# The Golden Age of the West **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575 "2010-03-24T03:32:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Brandon\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecc23a/32.png) [@Brandon\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandon_R)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/41 "2010-03-25T00:59:49Z")
The Golden Age Is Yet To Come ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/42 "2010-03-25T01:42:50Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > You know who else wanted to impose cultural conservatism in artistic and literary styles? I assume you mean Adolf. In that case two words: Godwin’s Law. > [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Ah, but _we_ have them, as well. And those who came before them. Cultural touchstones don’t exist for the moment, and then disappear with a new generation or age; those that are considered worth remembering are. That’s the benefit of living in the present; we get to have the good stuff of what was had in the past. > > More importantly, I’d say, we’re less willing to close our eyes to cultural interests from some sources or some styles. Sure, that means we get some unpleasant things now and again. But we’re more willing to show interest in things that are new. Cultural conservatism, if it worked, might well mean that we get to keep what is good of the old - but at the expense of the good that is new. 100 years from now, people would still be talking about the same things, and in the same way. And cultural stagnancy is stagnancy of thought. History is a gradual tale of things, overall, pretty much getting better. To say that what we have now is _enough_ is a very disturbing idea to me. Of course materially we are far better but culturally we have degenerated. We have reached the period where Western _culture_ is over though not _civilization_ to borrow Spengler’s lexicon. > [@FriarTed](#): > > In 100 years, when Christian social democratic capitalism is the dominant global culture. I though you were a Republican. :(😉 > [@MrDibble](#): > > They also had a lot of derivative, overly-sentimental and cheesy crap. You’ve just noticed the stuff that stood the test of time, is all.Are you under the mistaken impression that realist art, expressionist art, impressionist art and the like are no longer practiced? Yes and it’s getting worse. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: I suppose it’s purely coincidence, and not at all significant to your assessment, that the _Belle Epoque_ you speak of was also the high point of European colonial imperialism and global political hegemony? Yes because I think respecting and tolerating barbaric cultures is not a good thing to anyone contrary to some trends in academic thinking. > [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Did “modern” art \*cause \*WWI? (Blame it on the Symbolists!) And all the other bloody events that followed? What _did_ cause the end of your so-called “Golden Age”? No I do not. As for what caused it’s end I identify World War I which annihilated monarchies from much of Continental Europe and caused the rise of totalitarian Communism, Fascism, and Nazism and the triumph of radical nationalists in Europe which set an example for Asian and African nationalist radicals. > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > So in any age there’s good stuff and bad stuff happening. While I agree that the art world has become a joke in the last century, I don’t measure golden ages by that criteria. Fine art is generally a concern to only a small slice of the population, namely the upper class, and hence it shouldn’t be used to measure the human experience generally. I meant culture-wise since materially we’re constantly getting better and better. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/43 "2010-03-25T03:00:59Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Yes because I think respecting and tolerating barbaric cultures is not a good thing to anyone contrary to some trends in academic thinking. :rolleyes: You just don’t understand what imperialism was **about,** do you? Here, this might put it in perspective for you – from [George Orwell’s 1942 essay on Rudyard Kipling:](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part17) > [@](#): > > Kipling spent the later part of his life in sulking, and no doubt it was political disappointment rather than literary vanity that account for this. Somehow history had not gone according to plan. After the greatest victory she had ever known, Britain was a lesser world power than before, and Kipling was quite acute enough to see this. The virtue had gone out of the classes he idealized, the young were hedonistic or disaffected, the desire to paint the map red had evaporated. He could not understand what was happening, because he had never had any grasp of the economic forces underlying imperial expansion. It is notable that Kipling does not seem to realize, any more than the average soldier or colonial administrator, that an empire is primarily a money-making concern. Imperialism as he sees it is a sort of forcible evangelizing. You turn a Gatling gun on a mob of unarmed ‘natives’, and then you establish ‘the Law’, which includes roads, railways and a court-house. He could not foresee, therefore, that the same motives which brought the Empire into existence would end by destroying it. It was the same motive, for example, that caused the Malayan jungles to be cleared for rubber estates, and which now causes those estates to be handed over intact to the Japanese. The modern totalitarians know what they are doing, and the nineteenth-century English did not know what they were doing. Both attitudes have their advantages, but Kipling was never able to move forward from one into the other. His outlook, allowing for the fact that after all he was an artist, was that of the salaried bureaucrat who despises the ‘box-wallah’ and often lives a lifetime without realizing that the ‘box-wallah’ calls the tune. