I am currently reading a wonderful book titled The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman. The premise is that America is in decline and currently looks a lot like the Roman Empire during its decay. This is not a new or unique take on postmodern (or late modern) US, but it does bring up the issue of civility. I am curious to hear from you about the difference between free speech and disobedience to the point of rupturing the social fabric of society without having any new answers.
As always, enjoy the world around you!
Toby
January 3, 2008 at 5:51 am
Toby,
One of the most radical shifts in understanding I’ve had since starting the program here is the concept that ’society’ is so fluid that it is in fact being destroyed and created on a continual basis; the only static cultures are ones in history books. So, both individual memory, and collective memory, are selective and reinterpreted over and over again. I think about a comment I heard once that “…the Roman Empire didn’t collapse so much as it faded, it is not as though Rome’s inhabitants ceased to be at a precise moment in time….” It makes me think of Finkelstein’s “The Way Things Never Were” about how ‘the good ol’ days’ are somewhat of a fabrication.
While our conceptualization of America may lead us to conclude that it is in decline, is it possible that a younger generation coming of age may view their culture’s place in the world entirely different such that, to them, “we” are not in decline or decay but in ascension toward a future that holds vastly different opportunities (probably ones that we would have difficulty realizing)?
Dave
January 31, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I often find such books to be useful (in the vein of cultural comment or cultural criticism such as Neil Postman) even if they turn out to have flaws in their seams… That is, they may not actually hold up as theory, but can be useful polemics to get people to think about cultural values. I’ve certainly picked up a number related to the question of civility, from Sennett to Lynn Truss’ “Talk to the Hand” and there arises the question of whether such books are actually cathartic or whether they merely instill and reinforce patterns of selective perception.
Many people seem to feel better after “venting” or hearing others share and express the same complaints and concerns, but on the other hand it’s hard to know whether that helps to place various concerns in their correct proportions; to accurately perceive the good along with the bad, the positive along with the flaws. In mass media consumption, for example, many of those who claim to benefit from a cathartic effect haven’t actually compared the effects from alternative conditions. They see Rambo kicking butt, or Michael Douglas “Falling Down” and feel somehow vindicated despite the lack of realism and contrived nature of those scenarios, but it’s possible that such “vindications” merely feed their long-term dissatisfactions rather than alleviate them. Although there is value in dialogue, one of the questions to eventually be dealt with is that regarding which things are beyond our control – even in the collective sense – and therefore might be better to accept (through a new definition of the situation) rather than to criticize and protest.
My 2.5 cents…