This is not my first rant about how deplorable the state of western civilisation currently is. People who know me will be familiar with my worries about our society and wich way it is going.
But i'm more and more starting to see what is causing most of our problems or what we tend to see as problems.

The west is spoiled. The past few decades have been too good for us and because of that we have become accustomed to luxury, both materially as psychologically, believing we are the centre of the universe, entitled to have all this luxury.

Basically we have started to interpret many basic moral values like human rights as if they are nothing but an ideological foundation for ininhibited egocentrism and egoïsm: the entitlement to have a hedonistic lifestyle, to bathe in luxury and not to be bothered with things like responsability or duty's.

Instead of seeing human rights as something we have the responsability to uphold, something that calls for our empathy with others, something that obliges us to act in a certain way, we have twisted the meaning of the most profound moral principles into an ideology that goes something like: "ME, ME, ME".

We have lost the mental discipline that is required to behave responsably, even towards ourselves.

Look at it: we are addicted to spending money we don't have, we are addicted to governments spending money they don't have, we are addicted to cheap products that could not be produced that cheaply if the workers who made them would earn the salary's we're used to, we are addicted to the cheap labour of others (like illegal immigrants), our society's have been put on the brink of bancrupcy by the greed of a handfull of bankers, we have too little young people in relation to old people to be able to sustain our pensions and to keep society running properly, and if it wheren't for immigration our populations would be shrinking in most western countries, and we are addicted to a lifestyle that is depleting the earth from it's scarce resources and poisoning our environment with toxic waste, many of our young people aspire a life filled with violence and crime as we've seen most recently in england.
And most of all, we're addicted to politicians telling us we don't need to worry about the sustainability of it all.

What's the big picture when you look at all of this? It all reads: 'spoiled brats'.
Not willing or able to take the responsability of having childeren, paying taxes, sparing the environment, living within a tight budget, paying off debts. Not willing to look at themselves critically.

We have lost everything we once cared for. The ideals we had, from the french revolution to the sixties, have all been translated to greed and egoïsm in one way or another.
And we're brainwashing our childeren and are being brainwashed ourselves, to believe that greed, lazyness and egoism are the most profound concepts and rights of great emancipatory nature.

We have lost everything.

There are a few generalizations that i do not subscribe to in your post.
Tho society has a few issues, i don't think its all that bad.

It is natural and understandable to have a gradient of wealth due to the numbers of people whom act sociopathicly to get what they want, there are slightly less people whom fight less hard... and so on and so forth.

I think its important to consider what benefits our progress has made too.
Yes we need to evolve our managment of resource, yes we need to generate new systems to manage the planet and our running of it. Yes perhaps we as individuals need to work out our own personal issues.

I wouldn't go as far as to say we have lost it all.
I would go as far as to say, ok... so here we are, there is a lot of work to do. We have come a long way and there is a long way to go. So get to work.

I get terribly annoyed at what many protests in my area are about, and hearing people talking on the train etc... it's rarely complaining about disenchantment or our entire state of consciousness, it's always about money.

But I don't think the problem is this greed, the problem is that we have the tendency to think that the way we live is not up to us. Accepting the norm for the norm and projecting responsibility to decide how we think away from ourself.

The problem is mass-ill-consideration. Not cognizing direct experience of society for what it is, and this isn't the same as not knowing something, it's more likely the unconscious blocking out the horrible realisations from the conscious mind.

I don't think most people in society are willing to be that critical towards themselves.

The main problem isn't greed itself. It's the fact that we're spoiled. We've gotten lazy because of the economical succes we thought to have.

Western society has become like a heroïn or alcohol addict: it will never detox voluntarily.

So the main problem isn't greed itself. The main problem is that we are being brainwashed to belief that being greedy, lazy, selfish, egoistic, decadent is a most profound human right.

Look at the debate in america about the debth ceiling and the debates in europe about simmilar depth-related issues.

People are making a huge ideological point out of it and i fear that many people even realy mean the things they say, while in the end it all boils down to not having to pay taxes, not having to cut spendings, let others pay the bill but not me...while fact is: we're all in this toghether and if we're not willing to take responsibility here, we're all gonna feel much more pain than we'd be feeling now.

In europe people aren't willing to accept that the state isn't gonna take care of them from cradle to grave.

But we may feel that we are so special to deserve free wellfare, pensions, low taxes, etc. fact is: we ran out of 'free money'.
Even if it WHERE a basic human right to have everything we want and to have it right now and to have it for free, god will not listen to our angry voices to refill our bank-accounts and our state's bank-accounts.

But instead of just accepting the facts, we keep having these heated debates with a heated ideological tone.

So i say: if people are making a big ideological issue about not having to carry any of the collective burden of a financial situation that just happens to be the way it is -firstly, the financial crisis is not going to be resolved, secondly there can be no denying that western culture has lost touch with reality.