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/44 "2010-03-25T03:14:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: You just don’t understand what imperialism was **about,** do you? > > Here, this might put it in perspective for you – from [George Orwell’s 1942 essay on Rudyard Kipling:](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part17) It was partially about money yes but they were plenty of genuine idealists. Overall Africa and India’s better off because of colonialism and had colonial empires survived but liberalized into gigantic commonwealths and trade pacts the world would be a better place than now. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/45 "2010-03-25T03:16:23Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > It was partially about money yes but they were plenty of genuine idealists. Overall Africa and India’s better off because of colonialism and had colonial empires survived but liberalized into gigantic commonwealths and trade pacts the world would be a better place than now. :rolleyes: Yeah, all that looting, genocide, exploitation, slavery, tyranny and the deliberate creation of internal hatreds - that’s really served India and Africa well. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/46 "2010-03-25T03:24:58Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > It was partially about money yes but they were plenty of genuine idealists. Overall Africa and India’s better off because of colonialism and had colonial empires survived but liberalized into gigantic commonwealths and trade pacts the world would be a better place than now. Cite? I’m going to also reccomend _King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa_, by Adam Hochschild. THEN you’ll see how much better off Africa was by the “idealists.” **Curtis** , I know you’re only thirteen, but these rigid ideas of your’s are so full of ignorance it’s frightening. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/47 "2010-03-25T03:32:51Z")
And where would Africa today be without colonialism? Mostly farming villiages and India would still be a legally caste society. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/48 "2010-03-25T03:40:56Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > And where would Africa today be without colonialism? Mostly farming villiages and India would still be a legally caste society. Or perhaps they’d have developed a thriving society by using their own natural resources – why wouldn’t they? You’re basically using the whole “White Man’s Burden” argument. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/49 "2010-03-25T04:43:09Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > …As for what caused it’s end I identify World War I which annihilated monarchies from much of Continental Europe and caused the rise of totalitarian Communism, Fascism, and Nazism and the triumph of radical nationalists in Europe which set an example for Asian and African nationalist radicals… So– **what caused WWI?** Wasn’t it brewed out of the very heart of oh-so-cultured Europe? Yes, the Kaiser was nuts. But the other European powers had been expecting–planning–for a war. They thought they could play with their high-tech weapons–heretofore only used against “naked savages”–& finish things up by Christmas. Instead, they dragged Europe & much of the rest of the world into the horrors to come. You _really_ need to read some history. Actually, you need to read a lot. And study what was actually happening in art & literature back then. (One clue: Dada & Surrealism were _responses_ to the insanity of the Great War.) As\*\* tomndebb\*\* said: > [@](#): > > I’m still getting my head around the idea that the OP rates London (very good, not great) and Doyle, (amusing, good, but hardly “very” good), as the epitome of quality while ignoring the fact that during that period, their contemporaries were not really regarding Van Gogh and Monet as the epitome of good art, so even if they had it they did not recognize it. London’s work was widely popular–but he was a Socialist. Arthur Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes & wanted to be known for his “fine” literature–which has been forgotten. He was also a Spiritualist–hardly an orthodox Christian. How can Our OP respect such dangerous radicals? van Gogh killed himself–dead broke & ignored by the art world. Monet lived long enough to taste success but was hardly considered quite the thing in that “Golden Age.” I direct Our OP to the works of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, whose art was considered the pinnacle of elegance by the “right” people. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/50 "2010-03-25T05:06:54Z")
_Now_, without question, is the best time culturally, philosophically and scientifically, the west, and most of the world, has ever seen. There are isolated areas of the world where the average individuals quality of life would’ve been higher in the past – former centers of empires and areas of great poverty/overgrowth. However, the great advances in the sciences have made up for that. And yes, I think to look at a culture, you **must** look at that culture’s sciences, because they’re inexorably linked. A society with stagnated science makes no cultural progress, because nothing new has been achieved. Innovation and culture go hand in hand. We are the beneficiaries of multiple millenia of cultural advancement, and so much more has been gained than lost (although the losses that we have suffered are tragic, in their own rights – haven’t we lost part of Homer’s Odyssey? And so many others), it’s hard for me to say with a straight face we’re not better off now than we’ve ever been before… from a cultural perspective, from a scientific one, from a societal one. And we’re making more progress. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/51 "2010-03-25T05:23:15Z")
> [@Brandon\_R](#): > > The Golden Age Is Yet To Come And Babe Won’t It Be Fine ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/52 "2010-03-25T05:28:26Z")
