All the great man are dead. I don't feel so well myself..

The age of collectivism was formed by individuals: Lenin, Hitler, Einstein, Freud. The age of individualism is dominated by mediocrities. An age that worships celebrities has so very very few men of substance.The Western world seems to have been in decline since 1945 as far as literature and the arts are concerned. Have any great books been written in English since 1945? I mean ones comparable with the 30 best 19th century books? Declined even more as insofar as self-belief is concerned, It has produced no new ideas and very few great men. Yet people are richer and in many important practical ways freer (though in many ways less free) than ever before. Are they happier than in 1945? It has been the triumph of the bourgeoisie, especially the new class, the public sector bourgeoisie, whose values and interests dominate, and of technology. The amazing post 1950 economic miracle had nothing to do with new ideas, just old fashioned boring, vulgar, petit bourgeois, private sector ones.

I suspect Western civilisation is in a decline yet economically materially and technologically it flourishes. Gibbon starts the Decline and Fall with Marcus Aurelius - will a future Indonesian or Malay historian begin Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation at 1989?