Let me begin by confirming that you and I are in general agreement re. the overall sorry state of Western civ.
But let me also point out that your posting is largely just descriptive.
You are simply describing the (static) present situation - not providing analysis, not attempting to trace phenomena back to their socio-economic and sexual roots, etc.
That's fine - but we're trying to identify and understand the dynamics and root causes here.
Now, for a single nit-picks from me:
The state of our culture [...] is far worse than 20% of the people being uncultured and uneducated.
I have no idea where this statement and this figure came from. When discussing, e.g., non-assortative mating, modern dating dynamics, and the like, reference is frequently made to the Pareto distribution (also known as the "80:20 Rule"). But the current level of unculturedness and uneducatedness (whatever it is) has nothing to do with that.
So maybe you just pulled that figure out of your hat and/or are using it as a "placeholder."
In reality, a basic, fourth-grade level of culture (fundamental Western values, discipline and responsibility, esp. re. mate-selection and monogamy) and education (the 4R's) were sufficient for most of U.S. history. Ignorant sharecroppers got along just fine with their rudimentary book-learning and Christian values - a "short list" that would have fit on the back of an envelope.
For the most part, modern Americans do not lack "culture" or "education." Rather, their culture and education have been corrupted and/or supplanted by 3rd-Wave Feminism, notions about progressivism (disguised socialism), DEI, White self-loathing, etc.
(I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that by "uneducated and uncultured," that's what you actually meant, so don't think that I'm trying to attack you here - rather, I just want clarity.)
For some reason, when previewing my post to check for typos, etc., the text stretches horizontally across the entire screen and beyond, necessitating my scrolling to the right to view everything. This is quite inconvenient! Apparently, the Free Republic software is acting strangely this morning. Thus, I am sorry if my text contains any garbled words.
Regards,
Even monkeys have a culture.
Not all cultures are equal.
Ethnocentric, yes.
However, at a macro level when averages start to play a role, culture becomes the PRIMARY reason why a society thrives or fails.
You can have a country that is resource poor, densely populated, loses a war and is bombed into rubble, even nuked, and like a Phoenix they will rise from the ashes because of their culture, i.e. Japan.
Societies that thrive do have certain commonalities:
—Aversion to corruption
—Time sensitivity
—Willingness to use force
—Homogeneous (common value system)
—Willingness to incorporate new technologies
—Concept of personal culpability, consequences for actions.
It does not matter what religion, race, continent, nation, time we are talking about, societies that thrive long term have these in common. And societies that lose these attributes like in ancient Rome, no matter how powerful they were, begin a journey into oblivion.
When you look at a country like El Salvador today, which has made a come back that is unimaginable from the nightmare they were in years ago, that is because their government under Bukele has essentially incorporated the idea of use of force, fighting corruption and creating accountability, in a society where this was lacking. The danger is if this isn’t accepted societally and only from him, then when the strong arm leaves, this country will backslide into the misery they had before.
The point is that culture makes wealth. Wealth does not create culture.
Take 1.2 million idiots from Syria and send them to Germany, and they are still just idiots (a few will change, but most will not).
In the West today, you have a culture that is at best promoting stagnation or a slow decline while a few others like China (PRC) are growth oriented.