There was also a reason the Edwardian era was referred to as the “Gilded” Age. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/53 "2010-03-25T05:49:02Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > And where would Africa today be without colonialism? Are you suggesting that, absent colonialism, Africa would be worse off than it is today? How would that even be physically _possible_? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/54 "2010-03-25T10:49:33Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I assume you mean Adolf. In that case two words: Godwin’s Law. I don’t know what they’re teaching you kids in school today, but Godwin’s Law is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for a shitty argument. Godwin’s Law is just a clever _joke_, son. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Are you under the mistaken impression that realist art, expressionist art, impressionist art and the like are no longer practiced? > [@](#): > > Yes and it’s getting worse. So you a) admit you’re mistaken b) don’t care and continue to spout your ignorance c) won’t educate yourself as to the truth? Here’s a little clue - the New British Artists were a small, limited movement that’s already dated - sooo 90s, man. And raging against Abstract Art? How very cutting edge. For the 1930s. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > It was partially about money yes but they were plenty of genuine idealists. Name some. > [@](#): > > Overall Africa and India’s better off because of colonialism Bullshit. Have you ever even _been_ out of whatever podunk fundie town you live in? Never mind to Africa or India? > [@](#): > > and had colonial empires survived but liberalized into gigantic commonwealths and trade pacts the world would be a better place than now. And if unicorns were real we’d all ride them to school! There’s a giant unproven, and probably wrong, assumption buried in that little piece of Colonialist Apologist fluff. Can you tell me what it is? > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > And where would Africa today be without colonialism? Mostly farming villiages MAybe, maybe not. We’ll never know now, will we? > [@](#): > > and India would still be a legally caste society. Actually, the coming of the British no doubt helped to entrench the caste system for longer than it might have existed otherwise. This is because the British effectively stopped the expansion of Islam in India, which didn’t really support the whole caste system as directly as Hinduism did. They preferred a simplified Invader-convert-others system. The British, on the other hand,[liked the caste system and made it more rigid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India#British_rule). ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/55 "2010-03-25T11:37:17Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Did “modern” art \*cause \*WWI? (Blame it on the Symbolists!) And all the other bloody events that followed? What _did_ cause the end of your so-called “Golden Age”? Jazz and cubism. Fuckin’ jazz and cubism. They ruined it, they RUINED IT ALL, damn them ! ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/56 "2010-03-25T11:39:55Z")
[Quote=Curtis LeMay] I assume you mean Adolf. In that case two words: Godwin’s Law. [/Quote] Firstly, it’s a valid argument: your attitude toward art and literature is functionally no different from that of Hitler, and no less questionable. Secondly, that’s your only comment in reply to my post? Not a single word acknowledging that you mischaracterized Ofili’s painting? I don’t expect you to necessarily like it when someone demonstrates that you are factually incorrect, but you could at least own up to it, especially when your error, strictly speaking, is somewhat tangential to your case. I think I have sufficient information to conclude that you are unwilling to carry out a discussion in good faith. Talk to yourself, then; no need for me to participate further. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/57 "2010-03-25T11:58:35Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Originally Posted by FriarTed > In 100 years, when Christian social democratic capitalism is the dominant global culture. > I though you were a Republican. :(😉 I am. That’s why I included “Christian” (watching heads explode now) and “capitalism” as the primary adjective & the noun, while “social democratic” were secondary modifiers. I could have said the same thing by phrasing it as “socially-conscious democratic capitalist Christendom”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/58 "2010-03-25T12:35:01Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > That’s why I included “Christian” (watching heads explode now) Oh, how daring to include the most common religion in the country this board is based in. :rolleyes: I notice you didn’t bother to say how you expect your religion to convert or kill the majority of the rest of the planet. You do realize that most people aren’t Christian and have no interest in becoming Christian? ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/59 "2010-03-25T13:11:38Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Yes because I think respecting and tolerating barbaric cultures is not a good thing to anyone contrary to some trends in academic thinking. And how do you determine what a barbaric culture is? Does one barbaric aspect make the whole culture irredeemable? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575/60 "2010-03-25T14:26:15Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Oh, how daring to include the most common religion in the country this board is based in. :rolleyes: > > I notice you didn’t bother to say how you expect your religion to convert or kill the majority of the rest of the planet. You do realize that most people aren’t Christian and have no interest in becoming Christian? First, I didn’t say how many heads. And it was actually a joke about my equating Christianity with Republicanism. Second, yes I do realize that most people aren’t C’tian or interested in becoming so… yet. 😃 Heck, some people still haven’t switched their VHS collection over to DVD yet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-golden-age-of-the-west/533575.md?page=4)