anti21stcentury

Following on from a recent discussion here, I think a major problem today is that we're made to feel so guilty about non-productive pleasures. If we're just sitting quietly in front of the TV, or we're just idly surfing the internet, we feel we should be doing something constructive instead.

But why should we? Didn't Oscar Wilde say something about all art being useless, and that its uselessness was what made it so precious? We seem to have imposed the Protestant work ethic even onto our pleasures.

I'm at the point where I would prefer a sport-related hobby just to keep me away from constantly checking for any internet updates. Surfing the net does not feel constructive in anyway unless I stumble over something useful to my personal interests, and at that point I can happily label it 'research', until then I just feel like a slob wasting time.

I was contemplating buying a new TV set this week. But you need to do a course to understand enough of the technical stuff to even consider paying out the money. I don’t want to have to understand refresh rates and response times and contrast levels. And I noticed that the stores were full of bewildered consumers. The salesman was trying to explain to a woman about region coding on DVDs, ad I could see that she was simply appalled that human brings would come up with such unnecessary stupidity to make life so much more complicated than it needs to be.

The world seems to be run by techno-geeks for techno-geeks. I have nothing against techno-geeks, but I don’t understand why I have to become one before I can even go shopping. Technology should make our lives better. For most people these days it simply makes life into a never-ending nightmare.

It's probably very hypocritical to say this on an internet group, but I think a lot of the changes or the worse in popular culture and in society as a whole are due to the internet. Much as I enjoy the internet, I find it difficult to convince myself that it's been a force for good in the world.

There's a certain kind of internet culture that seems to have spread into the world of real life. A culture that tolerates outrageously obnoxious and argumentative behaviour and a generally snarky attitude. The relative anonymity of the internet has allowed this culture to thrive.

So do you think the internet has done more harm than good?

We've talked about disappearing technology. One that hasn't yet vanished, but seems likely to do so within the next decade, is the newspaper. I have mixed feelings about this. There are plenty of newspapers that I would be happy to see disappear down the plug-hole of history, and in fact I was overjoyed to see Sydney's two afternoon tabloid newspapers cease publication.

But I fear their place will simply be taken by the more trashy parts of the internet, and we'll end up with something even trashier than the tabloids.

What do you think? Will you be sorry to see newspapers go?

If you're new to the community feel free to introduce yourself, and tell us why you dislike the present age.

There are no hard and fast rules here about subject matter. Pretty much anything that relates to the past compared to the present, in just about an area of society or art or fashion or anything else you can think of is perfectly acceptable. Don't feel shy!

It seems to me that the art of editing is one of the things we've lost in the past few decades. The ability to express thoughts or emotions, or tell stories, concisely. This is evident in books and movies, and even in TV series (with extended story arcs that go on seemingly forever). There are occasional books and movies that need to be long, but mostly it's just a sign of artistic laziness and lack of discipline. There is no more important concept than Mies van der Rohe's famous dictum that Less Is More.

A lot of the annoying things about life today seem to have their roots in the 1970s. One of these things is our inability to enjoy food, one of the simple pleasures of life, without agonising about how healthy or unhealthy it is, or about how natural or unnatural it is. The hippie ideology on this subject has become the mainstream.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with healthy natural food. It's when it becomes an obsession, and a cause for guilt, that it's a problem. And that seems to be what's happened. It's also a problem when people want to impose their ideological preferences on food onto others, which is also an increasing and worrying trend.

Do you remember in the late 20th century how everybody was excited about the concept of online communities? Whatever happened to that? Why has the excitement gone?

Remember when Live Journal was cutting edge? When you couldn't wait to log on to check your friends' page?

Remember when "blogging" was the very latest thing? It was going to revolutionise not just the internet, but the whole media world, and the whole of society. Maybe it has to a certain extent, but it hasn't really turned out the way we expected it to.

And we do have online communities, but again they haven't entirely lived up to our expectations.

Picking up on a recent posting by arjuna_lj, one trend that really disturbs me is the growing medicalisation of human behaviour. Bad behaviour is no longer bad behaviour. It's a mental illness, a medical condition, a syndrome, anything but actual bad behaviour. Which means people don't need to take responsibility for their actions.

I think this problem started in the late 19th century, when the medical profession embarked on an ambitious scheme of empire-building. Psychiatrists have been among the most enthusiastic of these empire-builders. Practically every human behaviour has by now been classified as a mental disorder. Which of course require medical treatment, and medication.

There are of course real mental disorders that need real treatment. But we have to draw a line between actual mental disorders and what is simply bad selfish childish behaviour. We also need to draw a line actual mental disorders and what are in reality simply variations in human behaviour.