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Old Folks See Culture Change

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4 pointspaulpauper7 comments

Hanson seems to suggest that the cultural drift is aimless or unguided. I'd argue the opposite. There are exceptions to this, especially very recently, but almost all cultural shifts in the west of the past 150 years can be traced to one single thing: individualism.

You can trace individualism to various started places, like the Protestant Reformation's assertion that individuals have a direct connection to the divine. But certainly by the time John Stuart Mill took up the cause, it already had a great deal of momentum and it was adopted as an ethos.

Since Mill, almost every cultural shift has been reconciling the baggage of the past with individualism. The civil rights movement, women's suffrage, the decline of organized religion and promotion of "individual spirituality" all have the through-line of individualism. Name for me a single twentieth century cultural shift, in the "western world," that wasn't about the individual's triumph over the collective.

There are some more recent exceptions from this century though, where the pendulum might be swinging away from the individual and toward the collective. Emphasizing group identity over individual identity comes to mind as an example.

Name for me a single twentieth century cultural shift, in the "western world," that wasn't about the individual's triumph over the collective.

I would say that the environmental movement was/is about a recognition of collective responsibilities.

That's totally a good point and I don't mean to say you haven't got me on that. The one thing I might point out, though, is that environmentalism wasn't a cultural shift, it was mostly just a response to a practical problem.

You can certainly see other collective action problems that have gotten a government response. The movement to build nuclear weapons was a collective action, but it wasn't really a change in culture.

> Name for me a single twentieth century cultural shift, in the "western world," that wasn't about the individual's triumph over the collective.

AFL-CIO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...

Civil Rights Movement

Solidarność (if you're willing to count Poland as west, that is)

Copyleft

Well, the civil rights movements is about as individual as it gets. In the past, collectively, groups had responsibilities. Women had a duty to society to raise children and blacks had a duty to not rock the boat. The civil rights movement bucked the collective authority and emphasizes the individual right to autonomy and dignity.

You probably have a point about labor unions. Though, it's worth pointing out, that their triumph was more weak the more west you were. The labor movement in China and Russia produced communism; the labor movement in the United States produced, well, the ability to form in general.

Anti-communist movements in Poland I would also be inclined to chalk up to individualism. They were individuals fighting authority.

> You can trace individualism to various started places, like the Protestant Reformation's assertion that individuals have a direct connection to the divine.

Really? I think the Gnostics have long been on that path if one is crediting the Protestant Reformation...

> The space of possible cultures should mostly be harsh and dysfunctional

Why?

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