Looking around at the world today, I think it’s safe to say that Western civilisation is in free fall. So many things have changed rapidly within the last 6 decades or so (especially the last 10 – 12 years), and not for the better. Though Western civilisation prior to the 1950s/60s was far from perfect, it was in the very least much more stable than it is in more modern times.
The beginnings
The downfall of contemporary Western civilisation appears to have had its beginnings in the 1950s. This was not long after World War 2 had ended in 1945. Youth culture in general and Rock music came into being soon after (in the 1950s). They came about as a counter act to the war that had recently ended. Many of the younger people felt a great need to separate themselves from the repressive reality of their parents, then more than ever before. And, as the children born after the war were teenagers and young adults in the ‘60s, they hadn’t known firsthand the scarcities of the Depression and the war effort.
Instead of going to work to support their family or start their own when they were old enough, the years of post-war prosperity and the expansion of suburbia provided youth and young adults with plenty of leisure time. They started to see politics and religion as reasons for wars and wanted to find alternative ways of looking at things so that conflicts would end.
Hippies and rock ‘n roll
This in turn led to the birth of the Hippie movement. At the same time, both Heavy Metal and Hard Rock were created.
Hippies and rockers wanted to cut ties with the religions of their parents. So, many of them turned to the oriental religions (particularly Buddhism and Hinduism), Satanism and esoterica.
All of these things brought in a great deal of sexual permissiveness, and brought in the beginnings of the acceptance of such things as pornography, homosexuality, and –most unfortunately—much worse which I won’t mention here. They also brought in the acceptance of the use of drugs, which, as we all know, has ruined many a life and family.
Devil worship
We’ve also seen the rise of open displays of what can only be termed devil worship, with even the most innocent of mass entertainment taking on a dark edge, the acceptance among many mainline Christian denominations of things forbidden in Scripture (such as homosexuality), and demands from various groups for acceptance of things such as public schools in the USA allowing “Satan Clubs” to counter Child Evangelism Fellowship’s after school “Good News Clubs”.
Woke
In more recent years, we’ve seen the rise of what is usually termed ‘woke’. This term used to be an adjective derived from the African American Vernacular English meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.
Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a much broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege, and slavery reparations for African Americans.
Nowadays, its meaning has taken on a tone which is largely pejorative, and is mostly used as an insult to describe those who follow an intolerant and moralising ideology which has been tainted by over righteous liberalism.
Surveys and attitudes
Fortunately, there appears to be much backlash against the woke agenda. This is seen in things such as a YouGov survey, where 73% of Britons said they used the term in a disapproving, negative way and only 11% said they used it in an approving way. Similar attitudes can be seen all over the world from the Far East to the Western world.
Needless to say, so much more could be said about this matter. It seems like common sense and dignity are being attacked from all sides. Thankfully, we all know that one day all evil and degeneracy will be dealt with for good when Jesus returns to the earth.
Katelin Staples is from Gladstone, Queensland. By day Katelin is employed as a proofreader. Katelin has a passion for discovering the deep things of God and how they affect the world around us.