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Post by JimB on Jan 22, 2008 0:37:06 GMT -5
OK, you guys are gonna laugh when you hear where I got this one. But I think it's a really interesting theory.
In the latest issue of Rolling Stone there's an interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky. Yes, Dr. Drew from Loveline and Celebrity Rehab, but he also happens to be a real life college professor in addition to a practicing medical doctor. He's interested in narcissism and the psychology of celebrity, and he's actually responsible for "the first empirical, academic treatise proving that celebrities are in fact more narcissistic than us."
Of course, this seems an obvious conclusion - until Pinsky gets talking about it, at which point he launches into his theory about the Way We Live Now. "I believe something has shifted", Pinsky says. "Frankly, something substantial happened when we developed antibiotics and hormonal contraceptives. Before 1950, almost half of American families could expect a child to die. Way more women could expect to die during childbirth. Living past fifty was sort of extraordinary. Now death and dying don't really exist for us. We don't need to deal with it. And then with birth control, sexuality became unhinged from a biological reality. Throughout human history, sex carried with it heavy consequences. It could kill you. Suddenly we were unhinged from that, and I think our culture has been rattling ever since. In 500 years, people will say the biological circumstances of human life changed profoundly, and it took them 150 years to figure it out. They'll say everyone became narcissistic, obsessed with instant pleasure, they stopped taking care of their children, and all hell broke loose." A meditative pause. "Listen, in the days of Freud, narcissism was a footnote in psychological journals. Now it's the standard personality of our culture. Nothing but grandiose narcissistic thinking everywhere!"
Sounds plausible to me. Thoughts?
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Post by ionysis on Jan 22, 2008 6:32:05 GMT -5
"Frankly, something substantial happened when we developed antibiotics and hormonal contraceptives. Before 1950, almost half of American families could expect a child to die. Way more women could expect to die during childbirth. Living past fifty was sort of extraordinary. Now death and dying don't really exist for us. We don't need to deal with it. And then with birth control, sexuality became unhinged from a biological reality. Throughout human history, sex carried with it heavy consequences. It could kill you. Suddenly we were unhinged from that, and I think our culture has been rattling ever since. In 500 years, people will say the biological circumstances of human life changed profoundly, and it took them 150 years to figure it out. They'll say everyone became narcissistic, obsessed with instant pleasure, they stopped taking care of their children, and all hell broke loose."
That is one way of looking at it. I agree with him right up to the point of his conclusion. Being someone who focuses on celebrities I can see why he has that view but I look at it in a very different way and I do not believe that narcissism is the only or anywhere near the most important result of the freedom which has emerged due to medical advances and birth control.
When most people in the world were forced to make their primary concern feeding the mouths of their uncontrollably multiplying brood of children and much of their emotional energy was taken up with grief, misery, the unfairness of life and making the most of those small pleasures which could be extracted from it they had no time for anything else.
The great works of art and literature, novel philosophies and radical innovations in the social and political spheres, the great leaps forward in science and technology were generally (not exclusively but generally) impelled by those who had the money, time or disfunctionality to focus on issues other than bringing up baby and staying alive - i.e. a very few people.
Many of the greatest and most influential figures in history were homosexual, unmarried or mentally and/or emotionally atypical. This enabled them to focus on something else; sometimes that "something" was of enormous benefit to the world.
Now, more and more "brains" are being freed from the chains of domestic servitude, poverty and the struggle to merely exist - and that number continues (for now) to grow. If you solely look at how many women now are able to choose to focus on things other than childrearing - just that alone means an enormous increase in the global supply of intellectual capacity, education, and potential to focus on matters other than mere survival. It also results in the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor and an explosion in the middle classes who have always been the drivers of social change.
Because of this I believe over the past 50 - 100 years we have been seeing and will continue to experience an enormous burst of creativity, innovation and acceleration in the development and advancement of the human race. The pace of technological progress, advances in medicine and other sciences, our understanding of the world about us, our ability to communicate and disseminate information, our appreciation of the world's problems and our ability to rectify them, and even our understanding of each other as people seems to me to be expanding every minute.
However, there is a flip side to all that.
Sadly the section of society that is freed from the shackles of poverty, ignorance and disease choose, because they can, to have fewer or indeed no children. The educated classes, the wealthy, the "narcissistic", those who are most likely to contribute to progress become, ultimately, dwarfed by the "untermensch".
Eventually the only section of society which procreates in its masses will be that section which is still trapped in "survival mode". Within that section of society, as has always been the case, poverty and ignorance result in lack of education and in real terms the elite gene pool of humanity is diluted by the masses of the underclass.
Eventually the world's main contributors to the intellectual development of mankind will number a tiny few isolated from the rest and they will be ultimately overrun and annihilated. Because of technological developments and the spread of globalization rather than this happening sporadically and regionally, as it always used happen throughout history, we will at some point once more enter the dark ages - a time of general demographic decline, impoverishment of technology, limited intellectual activity and a lack of material cultural achievement in general - but this time it will stretch across the entire world.
Fortunately we now are living in the midst of the boom and it will be our children's children who have to deal with the fall out. Well, some of our children's children anyway - the not so bright ones.
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Post by ionysis on Jan 22, 2008 17:16:07 GMT -5
What? No one has a comeback to this apocalyptic view? No religious rebuttals, no bible belt semantics? Nothing to pull me back from the inevitable decline of my souls redmption!
