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The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

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Lucas88
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The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by Lucas88 »

I've always had a deep interest in the various decades of the 20th and 21st centuries and their respective cultural zeitgeists, social developments and general vibes. I really enjoyed the interesting discussion with @gsjackson and @WilliamSmith in the thread on 'America in the 1950s' in which we compared the culture of the 50s to that of subsequent decades and in particular that of the 80s. I would like to open my own more general thread on the topic.

The term 'zeitgeist' is a German word which means "spirit of the times" and in its sociological context refers to period-specific cultural patterns. Many hold that certain historical epochs such as the Baroque period for example all have a distinctive zeitgeist of their own. Indeed Karl Mannheim with whom the term is often associated claimed that people tend to resemble the times in which they live more than they resemble their parents. I would like to discuss the cultural zeitgeists of the various decades of the 20th and 21st centuries in the US. It seems clear that each decade had its own unique set of cultural values, trends in social life, developments in popular culture, political proclivities, fashions, styles and aesthetic properties that defined it as well as its own "vibe" for want of a better word. Those things except for the latter are obviously more observable phenomena but here we could even tie in the occult concept of "egregores" which I've spoken about in other unrelated posts. It could be that on a deeper metaphysical level each decade also had its own egregore or underlying energetic frequencies or collective soul which influenced many of its historical developments. That could explain the general vibe that we perceive for each decade such as the 50s vibe or the 80s vibe just to name a few.

What do you think was the zeitgeist of each of the decades throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? How has society evolved diachronically in the cultural sphere in your view? Do you notice any kind of overarching trend or evolution towards something? What are the general big ideas?

1950s

All sources agree that the 50s were characterized by the pursuit of normalcy, predictability and material comfort following the chaos of WW2. Society was for the most part conservative as well as patriarchal. Family values were strongly promoted on the surface and indeed this is the reason why the decade is so idealized by some but from @gsjackson's first-person account in the previous thread it seems that underground the promiscuous playboy ideal was already taking form. The 50s were known as the Golden Age for their novel inventions such as color TV and their relative material prosperity, at least among middle class America. Musically the new vogue was Rock 'n' Roll, ironically a genre associated with youth rebellion and transgression in the midst of an age of outward conformity.

All in all it seems that the 50s were a time of social conservatism and simplistic conventionality on the surface but with a burgeoning spirit of rebellion starting to seep in.

1960s

The 60s on the other hand marked the beginning of the "Culture Wars" with the disintegration of the socially conservative values of the 50s and experimentation with new ways of living and new value systems. Although the early 60s were still very much like the 50s, the second half of the decade saw the culmination of the civil rights movement and new voices of radical change against the mainstream, the rise of the counterculture movement and the ideal of "free love". It was also at this time that second-wave feminism arose and began to object to the "sexism" of previous generations as well as "sexual objectification"(oh lawd :roll: ). I don't know much about the music of the 60s other than the Beatles being all the rage. I admit that I've always hated the Beatles and their promotion of drug culture.

The 60s seemed like the start of a very awful time with the advent of destructive values disguised as 'freedom'. This decade has always given off a really bad vibe for me.

1970s

From what I've heard, the 70s were a continuation and intensification of the 60s or what most people imagine the 60s to have been. The countercultural ideas of the previous decade really started to percolate through the mainstream. The Sexual Revolution was now in full swing. Free love continued to proliferate. New Age and alternative spiritual beliefs and practices were starting to take root among a certain subset of the population. As for the music of the 70s, I don't really know much about it or what it represented other than the fun and quirky disco music of the latter part of the decade which abruptly went up in flames in 1979.

The 70s is another decade which doesn't impress me too much. In fact @Pixel—Dude sometimes sends me music from the 70s but for some reason I can never get into it. The whole decade's vibe and aesthetic just seems really bizarre and alien to my soul.

1980s

The 80s were a unique decade. Those who were born early enough to have lived through those times tell me that the 80s saw a return to conservative values and involved a considerable amount of shallow materialism, consumerism and "yuppie" culture yet at the same time the decade was also characterized by a certain zeitgeist of social freedom and fun-loving revelry. I love the whole 80s vibe. The culture just seemed to possess a unique kind of innocence and optimism. For example, most of the movies from that time had a thoughtful story, promoted positive values and featured a moral dimension in which good triumphed over evil (e.g., The Karate Kid). Unfortunately that would all change in the 90s. From video footage which I've seen of scenes of everyday life, people seemed a lot more friendly and less paranoid. Women looked really nice and feminine. The evil vice of feminism seemed to take a back seat in this decade. In terms of music there was an unprecedented explosion of creativity and innovation. 80s music is by far my favorite. Most genres of music from that time were characterized by great harmony and euphony and perfectly represented the decade's upbeat and positive vibe. Some have even claimed that the musical brilliance of the 80s was brought about by a one-of-a-kind astrological alignment.

The 80s is by far my favorite decade. I perceive it as having the right balance between conservative decency and personal freedom and being perhaps the only decade in recent history that was more or less "normal".

I'm sure that somebody is going to come and tell me that the 80s weren't perfect and that it had this problem or that problem but please just let me continue to live in my naïveté and "mark out" to the best motherfuckin' decade ever!