It's an ideological debate about not having to pay the bills that are piling-up. How much more decadent and alienated from reality can you get?

This generation is only "me me me" to a certain extent..there is always the exception and this is no different. It is all about "me" only on a vastly superficial level..rare is it that any of these people actaully turn inward and ever really make it about THEM..I do not see many people making personal changes in where they spend money etc..I dont vote, as many of you know. I think it is pointless. My dollar is my vote and most of what I spend(other than gas) goes to organic farmers and sustainable "left wing" producers of anythng from food to packaging etc..

It really is all about the individual in that sense..it is all "me me me"..becasue every action makes a difference..and this is what is so amazing about the west..we have the freedom to be individuals IF WE CHOOSE to..and those are the ones who will be on the forefront of the future and will eventaully lead the way for everyone else. They always are.

I agree with this. The irony is that there never has been as much opportunity to do the right things as now.

There are many people who're willing to take responsibility.

But the collective that is the state's we live in will collapse under the weight of our self-created debths, because i don't see the european or american leaders 'we' voted for, taking any responsibility here.

And remember it's a simple fact: in the end it are our collective debth's. It's not right or left-wing debth's, it's OUR debths. Made by conservatives and liberals, republican's, democrats, labour, tories, etc.

And people can make a very big ideological issue out of it, but if we don't pay those bills, we'll be shut-off from our precious luxury's.

And that is exactly what's gonna happen, because instead of making a credible plan for how to solve this debth issue, our ELECTED leaders are holding beautyfull speeches, eloquently making the point how 'unfair' it is that we have to pay taxes if we want a functioning government, how 'unfair' it is to cut spending if you run out of money, etc.

Because that's what they seem to believe: that the financial reality (like the downgrading of america's AAA status)the west has stranded into is unfair.

If you don't see the absurdity of that, you may need some new glasses.

without any doubt the ideals of the postmodern stablished after WW2 are perishing. we are all the same, was proclamed. we can observe as we occidentals keep losing rights how that dream is falling in hands of corporativism. we didnt cared about prolonging the ideals gained in the war, but we neglected them. we are heading a enormous negative change that will bring the massses under the powerful once again. either this.. or world war 3.

But has there really been any time in the last thousand years when this was not the case for society as a whole? I tend to think that the average person is a pawn, always has been, and possibly always will be. I don't believe people as a whole in recent history have ever possessed a great deal of empathy. It seems that just about every society is built on war, rapists, killers, and scoundrals who do not empathize with those they wish to conquer, they just conquer. Vikings are a good example of successful war like people. And I think the average non conquering type just does what they have to do to get by, and that's it. Then there are exceptional people who who create advancement in technology and philosophy, art, etc, and there are leaders.... but these types aren't most people.

I think, if you average out the abilities of everyone combined; criminals, worker bees, leaders, cut throats, and visionaries, the average of all that is a pawn that just does what they have to do to get by. But I think the collective organism that is humanity does learn slowly and adapt. People aren't dumb. Even unconscious life is not dumb. Plants have evolved many miraculous survival mechanisms. All evolution is the result of death and time. People learn, life learns, evolves, and adaps.

We are animals. I don't think we own this planet, I don't believe we are masters of the destiny of the world, and not even our own lives. We get conditioned, it affects our thoughts and behavior. Or, a lot of people face traumatic events, or life circumstances that require their full attention all the time. A lot of people don't even have time to care about the world as a whole, they just take care of their sick or dying family, or have chronic pain that prevents people from thinking about anything but pain.

Most societies, including America, take great pride in the wars they have fought and won. What is the greatest generation? The WWII generation. Why? They use wartime as the greatest example of when people came together as one, when people had discipline, when people sacrificed their own comforts and lives for the collective good of America. It seems that people only come together if they have a common enemy they want to destroy. I don't really see people getting together for common good, and I don't think that has ever been the case in Western society. However, I'm sure a lot of people would argue that fighting against the enemy IS fighting for the common good. This is just my opinion, I have no idea if there is truth to it. This is just one guy's opinion and billions of people have lived on this planet, and I personally know almost none of them. This is just my impressions of what I gather from the present, and what I've read about the past. And really, isn't that all anyone has when they form grand opinions about entire cultures past and present?

Anyway, perhaps it would be prudent to be a little less self critical and focus on what you can do right now...... because there is only now. The thoughts you have now will not last. The life situation you have right now will change. You will not always have the abilities you have right now. How are you going to use those abilities in the best way?

Yes, the West went on a spending binge in the 20th century. The twentieth century saw more new technology, and more population explosion than all previous centuries. The world will have to scale itself back because it cannot handle such rapid growth anymore. As you say in your title, there is no such thing as society. We're all out here floating in space, as much animals as any other creature, and as mysterious and ever changing as the cosmos itself. And no one has the answers to everything. No one. Don't pretend.

