The end of Western Cultures?

[timelady]

Quite possibly best read as a companion piece to this discussion on The Generation Gap, here, thegreatcritic.proboards24.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1156016806.

The 2006 CD Kemp Lecture, by Mark Steyn, www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20163817-7583,00.html, raises some interesting points.

Western countries have vastly lowered birth rates, to the point of population decline.
Europe is aging. Japan is aging, and is at a point where there are no more deaths than births. Japan alone has the issue of almost no immigration, to no replenishment of the population from external sources.

The responses for each country are different but, ultimately, the same problem.

In a nutshell, we have:
* (failed) attempts to persuade people to breed
* reliance on cradle to grave welfare
* selfish generations who do not want the responsibility of caring for children or the aged
* baby boomers who have a huge sense of entitlement, who are now reaching pensionable ages
* immigration causing massive cultural upheaval as the definition of each countries makeup is inexorably changing
* the growth of toys for adults (in Japan, toy robotic children for the elderly, our western boom for isolating mp3 players etc)

We face these issues in Australia too, don't we Mr Treasurer? our beloved Treasurer, Peter 'have one for the mother, one for the father, and one for the country' Costello, pays huge bonuses and allowances to encourage baby having. Child care is a huge industry, as women are encouraged into the work force. (Disclaimer : As one who works part time, with five children (yes, I have done my bit! And all pre those bonuses, dammit!), I have eschewed the industry, and juggle shifts of IT work with my husband's Park Ranger job.) Rapidly aging population here is poised to drain the country's welfare coffers, yet we have draconian immigration laws.

However, it must be said, that a strict leftist policy of all people, all cultures, is doomed to failure. This is a fractured policy, causing enclaves of cultures, rather than one homogeneous culture still embracing divergence. Britain is a prime example of this, with second and third generation immigrant children regarding themselves as Muslim first, British second.

We are a pleasure seeking culture. New shinies, more entertainment, less work. Individualised pleasures are the goal, hiding in headphones, customising our listening. No sharing radio for all with us, no, it must be unique to our tastes. Slightest pain, we demand improved analgesics, air conditioners are used for a shift of mere degrees. We are in the womb people.

Discuss:)

[Naselus]

Well, given the tremendous cock-up that most of Western culture has been, let's hope so, eh?

What's the west achieved? We've wiped out entire races, squandered the wealth of half the world with petty infighting, pissed off just about everyone else by attempting to absorb or supplant their own cultures, and burned up all the finite resources we can find. Go us.

Worse, as you say, we've fallen into the hedonistic pleasures that killed off the Roman empire. We complain about a 40 hour week while our companies employ slave labour in the East to feed to endless thirst for gadgets. Our attention span has dropped to the point where we lose interest in anything that lasts longer than five minutes. And our education systems have become so laughable that we're importing all our skilled work from the rest of the world, while exporting all the labour we don't want.

[modeski]

The question begs, what's to replace western culture? (Incidentally, sorry I didn't reply to this sooner, it's been a couple of days since I logged on last).

I don't want to be a foreteller of doom; well okay, yes I do - but I think we're going to see a rapid shift in the next fifty years from the current status quo in the west - i.e. rampant consumerism, isolationist governments and an "I'm allright, Jack" philosophy.

The course we're on cannot continue forever. Global warming will almost certainly render the planet far less hospitable than it currently is, and population growth will continue to suffer as a result. Economy-wise, we are all still dependant on fossil fuels, and unless there is a concerted effort to change this, when the oil runs out we're all screwed.

In fact, Mark Steyn says (from the piece linked to above),

Our children are unlikely to enjoy anything so placid, and may well spend their adult years in an ugly and savage world in which ever more parts of the map fall prey to the reprimitivization that’s afflicted Liberia, Somalia and Bosnia.

It's really pretty scary. It would be nice if our politicans would begin to address this issue, but I fear any action will be too little, too late.

[Naselus]

The fall of civilisation as we know it? Gosh. Didn't see that coming.

[modeski]

naselus said:

The fall of civilisation as we know it? Gosh. Didn't see that coming.

But can we stop it? Or at least influence it?

[Naselus]

Nope. The semi-feudal capitialist system in place today, whereby the fruits of labour are taken by those who own the means of production, has reached a critical mass, and the 'greed is good' philosophy of the eighties increased the divide between rich and poor to the point where now a violent collapse is inevitable. All that is required is the correct trigger, which global warming and the depletion of the fossil fuel base have come to represent. It'll all end in flames.

[HStorm]

Regarding the depletion of fossil fuels and the role it will play in collapse, that may already have hit a point of no return. For instance, the Lancashire coal industry is coming out of hibernation in response to the surge in oil prices. It was once one of the mightiest industries in the world, but by the 1960's Lancs coal was dead in the water, having been surpassed comfortably by the Texas and Middle East oil industries. Now oil prices have got so desperate that digging for coal seems like a good cheap alternative again.

Interestingly, all they're doing at the moment in one quarry near Horwich - whose coalface is now so far underground that it's almost inaccessible - is digging into old spoil heaps from the 1940's and extracting coal fragments from them. Things must be close to meltdown already for a scraps-and-crumbs task like that to seem worthwhile!

[modeski]

That's incredible, honestly something I never thought possible. I wonder if there even are enough miners left to meet demand. At one mine, I suppose there would be, but what if we see a resurgence in the coal-mining industry country-wide. There will need to be a widescale apprenticeship program.

Who knows, that might lead to a resurgence in unionism, as people's skills and labour start to come into more demand. Not that I think that surging oil prices will be a good thing, but it might mean that the economy is forced to shift away from information and services to manufacturing and industry. We'll need to start actually producing things again.