1990s

My momma tells me that the 90s were awful. She says that from about 1992-1993 onwards pop culture and music shifted from the beauty and positivity of the 80s towards a more grimy and gritty aesthetic which many people thought sucked. Grunge music burst onto the scene. Depressing and angsty genres came to replace the upbeat and happy-go-lucky musical direction of the previous decade (I've even heard that this was done by design to bring the younger generation down into a low-vibrational frequency of thought and activity). In terms of attitudes the 90s were characterized by a large degree of cynicism. There was also a certain edginess about most subcultures and forms of entertainment. I remember music and TV programs in the 90s being full of profanity and shock content. Things like South Park, Jerry Springer, The Howard Stern Show and the WWF Attitude Era come to mind. The edgy entertainment of the 90s might have seemed fun to my immature 10 year-old self but in retrospect that decade really had a warped and demonic energy and was full of gratuitous degeneracy.

2000s Onwards

I've heard many say that the early 2000s were simply an extension of the 90s. Maybe that is true to some degree. I myself remember the early 2000s rather fondly. Even though there was all of the hysteria surrounding 911 and the threat of terrorism, I perceive that the sheer crazy edginess of the 90s calmed down a little bit and there was a brief period of decent music and television. I don't know if anybody else noticed something similar. The depressing grunge music of the 90s was replaced by the more aggressive and psychotic Nu Metal (which I suppose is a bit better) but on the RnB side I remember some really smooth hits being produced by sexy Black females. Too bad RnB would soon end up becoming totally infested with rap in the next few years.

I don't remember much from the mid 2000s onwards. Everything just started to progressively go to shit on all levels from about that time and I just tuned out and became a recluse and hardcore retro fan. All I know is that music was completely subverted with rap and then that homogenized trap sound and just became totally awful. Movies got increasingly worse. The 2010s were especially a cultural wasteland for me. All we seemed to ever get was garbage, political correctness, feminism and eventually all of the "woke" nonsense. The 2010s just seem like a lost decade to me. I just retired into my own little bubble for the most part and anything I know about that time period is just hearsay.


Final Note

Please comment freely on this topic. Tell us what you remember about certain decades as well as your own interpretation of their cultural zeitgeists and social developments. Tell us also which decades do you like and dislike. I'm really curious about your thoughts.



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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by gsjackson »

For thumbnail sketches I think you've got them all sized up pretty accurately. I wouldn't quibble with anything, though it's been hard to look back on anything positive about the early 2000s once understanding that 9/11 was another Jewish hoax and false flag. I agree that the '90s were the time when the journey to hell in a handbasket was completed in the U.S., perhaps not surprising given that the government was headed up by a pair of arch-criminals, the Clintons (see "the Clinton body count"). Or more transparently criminal than most pols, I should say.

To me there's been a single overriding Zeitgeist in the U.S. going back a hundred years, and if I had to put a label on it -- Jewish Control of the Media of Mass Communication to Privatize, Subjugate and Control the American Population. Going back a hundred years, the Jews have by then taken complete control of the movie industry and learned a few things about crafting a unified message. They have also learned a lot about the new art of propaganda, with Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew, considered the father of public relations) and Walter Lippman having been on the Creel Committee, the propaganda arm of the U.S. government during WWI, which Goebbels said he learned his craft by studying. Bernays and Lippman were enormously influential figures throughout the first 75 years of the 20th century, and, long story short, they mastered the art of "manufacturing consent," as the title of one of Lippman's books had it.

Beginning with radio in the 1920s, each successive technology of communication -- television, the internet, smart phones and the various apps -- had the effect of pulling Americans out of the public and into their own private spaces, whether within the walls of their private living quarters or virtual space. Other technologies had the same effect, private automobiles and central air conditioning as examples. Public transportation in the U.S. was deliberately destroyed and replaced by the private automobile. If you can believe it, Los Angeles, the freeway capital of the world, had the best public transportation system in the world in the 1930s. Air conditioning had the same effect of pulling people into their private spaces. In the early '60s in Northern Virginia, during the summer everyone on the block would go outside and sit on their front porches, from which starting position various social interactions would take place. By the early '70s, everyone had central air, and no one went outside. Street life was left to the less pecunious blacks and Latino immigrants.

So by the time the scamdemic arrived in 2020 Americans were completely conditioned to being inside their private spaces and parked in front of some screen -- TV, smart phone, laptop -- awaiting instructions from the authorities about what to think, and it was an easy enough transition to make this required by law. Unaccustomed to speaking with their neighbors and unfamiliar with the Constitution that granted them certain rights, Americans were ripe for total subjugation. Of course, the same totalitarianism was easily implemented throughout the world, so the unique privatized lifestyle of Americans isn't the whole scamdemic story, but it is, in my view, the main part of the American Zeitgeist story of the past century.

This is a very broad topic requiring essays to weigh in, so I don't know how much traction the thread will get. I'll pop in from time to time with recollections of how things changed. Surveying the last several decades is a very grim business, given that they constitute a "declension narrative," as the academics like to say. We're living in a dystopian hell here at the end of that narrative. But on the bright side, Lucas88, the pleasure of familiarizing yourself with '60s music still awaits you. And by the way, don't know if this is what you're referring to, but disco literally went up in flames, or more accurately into many pieces, in 1979:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night

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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by Moretorque »

Some of the Disco music was great, I hated it at the time but now I realize how some aspects of it were brilliant and will not be forgotten.
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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by Pixel--Dude »

Lucas88 wrote:
July 2nd, 2022, 8:50 pm
I've always had a deep interest in the various decades of the 20th and 21st centuries and their respective cultural zeitgeists, social developments and general vibes. I really enjoyed the interesting discussion with @gsjackson and @WilliamSmith in the thread on 'America in the 1950s' in which we compared the culture of the 50s to that of subsequent decades and in particular that of the 80s. I would like to open my own more general thread on the topic.

