Western Civilization.

[Kagemusha]

So from a long time i thought to start a thread here in backroom on this fine evening. I have been thinking again(i know,i shouldnt bother myself with such trivial things )Simple question, how are we doing?
These days we hear lot about the clash of civilizations, Immigration problems, social problems, economical problems, decadence, birth rates. You name it.
Is the Western Civilization really going towards is Sundown or is this just complete noncence about people worrying about nothing?

[lancelot]

I think something is wrong, although I'll be damned if I could point my finger at one thing...its probably everything.

A lot of slates could do with being wiped clean, I think.

If I had to point out one thing Id say it is selfishness in all levels of society- from your self-centred vote, to the self-serving politicians- who lead their nations in walking over others to further their own selfish national agendas...at the expense of enviroment, peace, national stability etc etc...

I dunno, perhaps it is too big...

[Kagemusha]

I think something is wrong, although I'll be damned if I could point my finger at one thing...its probably everything.

A lot of slates could do with being wiped clean, I think.

If I had to point out one thing Id say it is selfishness in all levels of society- from your self-centred vote, to the self-serving politicians- who lead their nations in walking over others to further their own selfish national agendas...at the expense of enviroment, peace, national stability etc etc...

I dunno, perhaps it is too big...

I pretty much agree.Those are intresting points. Maybe we have become too individualistic and becouse of that our Societys are declining?

[Vladimir]

Western civilization isn't immune from the cycle that affects all successful civilizations. Basically you go from dirt poor, to fighting to the top, to prosperity, to apathy and decline, and eventually defeat. Just like Babylon (don’t know too much about them though), Rome, etc. That’s another reason why I’m a big Star Trek fan and want to start colonizing other planets. That way a new civilization has a chance to evolve and surpass the old. You can see the same thing happened to the Almunghavars (whatever those MTW units are).

[Don Corleone]

In many ways, the sense of unease and the questions we always have are a good sign. It means we're never satisfied, always striving to improve. If we were perfectly content and convinced we had reached our pinnacle, where would we go, what would we do? Humans were built to strive towards.... something.

Besides, why are you asking about Civilization? You're a Finn on a Friday night, nothing remotely civilized there...

Just kidding..... all things being equal, I'd rather be in Oulu right now.

[Kagemusha]

Besides, why are you asking about Civilization? You're a Finn on a Friday night, nothing remotely civilized there...

Just kidding..... all things being equal, I'd rather be in Oulu right now.

Well sometimes i get this weird urge to talk all civilized. (Ok ive had one Vodka.Or was it two... ) But to be honest im not sure that the social problems are diminishing,or maybe im just being pessimistic.

[Pindar]

Is the Western Civilization really going towards is Sundown or is this just complete noncence about people worrying about nothing?

The West dominates four Continents and has massive impact on two others. Economically, politically, socially, militarily etc. it is without rival.

[yesdachi]

Without giving a big meaning of life answer, I think we are fine. Different, but the same. Things change, threats change, attitudes change, but realistically we are good. Like having ¾ of a glass of soda and having the server ask if we want more? Nope, were good.

I do think we are, individually, less financially secure, and have a higher % of debt then we have had in the past and the amount of red tape we have to claw thru each day may have increased in the last few years and our internal party bickering is counterproductive on record levels but I honestly don’t see any real threat to the “west” if we continue to confront the problems we encounter (some problems need more prodding to get the problem solvers to address them then others) like immigration, security, the economy, etc.

[Kagemusha]

The West dominates four Continents and has massive impact on two others. Economically, politically, socially, militarily etc. it is without rival.

I agree on that completely, but maybe its not threatened from outside, but within. When you look at our societys are they developing or declining?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In Britain we're in deep ****, our society has become obsessed with wealth. Our culture is just fading away and our over-taxed and over-worked population strive all week so that they can hold onto the spinning not slightly longer and then go out and binge drink.

The Concorda Ordinum in our society is shot to hell. The upper class despise the Lower Class. The Lower Class can barely find jobs and hate the Upper Class, the Middle Class bear the tax burdain and they hate everyone.

We need the equevilant of a flash flood or forest fire. We need to have War, a real one we can lose.

The West doesn't really compete with anyone else or within itself.

Yes, we're in serious trouble.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

meh the only thing i worry about here in greece is communism and turks invading us AGAIN.

[Samurai Waki]

I have thought about this some.

