Do you think the modern era is hostile to novelty?

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It seems like we haven't even had new genres of music for 20 years, how can we ever have something like a revolution to make the world a better place? I'm big into Occupy and the Cascadia movement (basically we want to start a new civilization in the Pacific Northwest of the US and Western Canada, look it up) but it seems impossible in an era where nothing aside from technology has changed since like I was born basically.

Is the American/globalist empire invincible and is it inevitable that every ecosystem and culture will fall to the golden arches and walmart?

American Empire invincible? china owns america

Maybe people have just become jaded with looking for novelty. I keep feeling reminded of Ecclesiastes 1:9. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun. It's like we've reached the age were you're made to feel self-conscious for actually caring about anything. Being an angry cynic is considered cool even though it's way too easy.

I'm 10 years older than you and for some reason it doesn't seem at all like 10 years has passed since I was your age. It literally feels like 2002 was yesterday. It's depressing.

A revolution, as in the violent overthrow of government, would not be desirable. They have a tendency to go horribly wrong (look at what happened in Cuba, China, Russia and, going back much farther, France). A revolutionary change in outlook might be desirable. But even the so called revolutions that are just a period of an elected government enacting rapid change (ex: the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela) have been rather worrying. The Bolivarians don't seem to make democracy and freedom of the press their highest priorities, for instance (not to say that they treat it like the USSR did, but it still has some serious problems).

What I have noticed is that we are in a particularly boring period right now when it comes to political thought. In most countries there is little fundamental difference between the major political parties. They all support a free market with a limited degree of welfare state (increasingly operated by the private sector). 30 years ago we saw real choice in politics. Now someone is ridiculed if they suggest something different than the neoliberal orthodoxy. I think things will change though. As we've seen in places like Greece, all it takes is one good disaster to bring out the radical elements. Sooner or later everywhere will be having enough problems that that happens. Unfortunately we'll have to go through some bad times for things to change.

So go buy an island and start a new civilization. No one is stopping you.

ruveyn

I think with music at least there's only so much room for it to expand - past that you largely have noise. Now - as far as subgenres that are out there right now they could still eat new material for at least 50 or 100 years, especially the electronic genres which are my favorite generally, and a lot of what's jazz-based.

As far as respect for and appreciation of novelty though - you really I think need a small ship as far as a country. A great example IMHO is how far really, really good electronic can get in the UK. Reason being, for England especially, London's been key in the evolution of so many genres, its been a pool of talent, but at the same time England doesn't have a culture weighted over 300 million people the way the US does. If you had, lets say, New York and its state or part of the eastern seaboard as its own independent country from the US, you'd likely have a very interesting culture thriving because New York could set the pace. It seems like in the US though New York has always been a bit like London, but, its held back and restrained, likely all kinds of great music ideas have come or gone, likely all the odd things you could possibly imagine with all the talent needed, completely get overlooked or ignored by the national media because....well....its too intelligent, too alternative, two beyond the pail of what 300 million other slow thinkers can digest or understand. When its only going up against 25 or 30 million slow thinkers and the quicker thinkers are over 10 or 20% of the population - IMHO it has a fairer shot and common denominator marketing doesn't have quite as heavy of a destructive hand in such an environment.

..... how many past societies have been "innovation friendly"? I mean, I am thrown off in thinking of the basis for comparison. The modern age, and the modern society is the most RAPIDLY CHANGING thing in ALL OF HISTORY. Like, if you want to look at slow, look at the Middle Ages, or the Chinese Empire. However, age-old customs have been going out the window relatively quickly in historical terms.

You will notice that the patent office has not closed for lack of business.

ruveyn

No, I think you're just blind to novelty.

I think the issue is at the current time we are used to an unusually rapid rate of change, and I'm talking in terms of culture, not just technology. Now it appears the most rapid changes are occurring in the developing world and the west has slowed down slightly. It just seems like we've reached a point of cultural saturation at this point.

No.

Dude. You need to listen to more music.
Novelty has never been more embraced than it is now.

You are not joking. Now China is buying into American banks and more. I don't know who this writer Steve Collins is, but he makes for interesting reading.
China owning the US - LOL

A few days ago I saw a Chinese video clip. A Chinese man is talking to the Americans saying 'You work for us now'.

But Walmart is very big in mainland China.

Hunh? No. (Or at least, the unusually rapid rate of change still exists, even if it has slowed down a tick, making this still unusually rapid in the grand scheme)

I'm not thinking technology. The culture is changing rapidly and radically. Look at the atheist movement in the US, and the rise of non-religiosity. This isn't everybody, but it's enough people to matter and to involve a real cultural evolution.

Look at the rise of crowdfunding. With crowdfunding we now can have average people fund cultural projects, and a number of these have been getting millions of dollars.

If you look at gaming, we see some homogenization, but also massive refinements in narrative technique to make games more immersive, and this has been going on for the past decade.

I mean, maybe you can argue that this has slowed down from like the 70s or something, but this is still astonishingly rapid in human terms. We even have to include an ongoing battle with different expressed opinions on DRM, where strategies have impacted the consumption of music. (Like with Pandora and other media players)

I mean, maybe you could argue that this is all periphery, but these are all relevant changes as far as I can see thing.

Edit: And wow! Youtube was created in 2005??? Crazy!

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 19 May 2012, 9:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

The OP is lumping together dozens of his own subjective opinions about dozens of different topics- all unproven- and all unproven to be related to each other- all into one preposterous package, and then expects us to make one response to the whole thing.

No one can respond to it without sounding preposterous themselves.

I agree with the OP, but I don't think it is anything specific about the modern era. People always have been, always are, and always will be hostile to original thought. A person needs a baseline comfort zone to argue from. A person wants to gain the higher ground, a persona always wants the high ground.

People will always argue til the day we die. Novel thought is blasphemy until. people open their minds and suddenly realize it isnot idiocy but wisdom being spoken. And then they feel like fools.

You know what I mean.