he can consider himself forcibly removed.

[griphus.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a comic that appeared in the New Yorker recently.

A pair of Mormons (suits, nameplates) are at an old guy's door and he's reading one of their pamphlets stating "You call this literature?".

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

From a comment towards the end:

See what being civil can do?

*falls over laughing*

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

Read most of the posts there...and definitely agree with you. (Though I thought the "thus says the man holding the teddy" comment was a bit below the belt...)

The literature of the past seems better because we've gotten rid of most of the trash by now. And lots of what was seen as "pulp" and "trash" then, we now consider classic literature. I have to wonder how many people read the 'good and literary stuff' being written back then, anyway. Dumas always tended to beat out George Elliot in sales...

I've run into a lot of romanticization of the past of education, too. Kids still goofed off at college 'back then'... got drunk, didn't study, wasted money.

And, yeah, people have always been promiscuous -- just sometimes not as obviously. (I've also been reading way too much about the Wars of the Roses recently...some really messed up stuff with husbands and wives and lovers, there).

Everyone tends to bring up the Lincoln-Douglas debates in these arguments as well (talking about the decline of political discourse) ... but said debates were a form of big-time entertainment, too, not just really long intellectual discussions. Find an edition that records some of the audience's cheers and comments and shouts and calls. :-))

[conuly]

*giggles*

He was calling for that teddybear comment.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

That viewpoint looked really eerily familiar to me. A lot of the things he was tying together, looked a lot like the sort of things someone I know started tying together after reading The Closing of the American Mind. (A book by a neo-con that, in all fairness, I've never been able to slog through in its entirety.)

[conuly]

People have been saying the same stuff forever, though. Back in the stone age, they sat around and talked about people 'nowadays' are degenerate.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

I always assumed that people were partially right when they insisted that society was in decline as there are several aspects of society and they tend to fluctuate - thus it's reasonable to assume that at any point in time at least one aspect of society is in decline...

The flaw in the logic is that they view one aspect and assume that the decline there is mirored in all other aspects...

You know this... I'll shut up now.

[conuly]

That's a fair assessment, but he's still an idiot.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

What an idiot!

I'm quite proud of my literature-specific ranty answer (http://www.livejournal.com/community/books/813137.html?thread=5232209#t5232209) to his assertion that Thomas Harris, Michael Crichton and George R.R. Martin are the best things he's read in the contemporary scene. (I could have just shouted, "TROLL! OBVIOUS TROLL WITH NO TASTE AT ALL!", but being snobby and condescending is much more fun ;-) )

Your answer was perfect, of course: "literature" is defined by what's left standing after a few generations have passed and re-judged the work in the light of their own tastes and attitudes. Like the saying goes, "There are plenty of works which are unjustly forgotten, but nothing is ever unjustly remembered."

Brava you. Now ban that troll.

[conuly]

I can't ban him, that's the whole problem! Not after I let myself get into a silly flamefest with him! I'm stuck with him until he says something blatantly racist, sexist, or otherwise -ist to somebody else. And for now, he seems to have gone to ground.

[pzfun.livejournal.com]

I just left a nice long comment. Enjoy!

[maelorin]

meh. there was no 'discussion' going on over there.

[conuly]

I know.

Incidentally, did you see the replies to his post on his journal? There must be something in the water. Perhaps some sort of mutating virus....

[bastardsword.livejournal.com]

I hate that argument, which is why I had, at one point, the artist's rant in Anna Karenina saved. I found a (not very good) translation on Project Gutenberg, so...

Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be, Mihailov supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about art, like all those wealthy Russians, but posing as amateurs and connoisseurs. "Most likely they've already looked at all the antiques, and now they're making the round of the studios of the new people, the German humbug, and the cracked Pre-Raphaelite English fellow, and have only come to me to make the point of view complete," he thought. He was well acquainted with the way dilettanti have (the cleverer they were the worse he found them) of looking at the works of contemporary artists with the sole object of being in a position to say that art is a thing of the past, and that the more one sees of the new men the more one sees how inimitable the works of the great old masters have remained.

