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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Kids these days... insert silly rant here. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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Anyong:
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| Yeah, Koreans in particular are way too sophisticated to get caught up in WWF. Japanese can't stand pro-wrestling either. |
Both are viewed on their own sports channels and have high ratings. I saw the 5 minutes I could bear of WWF on a Korean channel with Korean announcers and subtitles. So much for that notion, eh?
Spinoza:
The key word in your post is "reasonable," which posters like twg and woland and yata boy have great difficulty recognizing from their juvenile detention center. |
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shifter2009
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Location: wisconsin
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| The problem with this thread is that it assumes at some point in humanities history, people weren't a bunch of degenerates. Look at any point in history there was some seriously foul things going on and this trend will continue into the forseeable future. There has always been someone saying society is going to hell and we are on the verge of moral collapse yada yada yada and yet we continue to survie. Steve doesn't say anything about the declines in poverty, starvation ect in the world. Things aren't perfect but I wouldn't trade places with society 50 years ago. Relax, do what you can to make the world a better place and hopeful things will look up. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| shifter2009 wrote: |
| The problem with this thread is that it assumes at some point in humanities history, people weren't a bunch of degenerates. Look at any point in history there was some seriously foul things going on and this trend will continue into the forseeable future. There has always been someone saying society is going to hell and we are on the verge of moral collapse yada yada yada and yet we continue to survie. Steve doesn't say anything about the declines in poverty, starvation ect in the world. Things aren't perfect but I wouldn't trade places with society 50 years ago. Relax, do what you can to make the world a better place and hopeful things will look up. |
I half agree. People have always been and always will be wicked. I would point out, however, that Steve mentions the West and when you say, "people are a bunch of degenerates," and "we continue to survive." I don't think Steve would disagree with these points because I don't think he is talking about the mere survival of the human species. He is talking about the decline of a particular culture and in history, there are numerous cultures which have not survived and others that have only barely. Not many people speak Latin these days.
Oh, and where did you get the info that there are declines in poverty and starvation? |
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Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:27 am Post subject: |
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My grandmother was right.
Civilisation is going to hell in a handbasket! |
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hairy sue
Joined: 18 May 2006
Location: weewee heaven
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:52 am Post subject: Re: NEED PROOF OF THE DEGENERATE WEST? |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
| Sometimes I turn on my TV to the satellite stations to channel surf and I invariably come across things that force me to realize why so many traditional cultures regard contemporary Western cultures with such disdain. |
Traditional cultures? Western culture? What are you talking about?
What is traditional culture? |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 7:00 am Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
| Oh, and where did you get the info that there are declines in poverty and starvation? |
I don't know about those particular points, but see Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox for some general discussion of improvement in qualiity of life factors over the last century or so.
| Gregg Easterbrook wrote: |
| Many other aspects of contemporary life, taken for granted by those of us who live it, would dazzle our recent ancestors. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average American lifespan was forty-one years; now it is seventy-sevent years, equating to almost twice as much time on Earth for the typical person. History's plagues -- polio, smallpox, measles, rickets -- have been defeated, along with a stunning reduction of the infectious diseases that for pre-antibiotics generations instilled terror. Everyone of our great-great grandparents would have known someone who died of a disease that today is shrugged at; manyof our recent ancestors themselves departed this life as victims of diseases at which we now shrug. My paternal grandfather died in 1921 of lockjaw -- then untreatable, today cured by a few vials of inexpensive chemicals. |
Easterbrook goes on to point out that despite this progress, the average level of happiness of Americans hasn't increased in fifty years and many people put forth laments of decline like the OP's. His book is an exploration of this seeming paradox.
Serious enough for ya, Steve?  |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| If only people would marry within their race, choose only one partner to bang for the rest of their lives, eliminate divorce, have two children maximum, eat healthy foods, exercise, read books a lot, only watch tv for news and information, recycle everything properly, drink no more than one alcoholic beverage per day, eradicate smoking, carpool, clean up and wash their hands and bodies, work hard, follow a government mandated zoning law and not try to own anything more than everyone else, serve in the military, and send their mentally challenged and handicapped children to secure and top secret reservations....we could have a perfect world! |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
| People have always been and always will be wicked. |
I have to disagree with this. My experience, as I put it in another thread today, is that people everywhere are almost always good. The humans I've met have been kind and helpful to a fault when necessary and almost never deliberately malicious. I'm sure that it's not all good out there, but it mostly is. If you expect people to be wicked, well then, wicked is what you'll find. |
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shifter2009
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
Location: wisconsin
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:10 am Post subject: |
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| Woland wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Oh, and where did you get the info that there are declines in poverty and starvation? |
I don't know about those particular points, but see Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox for some general discussion of improvement in qualiity of life factors over the last century or so.
| Gregg Easterbrook wrote: |
| Many other aspects of contemporary life, taken for granted by those of us who live it, would dazzle our recent ancestors. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average American lifespan was forty-one years; now it is seventy-sevent years, equating to almost twice as much time on Earth for the typical person. History's plagues -- polio, smallpox, measles, rickets -- have been defeated, along with a stunning reduction of the infectious diseases that for pre-antibiotics generations instilled terror. Everyone of our great-great grandparents would have known someone who died of a disease that today is shrugged at; manyof our recent ancestors themselves departed this life as victims of diseases at which we now shrug. My paternal grandfather died in 1921 of lockjaw -- then untreatable, today cured by a few vials of inexpensive chemicals. |
Easterbrook goes on to point out that despite this progress, the average level of happiness of Americans hasn't increased in fifty years and many people put forth laments of decline like the OP's. His book is an exploration of this seeming paradox.
