Generational Decay of Quality - Rate of Quantity Increases

E

EnclaveForever

It Wandered In From the Wastes
I hope I'm not the only one in middle-class, nuclear North America that can't even bare a second of watching a single bit of television. There is barely any bit of content of television that seems to be even slightly creative, let alone want to take risks in what content it presents.

Today's content seems to be oppressed by centrist optimism which centralizes its ideals around the idea of "non-offensiveness". So many people, believe they have some kind of self-indulged right to not be offended by anything that even fictional works are censored, tone downed and drenched with highly "positive" acid rain. Even the movie "The Help" was criticized for its use of "N" word, it takes place in the South for Christ sakes... Then you get the ridiculous passiveness in the politics, such as President Obama being "slammed" for using e pluribus unum instead of "God Bless America". It seems the wraith of society reaches everywhere, even cults are being infected with silly "let's whitewash everything" kind of mentality. Just look at the Ku Klux Klan for example, a once dominant secret society structured by firm rituals is now claiming to be for American families and not hold racist ideals at all.

Here is a clear example of the degradation in the music industry:

Once popular classic (personally one of my favorites):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-xzfwDAn1I[/youtube]

Clearly nature's finest today:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXvohxQkDv8[/youtube]

And of course an example of how movie series, or just a series in general has degraded over time:

Gotham City in 1989 as depicted by Tim Burton:
gotham_batman1989.jpg

Not only is the street image above dystopian, but also highly atmospheric and loyal to the franchise. This is what Gotham City was supposed to look like, external-gut industrial looming towers that block out the sky. This is very similar to the city presented in the comics.

Gotham City Today
gotham_batman2008_1.jpg

Christopher Nolan clearly put a lot of effort into making the city not look like Chicago. I applaud Christopher Nolan for his finest achievements in both creativity and appealing to the majority. Jokes aside, the Dark Knight Rises failed miserably as a Batman movie, as a movie in general, it was not too bad compared to what we have typically released.

Though you can't completely blame the entertainment industry for this serious decline, our world runs completely off the motivation of profit margins, it is the consumer that provides the blood for this industry. If people stop buying over-animated, unoriginal and clearly rushed works, it forces a new trend. Unfortunately, the industry has a way with controlling both the standards and the needs. People just seem to be offended by everything nowadays it actually takes a serious effort to not offend someone. The point of creativity is that it expresses the ideas and visions of other people, unless you are not an individual, you're going to have somethings in your li'head that others will not agree with and generally will entirely hate and despise. The problem isn't that people just get offended easily (partly because of the outrageously hypocritical anti-bullying movement), it's that some states (and of course areas OUTSIDE the United States) actually consider censoring content that is deemed "not appropriate". We all know of the movie "Cannibal Holocaust", I didn't exactly enjoy that movie at all, but it's just a movie, not going to get PTSD from simply watching a DVD. At the end of the day, nobody got killed and it's just plain fiction. Just remember, fiction is suppose to be in contrast to your own world, it's about the escape, that's why we love Fallout, because it shows an alternative world that we can move into and escape our own boring and highly over-exaggerated civilizations.

Anyhow, merely just a constructive rant, how about some nice classic music?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuI3ogcQjuI[/youtube]
 
Taking this to be an invitation to an open discussion about the nature of such things as the arts, political correctness and its bastard offspring "sensitivity", and whatnot, I'll address this thusly...

I'm not entirely sure what you want to be getting at, though I do agree with some of what you've said. I don't think you CAN put a definitive criticism on the arts and its biproducts and say that they are or aren't being more or less this or those. Perhaps the artists themselves are, but the arts are by their nature acts of creation. If the creativity is stifled whether by natural causes, or artificially through such means as imposing new regulations and social restrictions, it doesn't make the end product uncreative- at least not on its own merit.