Humanity has gotten to far ahead of itself. One or two hundred years ago, people didn't know about most things, they didn't concern themselves with the outside world, what they did concern themselves with is finding the right means in which to survive, and doing the right things that in their minds would earn them a spot in heaven. Aside from that, life was pretty simple, you lived and worked on a farm, you had your good years, and your bad but at least you were doing something to keep you and your family alive, and maybe once and awhile have enough cash in your pocket to go out and buy something for your family.
Life was harder, and you actually had to strive to be able to appreciate what you had, and work hard for what you didn't, just to make your life a little easier. Yeah, there was war, and plague, and suffering...maybe worse than it is now.
Somewhere along the road, Western Ideology was abruptly changed, there were new ways of thinking and percieving the world and morality. Slow but steadily we grew, new gadgets and inventions came along to make life a little more entertaining or easier. People put down the sickle to work in a factory, after all when you had money in hand, you didn't have to worry so much about wether or not you were going to have a good or bad harvest this year, and you could also afford to buy things for your family when you wanted too.
There was easy money in industrialization, nobody worried so much about agriculture, new ways of harvesting had double...tripled...quadrupled a single farms yearly output. Only one person was needed to the job that before ten people would have to do. Years pass, everything gets easier and easier with the new technology... we don't have to worry about the things we used too, somebody or something else can do the work no one else wants too. Wars are still fought, the brutality is like nothing anybody had ever seen before, and the psychological aspects of it are entirely different. No, war didn't mean having to worry about the other guy Pillaging your farm and raping your daughters, war meant fighting for your very existence, your ideology. And with ideology comes scapegoats, millions killed for sake of a better and united world order?
A little more time passes, everything gets a little easier. But we are still haunted by our past, we have grown beyond the mass murdering stage, but we're forcing other countries other lives to accept our ideologies, which are entirely alien to them. No, there will never be peace with such a restless existance, they suddenly have to look at what they've been doing for a thousand years and say "I guess I can see your point." Everyone will hate us because they know we are further ahead of them than they will ever be able to reach, and it angers them that we think we know how to live our lives. So there will be counter revolutions, they will kill us because they hate us for what we are and what we are trying to do to them.
Meanwhile back home, we look at ourselves long and hard. We see a guy dressed up in a suite and tie looking distantly into the mirror, a million miles from where he is. He has to go into his office every single day, file papers, do reports, talk on the phone, go home, eat food, love his wife, watch tv and then go to sleep only to wake up and do the same the very next day. He doesn't have time anymore to take care of his children, to look after his wife, no, its all spent making money, trying to live a vague dream with maybe just one little hope of trying to get out of the machine. And there are some who are okay with just being a cog until the day they die.
But their children, see their parents, working, suffering, toiling in their misery. And nobody to look after them, yes, they get a hug and a kiss once and awhile but the attention isn't there, they don't know who their parents are anymore, and they hate them for it, and quietly vow to themselves to never do to their children, what their parents have done to them.
They grow older, father still gone, still a million miles from them. They stop seeing the point, there is no ideology left, nothing more to strive for. Violence, hate, and destruction is all that the world is to them. This is the west, we're at the pinnacle of civilization as we know it, and yet they see their brothers go to war, and when they come back, if they come back, all they see is a ghost. He didn't ask why he had to fight, he didn't question it, all he knew is that he had too...because over there, theres oil and theres people that hate us, thats a good reason to fight. Our Politicians are corrupt kleptomaniacs, and yet we still advocate freedom and prosperity for all. No. Freedom and Prosperity for them.
The new generation grows, as the old generations wanes. And we take hold of the world, not knowing why or what we are to do. There are sharp divides in opinion, sharper then there ever has been. One side presses to listen to the advice of their superiors, the other dissents, out of hate, out of rage, out of being robbed of love from their parents. We are a society that is crumble internally, and yet we're all so blind as to not see it. We think we need to take what we want because its already there, but it won't be for long. Soon it will be up to us to carry on the message of our forefathers, but we're all so tired, we don't see the point anymore. All we want is to cave into our own shadows and never come out. The few that care about taking the reigns of control all want power and respect, or fear, because thats how we survived our childhoods.

Is western civilization falling? Maybe. Maybe not. But we're all confused, and in the coming years we will won't know what to do. What we need is a message, a goal for the long term, something to strive for for, a reason to exist... Non Western Civilizations have that. We Don't as a society, all that we care about is what the individual is doing. All that we care about is what is at the end of the road for all of us.