Serious enough for ya, Steve? |
This is basically what I was getting at when I was refering to decline of starvation and poverty. Poverty still sucks but its not nearly as deblitating to basic survival as it was in the past. Life isn't perfect but you don't have to worry about lockjaw killing you. The advancement in basic social welfare in the last century really are pretty amazing even if the sometimes leave alot to be desired. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| Woland wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| People have always been and always will be wicked. |
I have to disagree with this. My experience, as I put it in another thread today, is that people everywhere are almost always good. |
I suppose it depends on your definition of "wicked." Some people like to label others based upon their TV viewing habits, "morals," and socio-political views. Others evaluate people on an individual level. People the former might consider "wicked" are usually far from it on an individual level.
| Quote: |
| If you expect people to be wicked, well then, wicked is what you'll find. |
Yeah, that's what I meant.
Last edited by huffdaddy on Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:51 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Sex in the City airs as reruns in the West and in East Asia with the sluttish quartet chronicling their most recent sexual exploits masked as feminist independence. The veneer of legitimacy from the clever dialogue, chic clothes and restaurants, and fancy boutiques is stil unable to conceal what is glorified raunch and sexual obsession. And any critics are immediately accused of being prudish or puritanical or, worse yet, chauvanistic. |
Trying to lump this in with things like support for incest and paedophilia ( valid concerns indeed ) is just not really working for you steve, it's just somehow failing to tweak my outrage meter, and is really quite a bizarre and revealing conection to make.
In art, and I use the term in it's broadest sense, we see what we want to see, we see reflections of ourselves. You assert that the core of the program is "glorified raunch and sexual obsession", while the clever diaglogue is the fluff used to distract from, carry, sell, sugar coat, give legitimacy to, or whatever, this morally degenerate main theme. And it's very interesting that this is what you see in the series. It says a lot about you and your own fears and obsessions ( powerful independant women are scarey huh? ). Me, I see the exact opposite, the sex element is completely incidental, and it is indeed the witty and sometimes penetrating dialogue, and the characters, thier drives and motivations, thier struggles, thier weaknesses, hopes, fears, triumphs, disasters, lessons, relationships, but most of all ( I wonder if anyone agrees ) thier enduring and endearing friendship with one another, that really drive Sex and the City.
These are women in thier thirties, they are hardly out thier partying it up just for the hell of it and indulging is recreational casual sex for the sheer carnal hedonism of it all a la the 18 year old set. It's as plain as mud that each and every one of them desperately desire to meet a wonderful man and settle down. What they do that seems to cross your moral line in the sand is that they refuse to sit back and be passive about it when things dont go right, they get back up off the ground and get back out there. This could be seen as an admirable trait, unless of course you have a problem with independant women.
Putting forward Sex and the City as evidence of the decline of the west into degeneracy is not only ignorant, judgemental, bigotted, and deeply naive, it displays a moral outlook that is so profoundly warped and diseased that it is positively breathtaking. |
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rubric
Joined: 28 Oct 2006
Location: Pongdongfongyong
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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The public wants what the public gets served up with.
Often the crappy shows have cheaper broadcasting rights, or they are free if bought as a package. That's why a lot of this garbage is viewed in non-western countries. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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To those arguing that life is great now because lockjaw is not a big problem, you are aware that there are still huge problems with hunger, poverty and disease, right? If anything, I think you are showing that many aspects of life have been improved because of technological and medical advances. I think all would agree with that. Past generations had an excuse for watching millions die-they lacked medical knowledge. The fact that millions still die every year from malnutrition shows that our probelm today is not lack of medical knowledge, but lack of concern and selfishness. Advances in medicine have certainly improved the lives of people, but despite these advances and plenty of food to go around, there are still millions that never seem to get what they need to survive.
And what was meant by the "If you look for wickedness in people you will find wickedness in people," quote? Does that mean you find wickedness that isn't really there? Does that mean that by looking for wickedness you will somehow cause wickedness to appear? or does that mean that there is wickedness there, but you have to look for it to find it? |
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chriswylson
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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"Me, I see the exact opposite, the sex element is completely incidental" Satori
Sure, that's why the series is called 'Sex and the City', you brainwashed zombie. |
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