For example, whenever I get into anime discussions, I mention my fondness for "The Big 3" (One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach) and that lately I've lost interest in following the anime adaptations of each, and focus instead of following the manga of each. In Bleach, in particular, the censorship from having translated the medium from the relatively free pen and ink to the televised masses causes entire scenes to be rewritten and many details omitted thanks to censorship. Where a character once cuts off a man's arm, suddenly he just scratches them, and yet the scenes proceed the same in both interpretations where he "cannot use his arm anymore". Without the context of the uncensored version, it's not necessarily absurd, although depending on how the censorship is undertaken, it might cause a viewer to raise an eyebrow. But even the methods of working around censors and tighter regulations require a different form of creativity. Done well, the censor doesn't even register, and we're left with a work of art that we can still appreciate. It's only when we HAVE the uncensored original to compare it to that we notice the scars and blemishes of change. Changing the scene is not the same as showing the same scene but blocking out the "unwanted" details with large black bars or mosaics or blurs. Every adaptation of a work undergoes change, and that's part of the artistic, creative process.

From a social standpoint, and not an artistic one, I can definitely agree that the focus on optimism and "inoffensiveness" feels staggering and greater than ever, but even this is just rose-colored lenses. TV programs aren't as dark as they used to be, and shows aren't as edgy as they once were? Just watch Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones and try to come away with that same thought; it won't happen. Certainly, MOST TV shows don't have such balls to tell a starkly grim and honestly realistic story, but that's always been the case. Married With Children in the late 80s and early 90s marked a notable change in daytime TV depictions of the nuclear family, because up until then it was always smiles and apple pie. The husband might have to get firm now and then, but it always led up to a happy ending. Suddenly America was introduced to Al Bundy and his enduring torment as a married man living a rat race life that left him feeling unsatisfied and disappointed. His marriage was always painted as mutual misery, his daughter was unabashedly characterized as a slut, and his son was the antithesis to the classic social jock of previous generations. Up until then, families were never showcased with such strong negative themes (albeit, for the sake of parody), there had always been a silver lining. That optimism was how things USED to be, not how they later became... There was always a large disparity in the number of "honest" programming compared to the flighty and idealistic programming. All that's changed is the amount of both.

When it comes to music, I can only wonder how you came to conclusion that tastes and standards have somehow faded away thanks to the restrictive oppression that is the "don't offend" message. Armstrong was not the Taylor Swift or 50 Cent of his day. He was a black singer in a still VERY racist United States. He was an underground success, the hip happening, the shocking performance you'd listen to if you wanted to convey that you were edgy. Today you wouldn't listen to pop breakup songs for that similar purpose, you'd listen to some Disturbed (or whichever suits your fancy), with their very serious message coupled with strong music and vivid, creative, and especially colorful use of songwriting imagery.

If anything's true, it's not so much that all of the quality has died from various artistic mediums, but that these mediums have changed in social standing since "then". Art may still be a very difficult thing to form a career around, but compared to simply 30 years ago, there's no comparison to how much more accessible it is, nowadays. There are multiple industries dedicated to it, and it's mainstream, not fringe, so it doesn't represent the same thing as it used to. So naturally, all of that repressive and politically-oriented brainwashing filters into the arts conceivably more so than ever before, but the arts have never been so integrated into daily living as they have until so recently. That same backwards sentiment about proper behavior and inoffensiveness and whatnot has always existed; it's simply just gone by other monickers and idioms. The packaging has changed, but the message remains the same. The central powers always focus their efforts on outdated ideas and repressive lobbying, because if they didn't, they wouldn't BE in control, and many have always fallen for that rhetoric, and fewer have always resisted it.

By all means, rail against censorship and the erroneous politicizing that is "don't offend". Just don't confuse it for being anything new.
 
I stopped watching television in 2007 for reasons unrelated to quality and I've been better off for it since, I can't stomach general TV at all now - I'll watch any specific programmes I'm interested in online.

