is there a decline and fall of American intellectual culture? (Part I)

[drownedinink]

The words from that Wonkette screed I posted that stuck with me were "Our art is shit and our literature is empty." When you study history, one of the things you pick up unofficially is the idea that nostalgia and rose-colored glasses play a tremendous and pervasive role in shaping our perspectives of both the past and present. Not only that, but

Comments

[chrysalisspirit]

This is a subject that interests me a lot, I will be curious to see what else you have to say about it.

[drownedinink]

Thanks!

[delicata77]

I like Neil Postman, though.

[drownedinink]

I do like his writing, but he was definitely an elitist snob.

[delicata77]

Yeah, it's true. I guess I like that he represents a certain level of discourse that no one wants to engage in anymore. It's depressing.

[drownedinink]

Hm, I'm not sure if I'd agree with that. I think he definitely suffered from the "rose-colored glasses" syndrome I mention here, along with an unconscious tendency to be dismissive of those forms of entertainment and media that just happen to be associated with the working classes. But I'll be talking more about all that in part II!

[dfordoom]

It's an interesting question because nine times out of ten when people start wringing their hands and saying the world is going to hell in a handbasket it really is just a case of seeing the past as a mythical Golden Age. But you can't get away from the fact that civilisations really do decline, and collapse. So how do you tell the difference? Did people in the western Roman empire in the fifth century AD realise that this time Rome wasn't going to bounce back?

What disturbs me about the current situation is that it doesn't seem to be just embittered middle-aged people talking about the decline of our culture. When you have 20-somethings who believe that we're living in an age of cultural decline then that can't be a good sign.

And when you have people with wildly differing political views who agree that we're in trouble then again you have to worry.

[ruby_stevens]

In trying to see if I can fake it till I make it in being hopeful I'm trying to see this as cylical. I don't think America is going to return to full superpower status, and I think that's a good thing. What worries me is people like Sarah Palin, everything that should end her career as a professional pest just makes her stronger. She is the walking Id of something very ugly and angry, and anti-intellectual in American society. Her North Korea gaffe makes her followers love her more, they're proud of their ignorance, they resent the existence of The Other and the loss of privilige. She's not smart but she's craven, and she's been coasting on that with no sign of stopping.

[mossymonkey]

This is one of those "yes, and . . ." questions. As a teacher, I can tell you that the ability to communicate in the written form is in serious decline--overall. There is still (and probably always will be) a core of really great and really smart students who are doing as well or better than "we" did when "we" were their age.

The more disturbing question to me is not our intellectual demographics but our aspirations, what we think we ought to be, and who is in charge, who we trust to be at the forefront of our culture and push it forward (or back). There are simultaneously more educated people in the US right now and the idiocy of Sarah Palin (and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush). There are both more really good poets writing than ever before (some of whom are boring) and "slam" poets (some of whom are good).

The need for an elite is another issue (but related), one I've been planning to write about for some time, so that'll be an interesting cross-argument.