So today I found the following article on Yahoo! Given its content, I begin to wonder if our society has reached an all-time low intellectually. Personally I would rate an article about whether someone is wearing underwear well below fart jokes and any other childish things you can think of. Thoughts? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/30/kim-kardashian-little-black-dress_n_4364942.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Oddly, I find that the part that annoys me the most is the misuse of the phrase "begs the question". The author of the article, or at least the author of the headline, clearly doesn't have the faintest idea what that phrase means.
I don't think society has reached an all-time low. People have always been fascinated with the lives of the rich, the famous, the powerful, whatever. So stuff like this sells, and magazines take advantage of that. I think we tend to be a bit romantic about the past in this regard. Ancient Greece certainly wasn't full of Aristotles and Platos. There were morons back then as well.
No underwear? Hardly shocking after a decade of crotch shots of female celebs getting out of automobiles in related attire. Now Miley Cyrus flashing her underwear with a drawn on penis, that's different. You have to go to Google images to see the unblurred image. I fail to see why it was censored in the video, it was just a cartoon drawing.
Well I will say yes and no. Our society has seen an apparent decadence in intellectual integrity, but it's not inherently because of this article or things like it. It's been a gradual process that is being revealed through more and more media. However, there is also a lot of brilliance coming out. So I will say that we are morons when it comes to satiating our appetite for "entertainment" and "news" and "entertainment news," but just in new ways, not necessarily to a new degree. I get it I somewhat contradicted myself there. :/
@GingerCoffee , Miley is just on a whole new level of Stupid though. She is trippin' out like who knows what ... smdh...
Not even almost. In many ways the entire body of humanity is smarter than its ever been. How many previous times in history did the majority of the world population know the correct geography of the entire planet? How to do algebra? How to read, even?
"Back in the day" society was represented by the elite. Today, thanks to Youtube, Facebook, television etc, it's represented by the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo.
I was having a conversation with my father in-law about his 33 year-old daughter, my sister-in-law, it went something like this... Me - "You know XXXXX doesn't even know what a GMO is - she thought it was a car manufacturer!" Father-in-law "Ask her what Kim Kardashian has for breakfast."
Do we know now? Check out the Peters Projection World Map here http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/07/01/the-true-size-of-africa-have-our-maps-been-misleading-for-over-500-years/
Cool video. Not a fan of that show, but I have a peters projection map hanging on my wall! Nice to see it being appreciated.
No, I don't think it has. There might be Kardashians, but look at us! I had a good laugh at Miley twerking, but she's only one person.
This is certainly true, though in the more cultured cities like Thebes and Athens in particular you made your name in the Symposiums of the city. Basically they were exactly how Plato described them. Places where you would get drunk and argue about stuff, but there were rules to it. The Ancient Greeks didn't like it if you drank too much and became too drunk (especally if the holder of the Symposium choice to serve a weak wine!) and you had to know how to sit and know how to drink your wine correctly, in large bowl-cups that I can assure you it's hard to master drinking from properly, that is from experience. The Greeks were all about perfection, and being the best at everything, and making a name for yourself back then was very much like making a name for yourself now. And they seemed to enjoy making a fool of people who lost 'presence', like the Lindsey Lohans of the world.
We're a society of contrasts, have always been I guess. We're exploring Mars and fapping to Miley at the same time. Humans... *snort* Kanye looks weird. You know how in tv-shows and movies the character takes a picture, then takes a look at it, and finds out somebody was just standing behind them all blank-faced even though he wasn't there when you took the pic and you sure as hell didn't see him in the mirror! And hey, ain't nothing wrong in airing the goodies. Clearly Kim is setting a good example and the article was released so as to spread the word of the perks of going commando. Thanks, Kim!
I didn't know the article was about celebrity hyperbola or I'd declined to waste my time. As for the decline in society, I'd be wanting society defined. As humanity? Yes. Instead of rising above war and poverty, we re sinking to lower depths of obsession with perpetuating it. Look at the nature of these web forums. For every 10 posting members that are benign or encouraging, there are 4 who are simply out to cause trouble. Bad publicity is still publicity. Bad reviews, though, might kill a lowly writer's career if not an unstable writer himself. ?