The term 'zeitgeist' is a German word which means "spirit of the times" and in its sociological context refers to period-specific cultural patterns. Many hold that certain historical epochs such as the Baroque period for example all have a distinctive zeitgeist of their own. Indeed Karl Mannheim with whom the term is often associated claimed that people tend to resemble the times in which they live more than they resemble their parents. I would like to discuss the cultural zeitgeists of the various decades of the 20th and 21st centuries in the US. It seems clear that each decade had its own unique set of cultural values, trends in social life, developments in popular culture, political proclivities, fashions, styles and aesthetic properties that defined it as well as its own "vibe" for want of a better word. Those things except for the latter are obviously more observable phenomena but here we could even tie in the occult concept of "egregores" which I've spoken about in other unrelated posts. It could be that on a deeper metaphysical level each decade also had its own egregore or underlying energetic frequencies or collective soul which influenced many of its historical developments. That could explain the general vibe that we perceive for each decade such as the 50s vibe or the 80s vibe just to name a few.

What do you think was the zeitgeist of each of the decades throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? How has society evolved diachronically in the cultural sphere in your view? Do you notice any kind of overarching trend or evolution towards something? What are the general big ideas?

1950s

All sources agree that the 50s were characterized by the pursuit of normalcy, predictability and material comfort following the chaos of WW2. Society was for the most part conservative as well as patriarchal. Family values were strongly promoted on the surface and indeed this is the reason why the decade is so idealized by some but from @gsjackson's first-person account in the previous thread it seems that underground the promiscuous playboy ideal was already taking form. The 50s were known as the Golden Age for their novel inventions such as color TV and their relative material prosperity, at least among middle class America. Musically the new vogue was Rock 'n' Roll, ironically a genre associated with youth rebellion and transgression in the midst of an age of outward conformity.

All in all it seems that the 50s were a time of social conservatism and simplistic conventionality on the surface but with a burgeoning spirit of rebellion starting to seep in.

1960s

The 60s on the other hand marked the beginning of the "Culture Wars" with the disintegration of the socially conservative values of the 50s and experimentation with new ways of living and new value systems. Although the early 60s were still very much like the 50s, the second half of the decade saw the culmination of the civil rights movement and new voices of radical change against the mainstream, the rise of the counterculture movement and the ideal of "free love". It was also at this time that second-wave feminism arose and began to object to the "sexism" of previous generations as well as "sexual objectification"(oh lawd :roll: ). I don't know much about the music of the 60s other than the Beatles being all the rage. I admit that I've always hated the Beatles and their promotion of drug culture.

The 60s seemed like the start of a very awful time with the advent of destructive values disguised as 'freedom'. This decade has always given off a really bad vibe for me.

1970s

From what I've heard, the 70s were a continuation and intensification of the 60s or what most people imagine the 60s to have been. The countercultural ideas of the previous decade really started to percolate through the mainstream. The Sexual Revolution was now in full swing. Free love continued to proliferate. New Age and alternative spiritual beliefs and practices were starting to take root among a certain subset of the population. As for the music of the 70s, I don't really know much about it or what it represented other than the fun and quirky disco music of the latter part of the decade which abruptly went up in flames in 1979.

The 70s is another decade which doesn't impress me too much. In fact @Pixel—Dude sometimes sends me music from the 70s but for some reason I can never get into it. The whole decade's vibe and aesthetic just seems really bizarre and alien to my soul.

1980s

The 80s were a unique decade. Those who were born early enough to have lived through those times tell me that the 80s saw a return to conservative values and involved a considerable amount of shallow materialism, consumerism and "yuppie" culture yet at the same time the decade was also characterized by a certain zeitgeist of social freedom and fun-loving revelry. I love the whole 80s vibe. The culture just seemed to possess a unique kind of innocence and optimism. For example, most of the movies from that time had a thoughtful story, promoted positive values and featured a moral dimension in which good triumphed over evil (e.g., The Karate Kid). Unfortunately that would all change in the 90s. From video footage which I've seen of scenes of everyday life, people seemed a lot more friendly and less paranoid. Women looked really nice and feminine. The evil vice of feminism seemed to take a back seat in this decade. In terms of music there was an unprecedented explosion of creativity and innovation. 80s music is by far my favorite. Most genres of music from that time were characterized by great harmony and euphony and perfectly represented the decade's upbeat and positive vibe. Some have even claimed that the musical brilliance of the 80s was brought about by a one-of-a-kind astrological alignment.

The 80s is by far my favorite decade. I perceive it as having the right balance between conservative decency and personal freedom and being perhaps the only decade in recent history that was more or less "normal".

I'm sure that somebody is going to come and tell me that the 80s weren't perfect and that it had this problem or that problem but please just let me continue to live in my naïveté and "mark out" to the best motherfuckin' decade ever!

