Modernity and Cultural Decline
Modernity and Cultural Decline
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现代性与文化衰落
DOI：
10.1007/978-3-030-32984-6
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Feltham
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Sarraf;Michael A. Woodley of Menie;C. Feltham
这本书的基本信息是，西方人口正在减少，我们这里的意思是，他们正在以许多被合理地认为是不受欢迎的重要方式发生变化。虽然这种恶化在社会文化层面上表现得最为明显，但我们认为其最终基础是人类的生物进化。现代西方人已经失去了许多重要的特征，包括智力和所谓的“生存活力”，这被理解为一个人对其受文化约束的生活方式的强大心理承诺。这一点在心理和身体健康、智力生产力和能力、社会凝聚力和生活意义的一系列指标上都很明显。由于它们似乎构成了先进文明的基础，从长远来看，这些特征的丧失可能会被证明是灾难性的。社会孤立加深(家庭组成减少，家庭解体比率高；独居；对短期关系的偏爱)，世俗和自恋文化(世俗化和拒绝一切形式的超越，特别是那些鼓励为个人享乐主义利益以外的任何东西而牺牲的文化)，以及意识形态/亚文化分裂1有人认为，西方近代史，有时意味着现代性(它可以表示不同的时期，但在本文中通常指的是从工业化开始的时期)，有时更狭隘地指当代，并不是“幻灭时代”，而是在这个时代，超越的意义通过“新时代”和其他形式的基本上异教得以维持或正在复兴
The essential message of this book is that Western populations are in decline, by which we mean that they are changing in a number of significant ways that are reasonably considered to be undesirable. Although this deterioration is manifest most clearly at the sociocultural level, we argue that its ultimate basis is in human biological evolution. Modern Western people have been losing a number of important traits, including intelligence and what might be called “existential vigor,” understood as an individual’s robust psychological commitment to his culture-bound way of life. This is apparent across a host of indicators of mental and physical health, intellectual productivity and ability, social cohesion, and perceived meaning in life. As they seem to comprise the foundation of advanced civilizations, the loss of these traits may prove catastrophic in the long run. The deepening of social isolation (declines in family formation alongside high rates of family dissolution; solitary living; preference for short-over long-term relationships), profane and narcissistic culture (secularization and rejection of all forms of transcendence, especially those encouraging sacrifice for anything other than individual hedonistic gain 1), and ideological/sub-cultural fragmentation1 Some have argued that recent Western history, sometimes meaning modernity (which can denote different time periods, but in this context most often means the period from industrialization on) and sometimes the contemporary period more narrowly, has not been an “age of disenchantment,” but rather that in this era, transcendent meaning has been sustained through or is being revived by “New Age” and other forms of basically paganistic