I don't see the connection between the poor quality of mass marketted television and your gripes with the notion of not offending people.

At this point it's worth quoting the most significant part of your post:

Just look at the Ku Klux Klan for example, a once dominant secret society structured by firm rituals is now claiming to be for American families and not hold racist ideals at all.
Click to expand...

You're saying here that a terrorist group responsible for centuries of torture, violence, and murder claiming to no longer be racist is selling out? Perhaps that's not what you're saying and you're calling them out on their obvious bullshit but your prefacing it with "a once dominant secret society" as opposed to my route of highlighting the torture and murder they've carried out certainly makes me wonder what your feelings on them are. I don't know what specifically the comment was in reference to but I recall a user mentioning you having pro-nazi leanings as well; this is worth establishing because I'm certainly not going to engage in a debate on offensiveness with somebody who supports or admires genocidal white suprmacy.

Frankly, a lot of people use the "there's too much political correctness - everybody's worried about offending people" as a way of blaming other people for being offended when they express bigoted or hateful feelings e.g. "I hate this modern age of political correctness, you can't even say fag or queer without upsetting the gays".

Could you clarify your views on the KKK and the equality of human beings in general, as that's what political correctness really centres around.
 
Ah yes, back when TV shows were grimdark and all about offending people.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMxkMy9JvXI[/youtube]

LOL @ KKK, though. O the glorious days when the KKK was still good, red-blooded society with firm rituals. It's sad to see such a pillar of insanity go down the road of not-murdering-minorities.
 
This is why I despise logical fallacies. It's bad enough if the argument is shoddy, but worse if the reaction to the argument is equally nonsensical. You guys fixating on his KKK point MISSED the entire point. He never once glorified it or said ANYTHING akin to the notion of "Those poor KKK guys, they've been neutered by the popular craze of 'don't offend' and..." blah blah. It's called making the point by drawing direct comparisons with the the greatest exaggeration example available, because taking note of the trend in the extreme example should showcase how BAD the same trend is in the mundane example. The point is "If such a nasty, vicious secret society has been affected by this trend so much, what does that mean about sensible considerate groups that have been affected by this same trend?" Don't be a morons and strawman the point; take it for what it actually IS.

I personally just avoided that point because there were better points to focus on. I could have focused on his statement about The Dark Knight Rises being a poor Batman movie, but that would've been missing the heart of his argument entirely.
 
BonusWaffle said:
Why is what you want more important than what the masses want?
Click to expand...
Youre posting that on a Fallout board. A serious question?

There is a difference between fan service and "public entertainment".

I am not sure if it always does good to the quality of something, be it a movie, book or game if it becomes to popular.

Batman might be a good example. Albeit I think the new Batmanmovies are better then any of the old ones. But none of the new movies is really that close to the comics. But its hard to say really something here because I am not a die hard Batman fan anyway and there have been many comics over the years. Albeit, I think the new Batman games are closer to the comics then the movies are. But I might be wrong with this.

I dont agree though when people say it would be a new thing. Because its not.

Already back then in the 19th century a person like Joseph Pujol famous for the controll of his abdominal muscles earned a lot more by farting on songs on stage compared to Sarah Bernhardt which was probably one of the most famous actress of her time known for playing great roles and acting.

Toilet humer is what people enjoy as mass. And I think thats not even really a problem, as long you have alternatives.
 
SilentRiC said:
I'm certainly not going to engage in a debate on offensiveness with somebody who supports or admires genocidal white suprmacy.
Click to expand...

Right...because my apparent racist views have total relevance in this "debate". Good thing I don't support white supremacy, but I think this is another perfect example of how over-sensitivity has manifested into society. Since my post didn't include a story full of "not to be racist" statements, you seem to have centralized your criticism around a single statement as the most "significant" part, even though it served as one simple example. Whether or not the Ku Klux Klan is racist is not important, they were simply a good example.
 
