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Why do we have a generation of whim worshipers?

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Sure there are many people who develop long-term goals, But it seems that there is huge popularity in "living for the moment". Most popular mainstream songs in the last few years are usually about deliberately not planning ahead (Getting drunk, partying all night, spending all your money at a club, making random sexual hook-ups with people).

 

I discussing this with my liberal friends, they point to consumerism and technology for making people so shortsighted (Those damn computers and commercials spoil people. You can get anything you want with the click of a button!). But this does not really convince me.

 

Is whim-worship related to altruism?

 

The best source I could think of was collectivism. People grow up looking at themselves as part of a group and not an individual. They are a nationality, or race, or other demographic. And when you're just a number in a crowd, what does is matter what you do? So why not just live in the moment and worship pleasure?

 

Any thoughts?

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What have you done by way of historical comparison?  Scotch and Soda, Marihuana and Cast Your Fate to the Wind were all pop songs in the (putatively) good old days.  The third is a longtime favorite of mine.  I suspect that if you could find hard data you'd find that things haven't changed much in at least a century.

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What have you done by way of historical comparison?  Scotch and Soda, Marihuana and Cast Your Fate to the Wind were all pop songs in the (putatively) good old days.  The third is a longtime favorite of mine.  I suspect that if you could find hard data you'd find that things haven't changed much in at least a century.

I thought about that while claiming that this is a modern trend. I'm certainly aware that it's not a brand new concept, After all Ms. Rand defined it over 50 years ago. But I still contend that it is more pervasive than in the past. But that's really just a feeling.

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I also think it's a rapidly proliferating problem.

 

I think it's actually a reaction against altruism, though.  Altruism is THE dominant moral philosophy; a child growing up anywhere in the world today would be hard-pressed to find any alternative, at all.

And altruism is antithetical to joy or pleasure; it's all about pain.  Note which of your friends blamed capitalism.

 

And note that it almost invariably goes hand-in-hand with some reference to mortality; "live for the moment, THIS moment- there isn't any other".

 

Philosophy, specifically morality, is the framework that provides some context by which man can choose and plan his long-range goals.  But what if the only morality you know demands that you choose nothing selfishly, do nothing antisocial and be willing to part with anything you earn?

 

My pet theory is that this specific phenomenon you've mentioned is sort of a desperate cry for life, REAL life, in a world of death-worship.  I think it's the result of an implicit rejection of all philosophy, as such, which is caused by an implicit rejection of altruism (to someone who thinks that altruism=all morality).

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Here's how Rand describes whim worship, in Atlas Shrugged:

What is the nature of that superior world to which they sacrifice the world that exists? The mystics of spirit curse matter, the mystics of muscle curse profit. The first wish men to profit by renouncing the earth, the second wish men to inherit the earth by renouncing all profit. Their non-material, non-profit worlds are realms where rivers run with milk and coffee, where wine spurts from rocks at their command, where pastry drops on them from clouds at the price of opening their mouth. On this material, profit-chasing earth, an enormous investment of virtue—of intelligence, integrity, energy, skill—is required to construct a railroad to carry them the distance of one mile; in their non-material, nonprofit world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish. If an honest person asks them: “How?”—they answer with righteous scorn that a “how” is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is “Somehow.” On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions, rewards are achieved by wishing.

And that is the whole of their shabby secret. The secret of all their esoteric philosophies, of all their dialectics and super-senses, of their evasive eyes and snarling words, the secret for which they destroy civilization, language, industries and lives, the secret for which they pierce their own eyes and eardrums, grind out their senses, blank out their minds, the purpose for which they dissolve the absolutes of reason, logic, matter, existence, reality—is to erect upon that plastic fog a single holy absolute: their Wish.

Yes, people like this exist. Just look at the Occupy Wall Street movement, or the people screaming for George Zimmerman's head on a spike.

But I wouldn't go as far as to label either short attention span or pop songs about partying and sex "whim worship".

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But I wouldn't go as far as to label either short attention span or pop songs about partying and sex "whim worship".

 It would be wrong to put them in the same category with the aforementioned mystics, but I would consider it another form of whim-worship.  If it's taken far enough to qualify as 'worship'; if it becomes a lifestyle.

Both the people you mentioned and the ones alluded to in the OP are bound to range-of-the-moment and transitory little desires, but not all desires are equal.

One of these groups wants to escape causality; I think the other (who make a career out of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll) wants to escape the first, but cannot identify exactly what that means.

 

Honestly; just think about that slogan: sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.  What is the commonality between all three?

All three are values with very specific and very SELFISH purpose, but all three consist of immediate, instant gratification.  It's whim-worship but not of the type described in your quote.

 

I think this is what Leonid was attempting to unravel when he started "infantile egoism".

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=25543

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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But I wouldn't go as far as to label either short attention span or pop songs about partying and sex "whim worship".

 

Hey I like Katy Perry as much as the next guy, and I definitely wasn't attacking "pop music" qua pop music. It has it's place. It just seems that a very specific attitude is popular among my generation. Even hardcore hippies in the 60's had more substantial music. And don't even get me started on YOLO. An expression so devoid of any real meaning I could actually see any dictator using it.

 

 

But I think Harrison filled a gap I was looking for, about this mind-set being sort of a misguided search for guiltless happiness.

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