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Maybe DEVO had it right all along. Maybe we really are de-evolving. There certainly seems to be more 'law of the jungle' and 'survival of the fittest' behaviour nowadays.
I've always felt that 'culture' is defined by the level of creativity within a society. Not just in art and music, but in everyday life amongst the 'ordinary' people. I also feel that creativity generally springs from hardship - artists (of all persuasions) tend to do their best work whilst or soon after enduring some form of hardship.
The same with society as a whole - relative affluence and comfort breeds complacency, and once complacency takes over creativity seems to atrophy, society starts to crumble and 'culture' feels like it's in decline.
That's when conflicts or recessions happen, when societies have nothing better to do than to accumulate more possessions, money, or lebensraum.
I would therefore expand on pantophobia's premise that culture 'thrives' on Art and War.
I feel that these two are actually pointers to the cyclical nature of a culture/society. An 'artistic' society is one usually at the beginning of the cycle that ends with war or recesion.
What do we do about it? Fucked if I know.
It's human nature - I suggest we just sit it out and hope we survive.
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