Like minded people of the nexus, there are different kinds of victories in the world. Fighting in wars requires determination, rage, violence, and a kill or be killed mentality. But I believe, when it comes to other kinds of victories; moral victories, evolutionary victories, including the evolution of mind and spirit of the entire globe, then patience is a great virtue. How many thousands of years did it take a tree to learn how to create a seed that was capable of blowing in the wind to spread life over vast distances? How many deaths did i take? Love the planet, love yourself, and have patience. Life takes time to learn. I believe that people in places like this will understand the kind of patience that I speak of, the kind of patience that nature demands.

Gee, Polytrip, i can understand how you feel. I felt the same way after i watched some Terence McKenna videos!!

-I agree on quite a few of the points you make like people becoming lazier, and expecting more, etc.

>>But don't fear, the world has a clever way of balancing itself out. those that get lazy, get fat, and get forgotten. Those that expect more only find out in the end that this is the path to unhappiness, etc. As for us humans ruining the world, well- what about natural disasters and the damage they do??

-I think that the way to look at this is to do our best to be our best at chasing our dreams in balance with healthy principles for the good of ourselves and the world we live in. I don't think there's any other way. I don't think the world has ever stayed still. there is always some kinda war or disaster, always has been, and always will be, etc....

I think the essence of human society is the evolution of the fundamental system of production and social relationships to secure the material requirements of a constantly evolving social existence (growing population, scientific and technological developments, etc.). Or maybe another way of looking at, it's the product of the cumulative social force of everyone acting in accordance with their own personal interests and actively living their own material lives.

Either way, the current state of affairs is an entirely natural product of a very long process of historical development and though it will necessarily change eventually, individuals have practically no agency in it. The working masses are presently trapped in a system of exploitation and greed, a system based on the assumption of infinite expansion and acquisition of profit, a system that will attempt to preserve and perpetuate itself by any means necessary until some kind of breaking point is reached and a fundamentally new one emerges.

So anyway, there's no use blaming ourselves for this "mess". Hey, Capitalism worked out very well for a long time, but now we need something sustainable, that's all.

..> Excellent post, overdose!

...Society needs to stop living and acting out of FEAR.

good post apoc.. sums up my thoughts as well

It may be true that there have always been senseless wars and economic disasters.

The reason i worry is twofold: firstly, there are so many crisis happening right now or about to happen any minute, both financially, economically, environmentally, climatologically etc, that it is relevant to ask whether there might be an underlying pattern.

If you list the problems that are haunting the west, and their individual causes it would go something like
1-climate change...because although we know we are fucking-up the climate, we just cannot manage ourselves to quit or diminish our carbon emmissions
2-government debths...because we demand from our governments that they keep on spending, by referenda like in the state of california or indirectly.
3-private debths. In almost every industrialised nation, this is a serious issue and it was the cause of the financial crisis in 2008.
Cause...people expected houseprices to endlessly rise and believed they could endlessly lend more money because of that.
4-An aging population and therefore too little working people and too much people in relation to those who work, who'll need medical and other forms of care....because people rather want to invest in their career than in their family. The responsibility of having childeren is just too much for more and more people.
And although life expectancy has risen with almost 15 years since the 50's, people don't want to work for more years and rather want to retire before their 65th.
5-growing unemployment rates or high unemployment rates that just don't change no matter how the global economy behaves....because people in asia can do everything we do at lower costs and cheap products just happen to sell good.
6-rising oil (and other raw materials) prices...because demand is rising globally, and we cannot quit using lot's of it.

Well, you could go on like that for a while.
Now, if you just make a list of the causes, it would go like:
1-because we cannot quit it although we know that it's a problem
2-because we want our governments to do a lot of things, and not to pay for it.
3-because many of us cannot manage to cut their spendings, or don't see a problem in spending more than they earn.
4-because people rather want to have a career than a family life and cannot take the responsibility of having childeren. And because they believe that retiring at quite a young age is a basic human right.
5-because people like cheap products that you just cannot make anymore in western nations because of wages.
6-because people cannot quit their habbits and they're not capable to innovate enough to be able to replace oil, gas, etc.

If there is one bigger picture that you can extract from all of this, it is clearly that of a spoiled population that has gotten too wealthy.
Almost everytime you isolate a problem and look at the cause of it it goes something like: although they know it's unsustainable, western population just cannot manage to stop the unsustainable way of behaving..or...western population is used to getting things for free.

So the bigger picture is clearly that of extreme decadence.

The second major concern i have with all of this, is that values we once DID seem to have, have been transformed into hedonistic imperative's.
The liberalism of the sixties for instance, has changed into purely economic liberalism: the freedom to consume.

If that happens, something is lost. Something that was there, that could have grown into so much more.