[doc_bean]

In Europe at least we are losing the culture clash simply because we aren't breeding enough. There's a lot potential here to gain prosperity and when the locals don't use it someone else is going to come over and take it. Such is life. We've become too lazy, too focused on our own desires. We trade children for the chance to lie on a Turkish beach a couple of times a year. We don't start new businesses because the work is too hard. We don't do much manual labour since it's too hard work. In short we have too much.

But are we doomed ? I don't know. Europe is facing another massive immigration wave that might change this place forever (I've heard numbers saying there are about a million ILLEGAL immigrants in Belgium, on a population of 10 million). But that's just blood and genes, not our way of life. I belief personal freedom, which to me is the foundation of modern western society, is still appealing, also to immigrants and even in non western countries.

Things change, that's the way of the world, change is not always for the better, but it is unavoidable.

EDIT: just like to say, great post Wakizashi !

[Rodion Romanovich]

So from a long time i thought to start a thread here in backroom on this fine evening. I have been thinking again(i know,i shouldnt bother myself with such trivial things )Simple question, how are we doing?These days we hear lot about the clash of civilizations, Immigration problems, social problems, economical problems, decadence, birth rates. You name it.
Is the Western Civilization really going towards is Sundown or is this just complete noncence about people worrying about nothing?

Things to improve:

1. foreign affairs - use a more passive policy and try to clean our conscience in international affairs. If someone comes with death treaths we don't need to act, because most of them only give empty words. Those who don't are quickly discovered and can be attacked with precision.
a. avoid things like the Iraq war, unless apologies of formal declarations of change and despise of the earlier policies are made
b. all western leaders must read history to know which old conflicts they'll face. Conflicts from 50-100 years back may continue in the reign of someone who didn't take part in starting the conflicts, and he thinks he's unprovokedly attacked when the opponent in reality launches a counter-offensive and revenge. Knowing when it isn't unprovoked is a good start when acting internationally.
c. use a heavily earmarked form of aid to the third world. Only give aid to pensions, not to education and the young. It's the lack of pension that causes the overpopulation in the third world and only by ending overpopulation can these countries stop being such infernos. And only if they stop being infernos will illegal mass immigration of people with mental damages from war to western countries continue. Countries whose leaders immediately take this money and prevents it from proper usage will lose the aid money. The population then needs to revolt or continue to live in poverty. Due to the importance of aid for them, this will cause revolts that the local leaders can't stop, especially if we stop selling arms to them, see 2d.

2. internal constitutional affairs
a. maintain democracy at all costs and reinforce it
b. stop wiretapping, population control, constitutional crises, two party systems, problematic bureaucracy for starting new parties, the difficulties for new parties to get mass media attention.
c. in those countries who have them, close all torture camps and start treating prisoners of war humanely. All prison camps must be public so everybody can see what happens in them. Only reason to hide what goes on in a camp is because there is something to hide. The nazis and commies hid their camps for a reason. There's nothing good coming out of hiding such camps from the public if you don't have anything to hide - the rumors will have the same effect as if the camps were nazi concentration camps even if they aren't.
c. improve education so people don't vote for madmen
d. forbid companies in western countries from selling arms to dictators or oppressive leaders abroad, regardless of whether they're at war with western countries or not. This way local stability and peace is assured, and thus less overpopulation and less illegal immigration problems remain.

3. immigration
a. by ensuring peace and stopping overpopulation in the third world by mainly 1c, the immigration will decline. This is good for everyone because the entire world can't live in Europe and America - the rest of the world must be made peaceful and stable so it is inhabitable
b. by 1b and 1a (and also 1c), the guilt from colonialism times will be go away, and people abroad will over time stop being hostile to the western world. When this guilty rightly disappears, people in the western world will want to defend the western world, rather than rebel against it. Currently ablut 50% in every wester world country seems to support terrorists and other people that would normally be an enemy of their countries. This is something that must end, but it won't end by terror, wiretapping and persecution of the local population, but through making them trust their leadership. Once this guilt disappears, and the situation in the third world countries improves, immigration will decrease, but also - more importantly - we have a right to (and 99% will feel so) stop the illegal immigration with harsh measures, in the cases where it damages us. When it doesn't, it can of course continue if we wish so.
c. all immigrants from war regions should be given therapy to deal with their mental problems. This would decrease the violence crimes among immigrants, which are cause of incorrect racism accusations.
d. the immigration must be limited so the local cultural group maintains a majority, so as to ensure there are no rapid switches between say islamic rule and western rule. The regions must be stable and maintain approximately the same culture, except for components of the culture that are dangerous in one way or another. Because western culture seems to be the most tolerant at this time, it's important that all countries currently having a western secular/atheistic/Christianity-based culture maintains such a culture, and that can only happen if they are a majority so that no parties with say islamic or other non-western basis gets to power in these countries.
e. end all labor immigration until at least 95% of all currently living in western countries have jobs