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Post by lumpy on Jan 22, 2008 17:37:26 GMT -5
If you swap in self-entitlement for narcissism, I'd tend to agree. I spose they are similar. I've worked all my life in jobs that require customer service. Of course I didn't work in the 50's, so I can't compare and contrast that far back, but I have noticed a sharp increase in attitude just in the 24 years that I've been in the workforce. It seems that most folks believe themselves to be more important than the rest of us and it baffles me as to why.
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Post by blazinheart on Jan 22, 2008 17:38:16 GMT -5
That is one way of looking at it. I agree with him right up to the point of his conclusion. Being someone who focuses on celebrities I can see why he has that view but I look at it in a very different way and I do not believe that narcissism is the only or anywhere near the most important result of the freedom which has emerged due to medical advances and birth control. When most people in the world were forced to make their primary concern feeding the mouths of their uncontrollably multiplying brood of children and much of their emotional energy was taken up with grief, misery, the unfairness of life and making the most of those small pleasures which could be extracted from it they had no time for anything else. The great works of art and literature, novel philosophies and radical innovations in the social and political spheres, the great leaps forward in science and technology were generally (not exclusively but generally) impelled by those who had the money, time or disfunctionality to focus on issues other than bringing up baby and staying alive - i.e. a very few people. Many of the greatest and most influential figures in history were homosexual, unmarried or mentally and/or emotionally atypical. This enabled them to focus on something else; sometimes that "something" was of enormous benefit to the world. Now, more and more "brains" are being freed from the chains of domestic servitude, poverty and the struggle to merely exist - and that number continues (for now) to grow. If you solely look at how many women now are able to choose to focus on things other than childrearing - just that alone means an enormous increase in the global supply of intellectual capacity, education, and potential to focus on matters other than mere survival. It also results in the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor and an explosion in the middle classes who have always been the drivers of social change. Because of this I believe over the past 50 - 100 years we have been seeing and will continue to experience an enormous burst of creativity, innovation and acceleration in the development and advancement of the human race. The pace of technological progress, advances in medicine and other sciences, our understanding of the world about us, our ability to communicate and disseminate information, our appreciation of the world's problems and our ability to rectify them, and even our understanding of each other as people seems to me to be expanding every minute. Yay! And all for what? So that we can scramble around trying to make a buck so that we can buy that new plasma t.v. Yay for progress, yay for innovation, yay for technology. And while we rush around enjoying the fruits of all our social, political, technological and economic advancements we throw our morals and values out the window, to the detriment of our children. This country is not progressing, it's declining...rapidly. If only we could've exercised a bit more restraint and self control, we might have actually had a half way decent country to hand over to our children. Instead they will inherit our debt, our lifestyle of greed, materialism and consumption. But hey, that's progress, right?
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Post by blazinheart on Jan 22, 2008 17:44:22 GMT -5
It seems that most folks believe themselves to be more important than the rest of us and it baffles me as to why. Because you aren't a person anymore lumpy. You're just a small stepping stone on someone's path to getting what they want. See, as our society has become so fast paced, we dont' have time to acknowlege the value of our fellow human beings anymore. We don't take the time to extend even the most basic courtesy or respect to those who serve us. We live for ourselves, unto ourselves and what is most important is not treating you like a fellow human but in getting out of you whatever it is we can use to further our own lives. People have become de-humanized in our culture.
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Post by ionysis on Jan 23, 2008 0:32:18 GMT -5
Is there anything you are NOT negative about Blazin? Good grief why are you sitting here carping about society's lack of moral values or women's inability to know their true role in life when you should be thanking God that you are living in an age which has more freedom of choice than any in known history? Life is what you make it - and how you see it of course. I think we are privileged to live in an age where more people than ever before have choices. Instead of your way of life being imposed upon you by society you are free to choose your religion, your partner, your sexuality, your moral values and even whether to have pork or beans for dinner in the evening. As far back as history goes people have been bleating about a loss of "values", a loss of innocence, a corruption or degradation of the world we live in. I've heard enough. Don't bleat like a child about the world's slide into moral decay; instead recognize the enormous potential we have been granted to be living in these momentous times. The European Renaissance was an age of supposed “moral” decline and yet gave birth to more great artwork, literature and technical advancement than any known period before it. Ancient Athens gave us Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; it gave us humanism and democracy. But, according to Socrates, Plato at the time was ranting: “What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?”. People have become "de-humanized"? Good God man, look at the “humanity” of the individual through history. We have no courtesy or respect? Can you imagine what life was like for 98% of the world’s population in 1700? Now, more than ever in the known history of the world, we have laws, religions, cultural and societal values which protect the rights of the individual and also those of the community. We have the Magna Carta, we have the Bill of Rights, we have Amnesty International, we have an ever growing number of charitable organizations, we have a global media drawing attention to the world’s problems, we have international aid, we have THE UNITED NATIONS! No, the world is not perfect, it never will be - we are human beings. There are injustices and atrocities committed hourly in today’s world as there always have been – but far less in fact than were committed a hundred or a thousand years ago. We are also in a better position than ever before to generate awareness of those things and to try to rectify them. No, we should not sit back on our haunches and say "goodness me, haven't we done well". But neither, I believe, should we sit like the spectre at the feast casting gloom on what is the most privileged generation of all time. Aeons roll by and this period of freedom and openness and privilege will not last. I say appreciate every second, give thanks that you were born now and not 500 years ago, look at the beauty and potential of life and suck the very marrow from its bones. Oh, and check this out: www.life-with-confidence.com/how-to-deal-with-negative-people.html
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Post by freckles on Jan 23, 2008 0:48:48 GMT -5
I think we will turn into the BORG with cell phones/Internet implanted in everybody's brain You will be Assimilated
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