1990s

My momma tells me that the 90s were awful. She says that from about 1992-1993 onwards pop culture and music shifted from the beauty and positivity of the 80s towards a more grimy and gritty aesthetic which many people thought sucked. Grunge music burst onto the scene. Depressing and angsty genres came to replace the upbeat and happy-go-lucky musical direction of the previous decade (I've even heard that this was done by design to bring the younger generation down into a low-vibrational frequency of thought and activity). In terms of attitudes the 90s were characterized by a large degree of cynicism. There was also a certain edginess about most subcultures and forms of entertainment. I remember music and TV programs in the 90s being full of profanity and shock content. Things like South Park, Jerry Springer, The Howard Stern Show and the WWF Attitude Era come to mind. The edgy entertainment of the 90s might have seemed fun to my immature 10 year-old self but in retrospect that decade really had a warped and demonic energy and was full of gratuitous degeneracy.

2000s Onwards

I've heard many say that the early 2000s were simply an extension of the 90s. Maybe that is true to some degree. I myself remember the early 2000s rather fondly. Even though there was all of the hysteria surrounding 911 and the threat of terrorism, I perceive that the sheer crazy edginess of the 90s calmed down a little bit and there was a brief period of decent music and television. I don't know if anybody else noticed something similar. The depressing grunge music of the 90s was replaced by the more aggressive and psychotic Nu Metal (which I suppose is a bit better) but on the RnB side I remember some really smooth hits being produced by sexy Black females. Too bad RnB would soon end up becoming totally infested with rap in the next few years.

I don't remember much from the mid 2000s onwards. Everything just started to progressively go to shit on all levels from about that time and I just tuned out and became a recluse and hardcore retro fan. All I know is that music was completely subverted with rap and then that homogenized trap sound and just became totally awful. Movies got increasingly worse. The 2010s were especially a cultural wasteland for me. All we seemed to ever get was garbage, political correctness, feminism and eventually all of the "woke" nonsense. The 2010s just seem like a lost decade to me. I just retired into my own little bubble for the most part and anything I know about that time period is just hearsay.


Final Note

Please comment freely on this topic. Tell us what you remember about certain decades as well as your own interpretation of their cultural zeitgeists and social developments. Tell us also which decades do you like and dislike. I'm really curious about your thoughts.
Awesome post mate. I agree that in terms of music the 80s were awesome. In comparison to modern music which all sounds the same. One thing I like about music is that some groups or solo artists have their own unique sounds and styles and this was something which was more prevalent in the 80s than it is today. Today the only music we have is repeatative garbage that they push because it sells. Music has no soul anymore.

This is why I also like some of the 70s, groups. Led Zeppelin is a group which influenced several rock groups and they have their own unique sound. Here are a couple of songs from them which I really like. These are also songs I've already sent to you @Lucas88

https://youtu.be/tzVJPgCn-Z8

Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. A really good song. I particularly like the counter rhythm in this song. I think they are a talented group.

https://youtu.be/5Ybz6q34xA0

Ten Years Gone is another really good song. Perfect for sitting and smoking a jambi to.

https://youtu.be/Pu94mWlgzMY

No Quarter. This one has an ethereal vibe. Another one I really like.

Even though I do like these listed songs I don't listen to them as much. I do listen to Jefferson Airplane though. Led Zeppelin used backmasking in one of their songs where they openly worship satan. I even read in their biography that they made a pact with satan. So should I really be listening to their music? But i do recognise talent and I still think Led Zeppelin are talented musicians.

This is why I like some 70s music, because they all have their own sound, or individual vibe. They don't all sound the same. I think modern music is probably influenced too much by the establishment these days. I doubt there is much room for creative expression in the music industry these days, if there ever was...

But overall the 80s were the best in terms of expression and music etc. The decade really did have a good vibe about it. Plus didn't we get the internet in the 80s? A technological advancement which is making this whole discussion possible.

The late 80s and 90s for me personally were happy times, my childhood was just so carefree and good. Although I did hate school lol. I think in the early 2000s I started to become disillusioned about the world and my place in it. I never wanted to live just to serve a company or a corporation. Something everyone else seemed so passionate about. That was the end goal. It made me depressed.

I think the 1950s were a good time. For some reason I really like this decade. I feel drawn to it like I had a past life there or something. I think scenes I see in movies set at that time show cabaret clubs which seemed like a lot of fun. They had a lot of swinging tunes back then as well, some were a bit melancholy but still better than shit we have today. Also, they had style back then. Better than the shit styles people have today.

https://images.app.goo.gl/sPC9mVvL6XQKMQYt9

Women wore nice dresses and looked and acted feminine. Not like the androgynous land whales of today with all their pronouns and bullshit.

1960 and 1970s saw the hippy movement in full swing, which started because of the CIA experimenting on people with LSD because they thought it would make people easier to control. That's the theory, anyway. But this resulted in a counterculture movement which was a nuisance for the elite. The only problem with hippies and New Agers is that their pacifist philosophy will never bring about any meaningful change or defeat a tyrannical government. That's why their peaceful demonstrations are only a minor nuisance and not a threat to the global elite.

Violence and war is the only way to win freedom. At least people from the 1950s were brave and went off to fight. Hippies from the 60s and 70s wouldn't have the balls to fight and that's why they hide behind pacifism. People of the 2000s are even bigger pussies who wouldn't fight for their own freedom.

