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Why does culture get less happy year after year?

erikhoel.substack.com

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Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#41

Post by vitiral »

In the Hindu mythology there is the concept of Kali, or the ultimate suffering and pain. Rather than being evil, Kali is worshiped because without her (or at least the _idea_ of her) we could not truly experience happiness. This is based on a (religious) psychological idea that to enjoy anything you must have the really terrible awfulness there in the back of your mind, as something that could spring out from the corners.

Something like that anyway. Horror films and dark stories make everyday life feel more enjoyable. Or they could, if we can take things in that light.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#42

Post by mdp2021 »

tomgp wrote: post #25

Feels like theres some cherry picking going on. eg whilst “the power rock of the ‘80s is… incredibly cheerful’ the 80s also played host to Joy Division and Suicidal Tendencies neither of whom exude incredible cheer (though the angst is expressed very differently). Similarly the cheerful rock’n’roll of the 1950s might be contrasted with the mournful blues and jazz which spawned it. Or what about the 50s novels of Rich…

Painting phenomena with gross partial strokes is very easy if one myopically does not consider roots: if you follow the structure of paths behind the outcomes there are different expressions (modulated by personalities) of recognizable instances, more significant than "a mood".

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#43

Post by buescher »

There's a book. It's called The Birth of Tragedy. On the one hand, Nietzsche is pretty persuasive that, basically, tragedies are the highest form of drama. So, one would expect ambitious artists to want to tell stories with realistic characters and without happy endings. (Stories with happy endings are comedies.) On the other hand, the ambition to create tragic drama, or at least attain its status, gets dumbed down and applied imitatively in "dark and gritty" takes on pop culture.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#45

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

corrral wrote: post #8
rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Missing the obvious hypothesis: people in the past had real problems, like living through a war (by fighting in it or having it fought where you were, not by seeing it on TV), or the Great Depression, or other real, actual threats to life and limb. Something happy was a counterbalance. Now, if you're a member of a pampered elite able to work at movies/TV/other mass media for a living (for each one who can, many try a…

I frankly feel kinda great in a crisis. The more serious, the better. All the dumbest parts of my brain shut down and I do what has to be done. Squeamishness, fear, anxiety, second-guessing, rumination—all shoved in a closet and the door slammed. Gotta be an acute crisis I can do something about, though. "Climate change" or whatever doesn't trigger that state. If not for being pretty happy with being alive and having…

The crisis flow state as you call it is great every once in a while but it's not sustainable long term.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#46

Post by BlargMcLarg »

danjoredd wrote: post #27
mojuba wrote: post #13

Isn't it because depression and anxiety were taboo topics then? I think these topics have been normalized only relatively recently. Even in the 1980s none of the superstars would come out and admit they are suffering depression (Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson come to mind). Or a more recent "coming out" by Sinead O'Connor that she's in deep depression was a complete shock to me (and to many). I couldn't even wat…

True, but I also think the romanticization of depression is a factor as well. Just look at "Doomer" culture on the internet, or "black pill" types. Watch one of those videos on youtube, and all of a sudden you get a deluge of those types of vids. That is what I fear for future generations. When depression is seen as an aesthetic, some people(mostly teenagers) try to identify with it and accidentally end up depressed…

It's important to realize where doomer culture came from. It largely began as a response to feel good messages which were decorating the truth of things at the benefit of no one.

The main issue being, doomer culture can be embraced as a way to accept things that are beyond your power and double efforts on what you can change, or as a way to toss away all efforts and be in a perpetual state of not caring. It also serves as a counter to society continuing to polish turds.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#47

Post by hericium »

briga wrote: post #40

The 50s were a sort of golden era for North America, it really did seem like opportunities were boundless for a while there. An average family could expect to own their own home and a car in the suburbs. The cities weren't as grossly over-crowded as they are now. California only had a quarter of the population it does today, just imagine how much more pleasant that must have been. There was no social media. No quick…

> No quick and easy access to mood-altering drugs

LSD was synthetized in 1938, its psychedelic potential discovered in 1943 and it was used both by psychiatry and for spiritual/recreational purposes through the 50s and 60s until Nixon started "war on drugs".

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#48

Post by uncomputation »

I agree with some other commenters; this is a lot of cherry picking. You could just as easily compare Nosferatu (1922) with Blade (1998) with Twilight (2008) and ask why culture gets happier and less serious as time goes on, “aren’t we all becoming like Brave New World???” Comparing Adam West’s Batman with today’s Batman is just lazy. They’re apples and oranges at this point: different genres, different climates (today the more “fun” stuff is Marvel), different film technology. And if we want to get into it, it’s not “depression” that’s trendy; it’s realism. 60’s Batman dealt with all the same “dark” themes as current Batman: mafia, crime, trauma and grief, etc. But the visual portrayal was different because it was a “comic book” before comic books adaptations were commonplace blockbusters. That doesn’t mean all of 1960s cinema is somehow a comic book movie. Hello: Psycho (1960), Dr. Strangelove (1964), The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966).

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#49

Post by throwaway_4ever »

bowtie109 wrote: post #9
rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Missing the obvious hypothesis: people in the past had real problems, like living through a war (by fighting in it or having it fought where you were, not by seeing it on TV), or the Great Depression, or other real, actual threats to life and limb. Something happy was a counterbalance. Now, if you're a member of a pampered elite able to work at movies/TV/other mass media for a living (for each one who can, many try a…

War breeds connection and community. Many of the greatest minds in the world came from these wars. Hemingway, St. Francis of Assisi, Konstantin Batyushkov, Whitman are some who are top of mind for me today. What other great thinkers were breed in war environments?

Orwell and Wittgenstein

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#50

Post by mym1990 »

The Monitoring the Future graph shows a pretty good uptick in youth happiness up until 2009/2010 and then we basically see a precipitous drop ever since. I would say the initial introduction of social media was pretty awesome(as a 90s) kid. As time went on it has become a cesspool(now my adult view)...and from what I have heard, it isn't great for the younger generation.

Happiness is ultimately a pretty subjective matter, no less when trying to compare across many generations.

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