Can Culture Degenerate?

I think anthropologists would say, yes. For instance, the peoples who arrived in Tasmania originally possessed the art of making bone tools, but lost it over time.[1] Joe Henrich has other examples in his The Secret of Our Success, I think.

[1] Kremer, M., 1993. Population growth and technological change: One million BC to 1990. The quarterly journal of economics, 108(3), pp.681-716 https://wiki.santafe.edu/images/7/7b/Kremer.pdf

> Gobineau’s hogwash is easily disproven by comparing the health and vitality of endogamic and exogamic communities, that is communities that only breed with their own versus communities that invite outsiders into their genetic pool.

Endogamic communities such as China, Japan, or Judaism [1], and exogamic communities such as the US, Canada, and South Africa? Seems like anything but an "easy" comparison, as those communities have many differences besides endo/exogamy.

Overall the article spends more time worrying about implications than trying to answer the question posed in the title. Ironically, the answer it gives is "yes". Despite the false dichotomy it offers at the start [2], it then goes on to describe exactly what I would call "degeneration" [3]. I.e. brainless entertainment is growing disproportionately to quality art.

It's hard to view this article as anything other than an excuse to dig up and triumphantly defeat some 150 year old racist thought. Once the reader sees that dumb racists worried about degeneration, then surely the idea must be false.

That the author herself admits there is a distinction between quality and mindless art, that giving mindless art disproportionate attention could be termed degeneration, and that that is something that definitely could, and arguably (argued by the author herself [4]!) is happening... well just ignore all that, because racists.

Overall the kind of article I would expect from a humanities professor - a lot of rhetoric, used mostly to distract rather than inform. Comparing that rambling article with dash2's post [5], that definitively answers the question in 3 sentences, reveals what a farce the Princeton professor's work is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogamy#Examples

[2] Do you see a thriving and innovative scene, replete with original forms and vibrant content? Or do you see something simple and stagnant, marked by dead-end ideas that either repeat the patterns of the past or offer only feeble attempts to craft a new aesthetic vision?

[3] Upon deeper reflection, I realise that while media companies reward narcissism, shallowness, empty spectacle, hyperbole and brainlessness by giving disproportionate exposure to things that generate easy attention, there is another coexisting world, one in which thoughtful, intricate and uplifting things are being created at an unprecedented pace.

[4] On days when I feel discouraged by the kinds of cultural objects I encounter

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110007