What's needed is the bravery of men who lived in the 50s combined with the desire for freedom from the hippies of the 60s 70s and the music of the 80s to play as we charge into battle with the police state :lol:
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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by WilliamSmith »

Cool discussion guys! :) You post so many interesting things on here that I can't keep up with them all. I spend a lot more time reading here and thinking about this stuff than I ever thought I'd do on internet forums, heheh.

I was already planning a macho retro action movies thread soon which would feature a lot of 80s clips, but I'll share my thoughts later since I thought about this topic myself, having lived from early 80s, 90s, 2000's, and having an especially strong impression of the 80s and 90s back when I still sort of liked it, heheh.
(I was doing my own thing from then on so much that I never noticed much about trends in mainstream culture, except everything looked more and more rotten and convincing me not to switch on the talmudvision or other.)

@gsjackson: VERY interesting thoughts and insights, good call on Edward Bernays, I knew about him but didn't even realize he was Freud's nephew! Geez, do these people like to keep it "all in the family" or what? :P
I don't know yet about Walter Lippman and the Creel Committee, but the specific ways and means they use propaganda to influence the public seems like a very worthwhile area for me to fill in my knowledge and learn more, so thank you.

Swinging way over to the light-hearted side re: the 1980s:
Hey @Lucas88 I know what I'm doing next time I can get some free time away from those pesky females always ripping my clothes off and demanding every last drop of my male vitality, LOL: I'm going to parse up my VHS rip of Dolph Lundgren's "Maximum Potential" and I'll come back and post it in the "Home workouts for men" thread here later. :lol:
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If you're serious about "taking the red pill," read thoroughly researched work by an unbiased "American intellectual soldier of our age" to learn what controlled media doesn't want you to see 8) : https://www.unz.com/page/american-pravda-series/

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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by Lucas88 »

Thank you all for your responses to this thread. In all honesty I didn't think that it would get much attention due to the topic's broad range and rather elusive nature but I came back to find four almost immediate replies and was pleasantly surprised. :D

With regard to the overarching zeitgeist of the decades from the 1950s up until now, I also observe a kind of "declension narrative" or more precisely an emerging war between the progressive vs. the classical which would ultimately result in the subversion of the latter by the former. Of course, what is termed "progressive" here is in reality not truly progressive at all but rather purely regressive and degenerative while using ideals of social progress as a pretext. Also here I'm using the term "classical" quite liberally. I'm obviously not referring to the classical period of antiquity or the neo-classicism of the Renaissance but rather a cultural zeitgeist which still retains to some degree ethical and aesthetic values that resemble those of the classical world such as esteem for beauty and that which is lofty, even if these were significantly watered down by the general spirit of modernity.

For me the counterculture of the 60s and 70s represented an assault on the classical and an elevation of the lowly. Indeed this is a fundamental theme of all leftist thought and especially the neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt School which influenced the protest movements of 1968. Now I'm not saying that the protest movements were entirely without reason. There were plenty of things wrong with society at that time and reforms were certainly necessary in light of existing racism and social injustices. However, history has shown that neo-Marxist movements are never content with bringing about positive reforms but rather always seek to attack and bring down all traditional social institutions and cultural values and sew the seeds of chaos and social conflict. This is invariably the case. Throughout the 60s and 70s the counterculture milieu idealized the lowly and the mediocre through the likes of socialist and anarchist ideas and the Hippie movement. Much of its activity consisted of hate movements against anybody identified with the current hegemony (e.g., second wave feminism against the male sex). It was also characterized by a considerable amount of shallow iconoclasm with the promotion of avant-garde "art" and anti-art. Even a precursory observation of many of the subcultures which emerged out of that era will reveal strong anti-aesthetic tendencies which seek to replace beauty with ugliness.

The counterculture of the 60s and 70s attempted to push destructive neo-Marxist ideals quite openly under various cultural guises but it didn't last. The 80s saw strong conservative backlash against this attempt at subversion and even arguably a complete reversal of the trend, at least within the mainstream of society. The way I see it is that in the 80s there was a revival of appreciation for classical beauty and virtues as well as extravagance and material prosperity. This can be seen in the music of the decade characterized by brilliant harmony and an upbeat soul-moving euphony of sound as well as in the movies full of positive values and moral stories and also in the flamboyant fashion trends. Gone were the days of smelly Hippies with their ugly rags and unkempt hair. People desired wealth and beauty and all of the material luxuries and exuberance that the 80s had to offer. Of course, the 80s had their dark side too with rampant greed and material excess. But all in all the 80s were mostly a good time to be alive with many positive social developments. To me at least they seem like a genuinely free-spirited and revelry-full era too despite the political conservativism. I say "genuinely free-spirited" because I don't believe that the counterculture of previous decades which outwardly preached "freedom" was ever truly free-spirited at all. With those kinds of leftist movements you're only free if you hold the "correct" beliefs (otherwise you're just an enemy to be attacked or silenced).