4. enlightenment
a. a good school system must be kept. Only by keeping a good school will people vote democratically and understand the dangers of colonialistic attitude, racism or similar and the importance of maintaining democracy. It's people that have gone through a country's school system that becomes the next ruling generation. Therefore the least successful students in school must understand the value of democracy. There should be no propaganda style emotional way of teaching about democracy and history, but a realistic and dry presentation of the facts. A democracy being democratic because democracy is good is not a democracy for long, as it's easy to redefine the meaning of the word democracy if the people are unaware of it's true meaning and the motivation behind it.
b. make sure science is sponsored by the state. State-sponsored science must be a counter-weight to the heavily biased company-sponsored science aiming to prove the superiority of a product (which often isn't superior)

5. military - there should be no problems maintaining superior military force if the above things are implemented. The western countries if all have implemented democracy etc. are likely to stand up against any countries not having implemented these things if needed. Thus the military strength of an individual western country doesn't matter as much as the total strength of western countries. Countries that keep using torture, doubtful foreign policies, colonies in Africa etc., will of course be excluded from this deal and such countries will weaken the position of democracy in general in the world. Democratic countries should do everything that is legal and not a hostile act, to make such countries go back to democracy.

6. economy - this shouldn't be any problem either, because the western world is a large portion of the world. As long as environmental friendly long term solutions to energy problems etc. are found, all will be ok. If needed, the western world concept may have to be expanded, by including more nations and people into the concept. All people who embrace democracy, freedom of speech and critisize torture and brutal barbaric treatment of POWs and similar should be allowed to become part of the western world concept. A plan should be made from if economical problems strike the western world countries but doesn't hurt countries that aren't part of the western world and are undemocratic. Such a situation is unlikely to occur if proper global military industry espionage is employed.

7. status quo for nuclear weapons - no nuclear weapons must be used by western world countries unless attacked first by a nuclear weapon from a country that isn't democratic.

8. ending exploitation of foreigners
a. use police actions to end imported prostitutes. If this fails, legalize prostitution but force all prostitutes to be registered. Visting unregistered prostitutes should give harsh sentences
b. western companies should be responsible for making sure subsidiaries and companies abroad they buy raw materials and products from should implement acceptable working conditions for the people in those countries.

Summary: the 3 most important factors are 1. remove all guilt from the western world so people get a good conscience and are motivated to fight for the right to live with western ideals in the countries that form the western world at this time. 2. only way to properly remove this guilt is to remove all reasons for others to hate the western world, so we rightly deserve to defend ourselves. It's about increasing the morale of the western world basically. The reason why the western world must survive at this time is because currently it's one of the few parts of the world that are attempting to be tolerant. To maintain tolerance, you must be intolerant to the intolerant gaining power. However this would be a 100 year program, so we must be prepared to face enemies during the time we carry this out. However if we truly make efforts BEFORE they are hostile to us, we have shown that we are trying to help and not weak who submit to their demands and that using terror won't give them benefits. Then we also improve our abilities to defend ourselves. Defending does however not mean attacking an entire country because 10 suicide bombers from that country carried out a terrorist action. Our work on airport security etc. and education for our police forces has given results. Wiretapping and terrorizing abroad has however had no positive effects. 3. make sure democracy is maintained so dictatorship doesn't put dangerous leaders at power in our countries. Internal dictatorship is a more dangerous thing than any external threat in the foreseeable future could ever be.

[macsen rufus]

Not complicated: western civilization will last at most five minutes longer than the oil supply.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I'll limit my contribution to quoting the Mahatma when he was asked what he thought of Western civilisation.

"I think it would be a very good idea."

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Bah, doom and gloom. Life is fun and we're more civilized now then we ever have been.

[Byzantine Prince]

Who needs civilization when you have bondage sex orgies?

[The Wizard]

Clash of civilizations?

Nice media hype.