EnclaveForever said:
SilentRiC said:
I'm certainly not going to engage in a debate on offensiveness with somebody who supports or admires genocidal white suprmacy.
Click to expand...

[...] Good thing I don't support white supremacy, but I think this is another perfect example of how over-sensitivity has manifested into society. Since my post didn't include a story full of "not to be racist" statements, you seem to have centralized your criticism around a single statement as the most "significant" part, even though it served as one simple example.
Click to expand...
Ah, a grand touche if ever there was one. =)

People need to understand WHY a comment is or isn't bad. A comment ISN'T bad "because it's mean or insensitive", but it IS bad if it's the product of lazy, backward, egocentric, or likewise thinking. The reason bringing up "Hitler" or "the Nazis" is considered such a big no-no is because it's almost always inappropriate to resort to such an extreme example, and it usually means the person who had to resort to that had no better backing for their standing, so it's likely the same as admitting defeat. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, like my using it, just now, to point out why you don't normally use it.

To make a long story short, because apparently some people need these matters simplified, just because something really mean is mentioned doesn't mean it's intended to get you thinking about that really mean thing. You're not supposed to read about the KKK and think about what the KKK has done, and think really hard about it. You're supposed to see the very simple point, "If such a hardliner, extremist group like THAT can be affected by this trend, IMAGINE the implications for much more reasonable, level-headed individuals being affected by this!"
 
On average, everything is in worse quality these days, just because we were turned into a mass consumerism bunch, thus there is a lot more to be consumed than before. But it's the same reason why there also are diamonds to be found in all the trash (more people have more chances to do some cool stuff). Though searching for them can be a miserable thing. I constantly have to go through piles of junk when searching for movies, music, documentaries, books, games, poems etc.

I'm afraid to think about the future, with more people, more globalization and more big corporations that control the flow of content being exposed to the masses, digging in the crates might get a whole new meaning. If there are crates left to dig that is, with all the lobbying going on for free reign over user control.
 
People tend to forget that the old classics are only what is remembered, they of course don't mention all the crap music and movies produced in the past because well, people forget things for a reason. Comparing the best of the past with worst of the present is the weakest argument you can ever make.
 
Nostalgic people growing up grow increasingly cynical, develop rose tinted glasses, refuse to accept something new and forget that there was just as much crap "back then", more news at eleven.
 
„Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
Socrates was pretty much right, even today.
So either the cultural quality of a generation is measured on a logarithmic scale so it can steadily drop down for centuries, or it's just normal for the older generations to bitch about how everything sucks now.
Evaluating pop culture, especially music, isn't exactly valid. Pop music always sucked. There always were good things in pop, but most of it sucked.
So when people talk about the glorious year of 1969, they talk about Jimi Hendrix and not The Archies. Even though „Sugar, Sugar“ was one of the biggest hits of that year.
 
SnapSlav said:
You guys fixating on his KKK point MISSED the entire point. He never once glorified it or said ANYTHING akin to the notion of "Those poor KKK guys, they've been neutered by the popular craze of 'don't offend' and..." blah blah. It's called making the point by drawing direct comparisons with the the greatest exaggeration example available, because taking note of the trend in the extreme example should showcase how BAD the same trend is in the mundane example. The point is "If such a nasty, vicious secret society has been affected by this trend so much, what does that mean about sensible considerate groups that have been affected by this same trend?" Don't be a morons and strawman the point; take it for what it actually IS.
Click to expand...

It's just me who focused on his KKK point and I wasn't playing any games, strawmanning the point, or being a moron as you put it, I'm not playing chess here I'm trying to establish where a person's coming from, none of this is an attack that needs to be counterattacked - I don't come here to fight.

You say that he didn't glorify the KKK or frame them sympathetically but that's exactly what it sounded like to me*. I'm fine with being wrong, I want to be wrong - my intention was to clarify whether it was as it appeared. Keep in mind that I recalled somebody mentioning Enclave having Nazi leanings (which may be false but this further piqued my curiosity).