The subversion would start all over again in the 90s however, and this time it was here to stay. The classical beauty of the 80s was gradually replaced by anti-aesthetic trends, this time more subtly than before and without any identifiable ideological connection. The harmonious sounds of the 80s gave way to the depressing grunge and then the aggressive and psychotic nu metal of the 90s. Electronic music became more frenetic and abrasive. Fashion and subcultures became a lot edgier. Society as a whole became a lot more distrustful and cynical. Entertainment was increasingly laden with profanity and shock content. In the 90s the subversion wasn't outright ideological as it was in the 60s and 70s. Rather it was predominantly cultural and used popular music and television as its primary mediums. It might have even used certain negative sound frequencies too on an occult level. As @gsjackson mentioned, this was the decade when America went to hell in a handbasket. And things would only get progressively worse from that point.

The early 2000s were pretty much an extension of the 90s and the rest of the decade seemed quite uneventful to me at least but the 2010s were a different animal. This was when the social engineers started to crank up all of their nefarious agendas from highly misandric fourth wave (?) feminism, LGBTQ+ alphabet soup-ism on steroids, BLM and other racial conflict groups, and eventually all of the "woke" BS. Now we are at a point where prominent "intellectuals" are unable to define what it means to be a woman, serious debates take place with regard to whether a "woman" can have a penis, infinite gender identities exist and each have their own pronouns, transgender athletes compete in women's sports, and if you are opposed to any of this hordes of vicious perverts demand that your opinions be censored and often get their way. Of course, all of this absurd wokeism with its extreme political correctness is simply a pretext for the totalitarianism into which the elites wish to lead us. Aesthetically, the 2010s and the present decade couldn't be any lower. Feminists and woke weirdos vehemently oppose the display of classical female beauty, which they consider a product of "sexism". The same people also push the idea that morbidly obese women with pink hair and all kinds of piercings are beautiful too or "valid" as they like to say. In the 2020s the neo-Marxist counterculture with its assault on all things noble and classical is out in the open like never before. Now outright dystopia is on the horizon.

I am currently of the view that the "Great Reset" is the end game of the global elite. The reason for which they have been pushing neo-Marxist ideals for more than half a century is because they seek to prepare us culturally for that nefarious agenda and naturally the woke leftist crowd and countercultural types will be its biggest supporters (even though the Great Reset is an agenda of the ultra-rich). This same envisioned neo-communist global dictatorship is also supposed to be in my view the "Messianic Age" of world domination as per (((their))) depraved sadistic religion.

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Lucas88
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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

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gsjackson wrote:
July 3rd, 2022, 6:01 am
But on the bright side, Lucas88, the pleasure of familiarizing yourself with '60s music still awaits you. And by the way, don't know if this is what you're referring to, but disco literally went up in flames, or more accurately into many pieces, in 1979:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night
I actually tried listening to some 60s music last week. I found on YouTube a compilation video of the greatest hits of the 60s and listened to it all. I then did the same for the music of the 70s. While just one or two compilation videos are certainly not enough to fully explore the musical landscape of a whole decade, I just couldn't get into much of the music from the two decades in question. I recognize that the music from that era is generally well made and is certainly of much better quality than anything in the charts today or in the last decade and a half but at the same time for me it just lacks that special something that the music of the 80s possessed in abundance. It's as though only the 80s sound truly resonates with my soul and most other music just seems alien to me. The music of the 80s not only enjoyed greater technological capabilities but was also characterized by a unique harmony and exuberance which would never be repeated. Many of the hits from that decade can literally move me into a trance of pure ecstasy. Of the 60s music I listened to, I definitely preferred the soul music. I listened to some Aretha Franklin and thought that it was good but then I compared that to Aretha's music from the 80s (way beyond her prime according to most people) and I personally thought that her 80s material was actually better even though this is probably a minority opinion. For me the 80s is the pinnacle of popular music and few things resonate with me as much as the magic of that decade.



Oh, and yes, I was referring to the disco scene literally going up in flames! :lol:

I like some of the fun disco music from the late 70s but only in moderation. I sometimes listen to Boney M and especially like the song 'Ma Baker'. :lol:



But I much prefer the Italo-Disco which emerged in Continental Europe in the early 80s. I'm a huge fan of this style of music even though it is not well-known in the Anglosphere.
WilliamSmith wrote:
July 3rd, 2022, 5:23 pm
I was already planning a macho retro action movies thread soon which would feature a lot of 80s clips, but I'll share my thoughts later since I thought about this topic myself, having lived from early 80s, 90s, 2000's, and having an especially strong impression of the 80s and 90s back when I still sort of liked it, heheh.
(I was doing my own thing from then on so much that I never noticed much about trends in mainstream culture, except everything looked more and more rotten and convincing me not to switch on the talmudvision or other.)

Yes, you should definitely make a thread on macho retro action movies from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. I frequently watch those kinds of movies with my Mexican girl, often dubbed into Spanish although I like the originals too. I've watched Kickboxer and Trouble in Little Tokyo with her. Last week we watched The Last Dragon and both absolutely loved the 80s music and fashions. This week we're gonna watch Iron Eagle, just like our Karate hero Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai!
WilliamSmith wrote:
July 3rd, 2022, 5:23 pm
Swinging way over to the light-hearted side re: the 1980s:
Hey @Lucas88 I know what I'm doing next time I can get some free time away from those pesky females always ripping my clothes off and demanding every last drop of my male vitality, LOL: I'm going to parse up my VHS rip of Dolph Lundgren's "Maximum Potential" and I'll come back and post it in the "Home workouts for men" thread here later. :lol:
Image

Hey, you have the video in Portuguese. You must have read my post where I expressed my love for Brazil and its hot ladies!

