State of Mankind

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Decadent Fashion

On the surface of society today, the various forms of strange attire, behavior, and other common-place elements of popular culture all appear to be part of “freedom of expression” or the current “fashion trend,” but in fact there is more to it. Tracing these phenomena to their source, it becomes clear that negative elements are behind all such things. With the passage of time, however, people simply become accustomed to them and no longer find them strange, leading these negative factors to become an accepted part of daily life. Following are some examples.

Today, society is accustomed to women having short hair, a bob. The style originated from flappers in the West during the 1920s. Influenced by the first wave of the women’s rights movement and the sexual liberation movement (see Chapter 7), flappers wore short dresses, cut their hair short, listened to jazz, wore thick make-up, drank strong wine, and were casual about sex. Wearing their hair short was a way for them to express their disdain for traditional gender roles and pursuit of female “emancipation.”

After the hairstyle became popular, a well-known opera singer said: “Bobbed hair is a state of mind and not merely a new manner of dressing my head. … I consider getting rid of our long hair one of the many little shackles that women have cast aside in their passage to freedom.” During the Great Depression in the 1930s, this hairstyle gradually fell out of favor. However, in the 1960s, when rebellion from traditional norms became trendy again, such short hairstyles for women made a comeback.

Similarly, the long hairstyle of men at the time originated from the beatniks and hippies. Although long hair for men can be traced back to ancient times, in the West, men had short hair ever since World War I. In the 1960s, the counterculture movement promoted long hair for men as a form of rebellion.

In the 1920s and 1960s, mainstream society was highly resistant to young people dressing in an anti-traditional manner. Over time, people have become accustomed to anti-traditional trends, and in the views of progressives, this is due to an increase in social tolerance. In the traditions of the East and the West, however, differences between men and women are not only reflected physically, and in their different roles in society and the family, but ought also to be reflected in their dress, hairstyle, speech, and manners.

Along with disintegrating class distinctions in society, communism also aims to eliminate the sexual distinctions between men and women. Similarly, the homosexual and feminist movements use the slogan of “equality” to blur gender differences in social and family roles. Androgynous fashion trends further blur and reverse the difference in dress. These factors serve to prepare the way for a wider social acceptance of what have traditionally been considered deviant sexual practices and lifestyles, and further contribute to undermining traditional morality.

The morality of the East and West for thousands of years has included at its base the difference between men and women, and the idea that male and female, yin and yang, have their places. Communism would reverse the yin and yang of human beings, with the goal of corrupting morality, engendering self-centeredness, and encouraging the abandonment of traditional norms.

Given this diabolical purpose, one can see that although the various mutations in dress may appear fashionable and popular on the surface, they are actually meant to undermine proper human ways of being.

For instance, the popularity of low-rise pants today, deemed sexy by those striving to be fashionable, are in fact a mild form of corrupting human morality. Their predecessors were the hip-huggers, popularized during the counterculture of the 1960s and prevalent in the discos of the 1970s. From the low-rise pants, then came the indecent “bum pants,” which directly exposed the buttocks.

Another sign of cultural decadence is the groupie phenomenon, popular among young people, and another byproduct of the counterculture. In the 1960s, rock music was popular in the West, and some young girls obsessed with rock stars followed their performances and formed fan groups to provide personal and sexual services, including engaging in group sex with singers. The young women became victims of a fad. Others today admire stars who advocate tearing down the differentiating barriers between the sexes — including male stars who behave effeminately, and vice versa. All this is about undermining popular culture and blurring the distinction between male and female.

There is also the supposedly fashionable punk subculture. Similar to the hippie movement, punk also rebels against tradition and promotes nihilism. Most hippies were rebellious young people from traditional middle-class families, while punk is more typically the rebellion of lower classes against social traditions. Thus, many punk bands also advocate socialism. In order to express their thorough anti-traditionalist attitudes, punks often exhibit bizarre hairstyles, including mohawks, or wear tattered clothes full of spikes and buckles. They dye their hair, get tattoos, pierce their bodies all over, and sometimes expose body parts that the average person is inclined to keep hidden. Punks often make no gender distinctions in their dress. Some women wear men’s clothes, and vice versa. Punks provide the inspiration for many of the current fashion trends of the day.

Punks advocate hedonism, which is why one popular punk slogan is, “Live fast, die young, and leave a pretty corpse.” This fully reflects the tragedy of lost faith in God, and being deceived into an abyss of hedonism and materialism. Individuals and society should be alarmed by this sad nihilism, but they are not.

In addition, there have been all manner of other signs of chaos and meaninglessness in today’s society: the display of ghostly or demonic images on popular clothing or music; the choice of ugly images for tattoos; grotesque children’s toys and ornaments; literature, film, and television works full of demons, ghosts, and supernatural horror—products that are widely consumed by the public. The internet is full of destructive and nihilistic content. For example, soccer fans regularly riot and rebel, wreaking havoc. All these signs of decadence point to negative and dark forces as the dominant influence on society at large.
From Chapter Fourteen: Popular Culture–A Decadent Indulgence


Punk also rebels against tradition and promotes nihilism