*reviewing the message, I see that I initially missed the word 'cult' which gave the statement a distinctly different flavour.

Anyway, SurfSolar and Walpknut's points about the classics surviving while the forgettable is forgotten account for much of the apparent deterioration, I think. I was born in '85 and love the British music from the mid 90s, we had a fantastic music scene with a great variety of unique rock and pop based acts all coming together at the same time. We also had Gina G's "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit" and a host of other maddeningly bad commercial pop numbers that would often out perform Blur, Suede, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene et al.

Ack. Tired, I'll end it abruptly there.
 
You guys have to learn to filter the crap the entertainment industry spews out. There are still good movies out there, floating among the other stuff. Same is with music, a bit harder to find it but it's there.

Also, there is nothing wrong with a little sense of traditionalism developed over the ages.
 
SilentRiC said:
It's just me who focused on his KKK point
Click to expand...
No, it wasn't just you. You're ignoring the post that directly followed yours. Granted, Hassknecht's comment was harder to see beneath that gigantic video, and practically blended in with his signature space completely. But next time, when someone claims to be addressing multiple people and you're one of them... perhaps they're actually addressing multiple people. =P

SilentRiC said:
Anyway, SurfSolar and Walpknut's points about the classics surviving while the forgettable is forgotten account for much of the apparent deterioration, I think.
Click to expand...
I WISH it was. Eh, I'm not a nostalgia fanboy, but I AM cynical at times. Too much death and injustice in the family tends to blacken one's soul... but that's besides the point. Like I illustrated in my first post, I don't recognize the trends today as anything new, but rather a continuation of the very same trends as there always have been; the same old same old, merely wrapped in a different name tag. I WANT to believe that the crap I see today will be lost to the ages, but I'm living now, and the crap that surrounds me is present, not a memory, so believing that notion is a struggle. I hope that the groundbreaking ideas will be remembered, and all of the Survivors and American Idols and Original Gangstas and Defending America's Freedoms and such is all lost in a mere matter of a few short decades... To quote Ellis Redding's final words to the audience, "I hope..."
 
Hassknecht said:
„Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
Socrates was pretty much right, even today.
So either the cultural quality of a generation is measured on a logarithmic scale so it can steadily drop down for centuries, or it's just normal for the older generations to bitch about how everything sucks now.
Evaluating pop culture, especially music, isn't exactly valid. Pop music always sucked. There always were good things in pop, but most of it sucked.
So when people talk about the glorious year of 1969, they talk about Jimi Hendrix and not The Archies. Even though „Sugar, Sugar“ was one of the biggest hits of that year.
Click to expand...
The problem I think is though, that you can see changes. For example, the fact how work and work ethics have changed in Germany, where it has become in some areas common to throw in employee leasing which is nothing else then modern slavery, at least here, where those workers do the same jobs for maybe 1/3 of the payment compared to other people. I worked there once, so I know what its like. To get proper education, like with universities or even suport for your job training, is not as easy anymore like it was just a couple of years ago.

Of course, those are different situations to the changes in the entertainment industry, like movies, books, music etc. I mean yeah. There certainly was always a lot of shit around, and we tend only to remembe the things we loved.

A lot of things are pretty awesome though, and I would not trade anything today for the 50s or 60s where the world was on the brink of the nuclear apocalpyse, fallout fan or not, but its not really desirable. For the past 60 years, Europe has seen probably the most peacefull time ever, without any major war or conflict going on on this part. Probably most of the world has become as far as huge conflicts goes very quiet. Its simply to expensive.
 
Hassknecht said:
„Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
Socrates was pretty much right, even today.
So either the cultural quality of a generation is measured on a logarithmic scale so it can steadily drop down for centuries, or it's just normal for the older generations to bitch about how everything sucks now.=
Click to expand...

/thread

Seriously, HK nailed it.
 
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