I'll give up on society when people stop complaining about society. As long as there's complaining, there's still something invested in it. Frankly, I think rose-tinted glasses and misplaced nostalgia go a long way towards making our world look worse than it really is. Celebrity culture isn't a modern phenomenon: from gladiators to ollamhs to silent movie stars, we see it throughout history (it's even present in chimps), and the proportions of those swept up in it to those subtly mocking it haven't really changed. It's just that we all have an opinion on it now whereas before most people who choose whether or not they were involved.
I believe human behavior has not grown more stupid over the centuries. Most of humanity has not been intellectual people solving problems and promoting peace throughout our history, those are just the few we remember. Now that media is so democratized and easily accessible, we can't help be see the majority's views thrown out on the internet. I'm not overtly downing these as worthless opinion, it's just most people (for some reason) tend to seek out gossip and news which makes people feel better about themselves. It's not fun to discus contrasting views and think the difficult thoughts of life, but watching other people be dumber than you is never completely boring. As for society, we're at the pinnacle of humanity thus far. I'm communicating to people I've never met instantly through invisible energy waves which transmit electrical impulses through underground wires off to giant rooms of computers which interpret and re-rout the signals to other giant rooms of computers, and so on until the message is visible to anyone else with the properly-configured pieces of plastic, metal, and maybe glass. I'm doing all this sitting comfortably in a automatically-climate-controlled room where I never fear intrusion, robbery, or assault even though I've never met any of my neighbors. I wear clothes made on the other side of the world that cost me less money than I make in a day's work. Sanitation in my area eliminates all fear of water-born disease. You see how far I could go on. Is all of humanity at this level of prosperity? Of course not. But some of us are, and we (and those who are even better off) are an example of how far humanity has come from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Cusco, the Yuan Dynasty, etc. The trick is getting more of us up to 1st-world prosperity without desecrating our world in the process.
I find it sad to know there are so many pockets of low intellectual aptitude. It's sadder yet to find the ones who can't fathom what some minority, free thinking person in uniqueness has to say, classifying that person as the dumb one. It's sadder yet when the one who fails to comprehend resorts to malicious attacks on the person he targets as dumber. In that, too many sad experiences can become tedious.
One of the most misused phrases of all time. Along with the statement that something is 'ironic' when it isn't.
I don't think she's stupid at all. She showed a pretty savvy manipulation of media leading up to her album, keeping herself in the headlines for weeks before it release. I'm never going to like her music, but I haven't seen anything to suggest she's a mess along the lines of Lindsay Lohan or Brittany Spears (back when she fell apart). On the contrary, Miley seems to know exactly what she's doing and is laughing all the way to the bank. I guess we'll see if that changes or if she skids. I guess I'll hear about it from my daughter, who likes the new album despite making relentless fun of Cyrus before it was released.
Like any form of advertising, if it didn't work , the product wouldn't sell. A lot of research is done in the field of what sells, and, how to sell it. Me, being a normal everyday male, is genuinely curious if Kim what's-her-name, I could never properly pronounce it, and who cares anyway because I never look at her face, just her ass, is wearing ginch or not. Or at least, that is what I am lead to believe I care about. While my female counterpart, lets call her Katy Kubicle, is also very curious, because she has to know whether or not to follow suit and show up at the next office bash without those unsightly panty lines, joking away, that if its okay for Kim-Awesome-Ass to do so, it's okay for her too. Except of course, Katy Kubicle, doesn't have exactly the same proportions nor the media hype to properly pull it off, going home a little too drunk, after realizing the humiliation she had beset upon herself. Making the usual morning morose all the more intense, when upon, signing onto FB and seeing herself, slightly bleary eyed, drink in one hand and office underling in the other, the cruel flash being just a little too directional, highlighting anatomy that should otherwise be donning the hygienic undergarments that are expected of a polite society. Myself, actually having learned something in my 20s, prefers to sit back and watch.