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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

Post by Lucas88 »

gsjackson wrote:
July 3rd, 2022, 6:01 am
For thumbnail sketches I think you've got them all sized up pretty accurately. I wouldn't quibble with anything, though it's been hard to look back on anything positive about the early 2000s once understanding that 9/11 was another Jewish hoax and false flag.
When 9/11 happened I was just a kid. While the event was clearly tragic, I was unable to fully understand the enormity of its repercussions throughout the world. I still naïvely thought that the world was mostly a good place with only the occasional act of evil.

For me the early 2000s was the last period which seemed more or less normal -- normal in the context of my own lifetime as a millennial. I remember that it was a time when society wasn't suffocated by all of the political correctness and censorship that we see today, you could say mostly whatever you wanted, movies and entertainment were still quite good, and people for the most part didn't seem as paranoid and antisocial as they are now. It's my last memory of an okayish world. @WanderingProtagonist mentioned something similar in another thread. He also grew up in that time like myself. What's your take on this, WP?

As far as entertainment goes, I remember that movies in the early 2000s were still good and enjoyable, had originality and weren't spoiled with "woke" themes. There were plenty of baddass movies with interesting themes and good cinematics such as Kill Bill, Battle Royale, Gladiator, Training Day and many others. Much of the comedy was also hilarious. Some of the music was still okay too. I particularly liked the R&B of that time with sexy Black female artists and smooth vocals before the genre was taken over by rap. Wrestling was still pretty good too back then with larger-than-life characters, hot chicks and believable mature storylines. Nowadays wrestling just plain sucks with its vanilla midget flip monkeys, boring PG storylines and the feminist agenda (they even have a female wrestler who calls herself "The Man" :roll: ).

Then I remember that society and entertainment took a sudden turn for the worse in the mid to late 2000s. The world just began to look very alien to me. I spent much of the early to mid 2010s in Japan, Spain and Latin America and disconnected from Anglophone media completely but when I came back everything had completely gone to hell!

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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

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Lucas88 wrote:
July 15th, 2022, 7:36 am
gsjackson wrote:
July 3rd, 2022, 6:01 am
For thumbnail sketches I think you've got them all sized up pretty accurately. I wouldn't quibble with anything, though it's been hard to look back on anything positive about the early 2000s once understanding that 9/11 was another Jewish hoax and false flag.
When 9/11 happened I was just a kid. While the event was clearly tragic, I was unable to fully understand the enormity of its repercussions throughout the world. I still naïvely thought that the world was mostly a good place with only the occasional act of evil.

For me the early 2000s was the last period which seemed more or less normal -- normal in the context of my own lifetime as a millennial. I remember that it was a time when society wasn't suffocated by all of the political correctness and censorship that we see today, you could say mostly whatever you wanted, movies and entertainment were still quite good, and people for the most part didn't seem as paranoid and antisocial as they are now. It's my last memory of an okayish world. @WanderingProtagonist mentioned something similar in another thread. He also grew up in that time like myself. What's your take on this, WP?

As far as entertainment goes, I remember that movies in the early 2000s were still good and enjoyable, had originality and weren't spoiled with "woke" themes. There were plenty of baddass movies with interesting themes and good cinematics such as Kill Bill, Battle Royale, Gladiator, Training Day and many others. Much of the comedy was also hilarious. Some of the music was still okay too. I particularly liked the R&B of that time with sexy Black female artists and smooth vocals before the genre was taken over by rap. Wrestling was still pretty good too back then with larger-than-life characters, hot chicks and believable mature storylines. Nowadays wrestling just plain sucks with its vanilla midget flip monkeys, boring PG storylines and the feminist agenda (they even have a female wrestler who calls herself "The Man" :roll: ).

Then I remember that society and entertainment took a sudden turn for the worse in the mid to late 2000s. The world just began to look very alien to me. I spent much of the early to mid 2010s in Japan, Spain and Latin America and disconnected from Anglophone media completely but when I came back everything had completely gone to hell!
Strongly agree with everything you said except the Kill Bill part lol that movie made a white woman look like she was highly skilled at kicking the asses of Japanese people in sword fights which was when movies involving women were getting more and more worse whenever they got a leading role. I'm sure they will remake that movie since Hollywood tend to go after any movie from way back in the day most people remember. Just like they want to remake White Men Can't jump and while it wasn't a huge hit, it was still a movie a lot of people remember same thing with The Last Dragon. They want to remake all this stuff, and even said they were rebooting Blade...Soon as I saw the new guy they got to replace Snipes I laughed my ass off and said "If Snipes isn't doing it, rebooting it is BS. He is Blade." Although I never really liked the movie, I've seen the first one more than all the others since Blade 2 and Trinity were awful and boring.

But you are however correct about all the other things you brought up about the early 2000s, Western society has gone to f***ing hell now and it makes me wonder if those who are aware of it (including the leftist that caused all of it with the weak conservatives that also had a hand in supporting the downfall). I kept wondering if people were so fed up that they were ever going to try to go back to how things use to be. Society has gotten so damn depressing and painfully boring these days. These days I think a lot more about death than I do about living. I can even remember back when lol interracial porn was tolerable hahaha back then they weren't using it as a weapon to dehumanize non-black men as they do now. You didn't have all these weird-ass negro male-obsessed cuckolds and gay ass sissies, or white women getting Queen of spade shit tatted on their bodies to show just how much of a self-hating white whore negro fetishist that they are, and now white transgenders are starting to do it... Which makes it even more disgusting and appalling.

