I've been thinking about this lately, and it's really difficult to articulate it, but i'll give it a go. I've always been a big fan of individuality and freedom, but due to the West's huge emphasis on these two values do you feel as if we are reducing our culture? Because when you think about it now, there are so many different groups and subgroups, music, art, movies, styles, etcc... that We can't really be defined by anything collectively anymore. I guess i like that now we aren't just lumped together, but it seems as if later when we are studied by sociologists or w/e that they aren't going to be able to make generalizations like they used to-so what will they do? For example-popular music like Britney Spears or Kelley Clarkson now is just a joke to most people my age, this wasn't the case in the 50s. Or maybe I've jut been completely oblivious to the diversity of past generations or the media just never covered them. I don't know.. What's going to happen with us? What do you guys think about this? What will our generation be defined by?
Ever hear of postmodernism? It's what you're saying, and it's what we're being defined as. It's definition is basically: "Whatever man, everything's relative..." If anything, though, I guess we'll be defined by the internet and technology, since we're the first generation to be raised entirely in the generational age. I don't believe we have a genuine culture anymore. All we have is capitalism, and for the most part we don't create that, we just accept what advertising companies give to us as "culture." The reason everyone seems to be flailing about shifting from one identity to the other is because, I believe, at our core, everyone wants an identity. Way back when we all belonged to a tribe, we were born with our identity, and that was it. I'm not saying life was great back then, because there were certainly plenty of drawbacks, but at least we knew where we belonged. The balance between individualism and collectivism is a delicate one. I'm not sure any society has gotten it right. -Kate
