Hanarchy Montanarchy wrote:Since we have zero examples of a civilization that lasted forever, we have no idea what one might look like. Granting your premise the masculinity drives the creation of civilization, the most robust civilizations might see that taper off to achieve a manageable sort pf stasis... who really knows. Trying to save civilization with some arbitrary determination of the right definition masculinity and the acceptable quota for it is a fools errand if you ask me.Speaker to Animals wrote:Hanarchy Montanarchy wrote:Nature, completely unbidden, solves problems without regard to what humans believe should be valued. We have, for eons, been building societies that require fewer people, and lo and behold, virility starts to decline. Doesn't exactly surprise me, or even strike me as negative by any convincing moral rubric.
Or it is because you pussies haven't been taking your Alex Jones recommended vitality pills, and now western society is doomed... I don't know, I'm not a nerdy scientist, I have very robust sperm.
Nah. The feminization of males signals the decline of a civilization. This happened several times in history already, so it's hardly some mystery. Civilization is built by testosterone.
Think of the civilization as an organism in which each individual human is but an organ. The higher testosterone in the males, the more likely the civilization will build, expand, and explore new cultural forms. In that Spencer outlook, Spencer sees the decline happening when the civilization exhausts those cultural forms. But I don't think we can realistically exhaust cultural forms at all. What happens really is that men become feminized. Art becomes feminized and vacuous. Armed struggle becomes less effective for the state. The fertility rate begins to decline. Men begin to build less things. They innovate less.
American men in the 1950s were interested in colonizing space, curing diseases, inventing computers and jet airplanes and continental transportation systems. American men in the 2050s will be interested in fashion, social functions, and making statements in everything they do. We already have begun a kind of dark age in the academy. Real academics are getting shut down and replaced with the fake post-modern stuff.
It can be turned around though. I don't believe in some causal destiny of civilizational rise and fall.
Also, what art counts as feminized? If you just list a bunch of shitty art, then I am going to assume that, when it comes to culture, feminine is just a synonym for crappy in your lexicon, and isn't very useful for art criticism.
I am not making an arbitrary definition of masculinity.
I am talking about hormone levels: an objective and testable metric.