Even worse that the everlasting "Oh mah god art/literature/music/schooling/children/whales/squirrels is/are declining!" argument is the "You can't call me an asshole, I've got free speech!" No, no. Free speech if the ability of YOU [universal 'you' here, not specifically, er, you] being able to say something that makes me think you're an asshole, and my ability to CALL you an asshole, and for YOU to call me a bitch in return. I'd only be violating your freedom of expression if I ball gagged you, duct-taped your mouth shut, shoved you in a pile of blankets, and called 911 to report a potential terrorist -- all in response to you calling the Senators a bad hockey team.

[ladydiana.livejournal.com]

I like how he called you a feminazi.

And now, I must go drown my "slash is the bane of writing, and the very mention of it is escalating to make me homicidal" fury in a couple of VERY STIFF Vodka screwdrivers.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

My response to his repost of this on his own personal live journal:



It was very hard to keep myself from arguing that harry potter wasn't complete trash, but I figured that I could easily save that for later. Generally speaking, I was just trying to be dissenting, yet extremely reasonable.

I think that the best measure of whether or not he has any value as a human being at this point lies in whether or not he un-screens my comment (http://www.livejournal.com/users/childofmarduk/75696.html?view=147888#t147888).

I'm not holding my breath.

[idonotlikepeas]

I say this kind of thing all the time. I frequently argue with people at work about how society is doing just fine kthx, and we now have that Internet thing which is pretty clearly a good move for the whole world, etc. Oh and we have less crime than we used to, too.

It doesn't work, though. People like to believe that the world is going to hell. I think it makes them feel better about things.

[l33tminion]

Someone just wrote this dissection of that post. Just wanted to point that out because it's very well written (5th_estate is awesome).

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

"...we'd all be pointing, grunting, and having sex with our brothers and sisters."

From what I've heard of that "Dukes of Hazzard" movie, then, society is absolutely screwed in some areas. ;-)

Though (to be slightly more serious) most kids *are* being raised to be more obxnoious here than they were when I was young. Even the last 10 years have been a major change for the worse.

[conuly]

I will take your word for the last, since you don't seem to be frothing at the mouth over here.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Today's literature is yesterday's pop culture. Who does he think Shakespeare's audience was? The patrons may have had the deep pockets, but there were a lot more of the groundlings.

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

I was just about to mention that very thing. Shakespeare's "classics" were the daytime soap operas of their day. He didn't write to be the next Great Classic WTF-ever; he wrote to entertain the masses.

I don't know of any Great Classic author of his or her time to ever puff up so much as to say that that's just what they are (or are going to be) gad dammit! Not like this person.

Heh. Just occurred to me; the OP at that link and Anne Rice share something in common: the full-of-onesself-ness. Wankity wankity wank. Talk is fucking cheap. I was just saying this the other day. Do something, or STFU.

[l33tminion]

Seriously. Dickens wrote pulp fiction. People waited impatiently for the next chapter. (People probably even complained when details were spoiled for them.)

Why should we expect the classics of today to be the same as the classics of the past? They're being written in a totally different time period!

[l33tminion]

Also, for some reason I now feel tempted to create a "Little Nell dies" icon...

[wordweaver.livejournal.com]

That post reminded me of a passage in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:

"...there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. "I am no novel-reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel." -- Such is the common cant. -- "And what are you reading, Miss --?" "Oh! it is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame."

[elfster.livejournal.com]

I like the little "rants" that pop up in Northanger Abbey.

[ex-chaos-by-699.livejournal.com]

When people bitch about how society is declining, I'm always tempted to give them a big ol'lecture about how much life sucked during the Middle Ages.

[conuly]

Forget the Middle Ages, what about the 50s? I've never understood what the appeal was of:

Racism, McCarthyism, Duck and Cover, the Korean War, Westerns, and women being paid 70 cents on the dollar. Maybe it's just me?