I strongly believe that things got the way they did now because the people that did this to me, did it to you and to everyone that was able to enjoy Western life for what it was back in those days, hated the fact that people had some form of comfort, people were too content with how things were. Leftist were the first to believe they had to make changes after Obama encouraged them. It's like today's stuff turned woke just to piss and intentionally irritate people.
I was on youtube the other day and saw some people defending that shitstorm Ms. Marvel movie and attacking the Anti-Social Justice crowd. It's clear that the woke crowd will support woke shit even if it flops. Comic books like Marvel and DC weren't gaying up characters, and my favorite cereal brand Kelloggs didn't have rainbow cereal to show they supported pride stuff.

We're at the point where people decided they wanted to live miserably but couldn't go at it alone. They wanted everything that use to be fun and exciting to be reduced to ashes. The thought entering their minds was if I'm not happy nobody else deserve to be happy either so I must work to undermine everything that gives them any peace or joy. That means claiming how offended I am, and then changing laws so that people are banned from offending me in any sort of way.

These people wanted everyone else to feel the same way as they did. This is why we have safe spaces now because people figured if they could control the mood, attitude, and what made other people feel good they could change all that and replace it with something that makes everyone feel sick on the inside like themselves. Back in the early 2000s everything was less political, less PC, and even though censorship still existed it got worse.

Homosexual people use to just keep their mouths shut and they left everyone else the hell alone, but then it got to the point where they couldn't stand that people were able to tell homosexual jokes that were offensive and got away with doing it. The same thing happened with transgender people that turned into SJWs that complained someone was being offensive. Then these same SJW thought they knew what was best for blacks and figured they had to attack racist jokes and remarks also. This is when Comedians had to change the way they told jokes, and then you had sellouts like Eddie Murphy f***ing apologizing like a loser about offending people yeaaaaars ago when he use to do hardcore standup. I never liked Murphy but seeing him apologize for offensive work he did in the past was the beginning of the end with these comedians.

That crappy movie Boat Trip starring Cuba Gooding Jr gays were upset over that film because they felt it was mocking them. Back when I was going to school there was no critical race theory stuff, no one pushing transgenderism on anyone, things were a lot more pleasant and people were left the hell alone. Then the leftist crowd for some reason started obtaining a lot of power under Obama to abuse and bully others into submission if they didn't agree with their views to transform America. After he came and started claiming he was going to change the country. The guy got in and took a fat dung on the entire nation and leftists wanted some more of his foul turds so they got him elected TWICE. Despite all that, Biden did far more damage but people claim that Obama is even behind that.

As for wrestling, they have a narcissistic guy on there now called Austin Theory, he literately takes selfies of himself every time he wins a match or beats someone he takes selfies. The other night he won that money in the bank and was doing duck face poses and shit...Guy is literately everything wrong with Western culture despite he's playing a character but it wouldn't surprise me if he really is a gay ass lame self-absorbed narcissistic ahole douche that take selfies of himself constantly. You can clearly see how bad culture has deteriorated over the years in this country...It's really bad and nobody is even remotely trying to make things better again. Trump came along and made all these BS claims about making America great again and nothing changed even when he got elected. Television was and is still garbage littered with propaganda ignorance, movies are woke trash, life continued to remain impossible and expensive for many. And if anyone has been to California it's literately a third world state at this point. Leftist or leftist thinking people continue to downplay and deny it because "we have the highest GOP" which is the only lousy as hell argument they have. They mention GOP while ignoring that the entire state is literately homeless or in jail.

But like you said, the early 2000s were great. I loved it just as much as the 90s when 1999 came and it was about to be 2000 I was depressed, my aunt had thrown a late night party and invited all her friends over, there was music, food, drinking, her best friend had got extremely drunk and started screaming and acting a fool and my uncle tried calming her down. I remember sitting in my cousin's bedroom staring out the window sad about the 90s ending. I didn't want it to, I was dreadful and also worried about growing up too. When I made it to jr high I had a hard time, I think back to a lot of what happened in the 2000s before things got to how they are now... And a big part of me feels like dying on the inside. I miss the preview channels, I miss all the great teen classics (which I still watch), and the other day just for the hell of it I listened to that Legends Of The Hidden Temple theme song and I was reminded instantly of my childhood years. Sometimes I think back on the past and I get teary in the eyes man...Seriously. I can't even remember the last time I was happy about anything in life because the current situation we're facing now is just so damn hard, and tough...We want to go elsewhere in the world and maybe start over..... But sometimes even that's not always possible... Most of us will probably get old and die in our current situation.

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Re: The Cultural Zeitgeist of the Various Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries in the US

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I spent parts of the mid to late 1990s in Asia and spent much of the early 2000s in Indonesia. I was in Jakarta when I saw the twin towers incident on TV. It was night out when this happened for me. I was at a church business meeting and a young Canadian woman, a friend of mine, came into the room crying and told us what was happening. She had a TV on in the other room and it showed one of the towers smoking before it fell.

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