Turn Down for What?

971827692On the way to the airport the other day, my Uber driver, an elderly Russian chap, turned on a Top 40 radio station. Not being one to complain, I actually sat and listened to the lyrics. The song blasting through the speakers of the late-model Honda Civic was titled “Habits.” The singer, a young, presumably wealthy Swede named Tove Lo (actual name: Tove Nilsson), warbles about her need to visit sex clubs, do drugs, “binge on all my Twinkies, throw up in the tub.” She laments that she “drank up all my money.”

Why? Well, she explains, “You’re gone and I gotta stay high all the time.”

The next song featured a rapper named Lil Jon screaming loudly at the listener that it is “Fire up that loud, another round of shots. … TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!” Translation: We’re drunk and crazed, and we won’t stop being drunk and crazed. The music video, as described by creator Daniel Kwan explores, “this other universe where dudes are so pumped up on their own d***s — and they’re so into their testosterone — that the way that the show that is by breaking s*** with their d***s.” The video, which shows a young man crashing through ceilings and into furniture as his erect penis swivels wildly in his pants, currently has nearly 130 million views on YouTube.

No wonder Tove Lo needs to stay high all the time.

The end of Western civilization, it turns out, comes with both a bang and a whimper. The bang: endless sex, animalistic, primal, without strings. As Adam Levine whines, “Baby, I’m preying on you tonight, hunt you down, eat you alive, just like animals, animals, like animals.” In 1971, according to the National Survey of Young Women, 30.4 percent of young women aged 15-19 living in metropolitan areas reported having premarital sex. By 1979, that number was 49.8 percent. Today, 62 percent of young women overall have had premarital sex according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In 1950, men’s median age of first marriage stood at 22.8; today, it stands at 28.2. More people having sex younger, and without commitment is not a recipe for societal happiness.

Thus the whimper. In a culture in which emotional connections are degraded to the level of bovine rutting, is it any wonder that 9.2 percent of Americans — some 23.9 million people — have used an illicit drug in the past month, and that nearly a quarter of those aged 18-20 have done so? Or that nearly a third of men over the age of 12 and 16 percent of women have participated in binge drinking in the last month?

From what are these people running? Drugs and alcohol are an escape — but we are the most prosperous society on the planet. We are wealthier and healthier than any nation in history. So why the angst?

That question sticks in the craw of the materialists of the secular left, who insist that endless supplies of Soma and government-sponsored sex, complete with Malthusian belt — to borrow terms from Huxley — should bring happiness. Obviously, it doesn’t. America’s suicide rate recently hit a 25-year high. Suicide has surged among the middle-aged, those aged 35-64, jumping 30 percent from 1999 to 2010.

Turn down for what? For survival. Or we could just keep going to sex clubs, throwing up in the bathtub and drinking up all our money. After all, isn’t that what freedom from consequences — our God-given pursuit of happiness, according to the left — is all about?

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  • tagalog

    “Just like animals.” Thank you theory of evolution, Darwinism, abandonment of philosophical goal of seeking virtue, logical positivism, conflation of liberty with license, self-esteem movement, and a host of other trends that are working to doom our civilization.

    I hate to say it, but I can understand why the Muslims hate the West.

    • Horace Yo

      Don’t forget that in Islam pederasty,rape both male and female, murder-beheadings, torture,sexual mutilations, etc, bestiality and sodomy in many forms are rampant and accepted as an honorable part of jihad-one of the pillars of Islam in emulation of Mohammed the perfect man. They aren’t exactly moral examples for anyone, and don’t need any excuse to hate the West other than we aren’t Muslim.

      • DowntotheBone

        Exactly.

    • DowntotheBone

      Whoa!
      Cannot agree with that last sentence.
      That’s very similar to the inaccurate, incorrect statement/conclusion that Dinesh D’Souza came out with several years ago.

      Muslims attack others, including the “West”, because they are not muslims, period.
      If one knows that, THEN one understands why muslims hate the West.

      • tagalog

        You lost me with that middle sentence. Oh wait, I got it. Never mind.

      • tagalog

        At least I’m in good company.

    • Virgil Hilts

      I had to laugh when you referenced ‘Logical Positivism’. WAY BACK when I was in a philosophy class in college, my pal and instructor in an ethics class…Morris…related his experience with the Chairman of the Department, who was explaining Whitehead’s ‘Logical Positivism’ as an airplane which cruises along the ground, then becomes airborne.. Morris was choking with laughter and disgust, at the same time, and asked the chairmen of the Department to please let us know when Whitehead’s airplane ever came back down to earth!

      • GRAMPA

        These micro minds will whine and plea for help when their loveones who are female are violated and forced to ware the burca and even suffer female castration to comply with the sharia laws. They will learn too late that this corrupt infection will reach every aspect of their pitiful lives. I grow weary of trying to let people see what their benevolence given the muslim will bring the ruin of our nation.
        Grampa

        • Virgil Hilts

          Yes sir…President Ebola and his ilk are bog winners, aren’t they? Kind of like ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.’

          • GRAMPA

            They dont miss their feet!!
            Grampa

          • Virgil Hilts

            No they don’t! Their preferred weapon, in this case. seems to be their mouths!

  • cacslewisfan

    As a Christian, I have a theological perspective on this problem. Here goes: the heart of humankind is desperately wicked, and unless it undergoes an intrinsic change, human behavior will always manifest this wickedness in some way. Any law or moral code or set of religious rules runs contrary to our inmost wicked self. When the youth of the 60′s declared independence from God they felt free because the constraints of morality actually were stifling their inmost desires. They gave free reign to hedonism, and the lack of cognitive dissonance felt good. The problem is, lawlessness yields fleeting sensual pleasure, but lasting psychological anguish and eventually physical pain in some form. Ever increasing self destructive acts of sensuality and narcissism is the logical outcome when the only value metric is ego flattery and the rush of neurotransmitters. The Flower Children were able to spend moral capital that had been accumulated for many years in Judeo-Christian America, but now the account is overdrawn. We find that the vast majority of humanity yearns for transcendence, meaning, and can’t stop making the same bad decisions. The Bible says mankind’s heart is desperately wicked and we drink sin like water. The only cure for us is the intrinsic change of heart only Jesus can give.

    • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

      “the heart of humankind is desperately wicked”

      So, ALL babies therefore are intrinsically evil…

      You might consider an alternative interpretation of Genesis, rather than blindly accepting St Augustine’s. (the source of your interpretation). Once Adam & Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they knew BOTH and were then capable of both and must manifest BOTH. It’s NOT one or the other, it’s BOTH. Otherwise there would be no basis for Jesus’ message resonating with human beings.

      Just food for thought, do with it what you will.

      • OneManITDept

        Agreed.

      • VAJon

        “the heart of humankind is desperately wicked”

        Why do you knock Augustine? This interpretation was not original with him.

        The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. (Ps. 58:3)

        Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Ps. 51:5)

        We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

        The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

        For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Jesus Christ, Matthew 15:19)

        And the coup de grâce,

        What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

        “None is righteous, no, not one;”
        “no one understands; no one seeks for God.”
        “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
        no one does good, not even one.”
        “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.”
        “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”
        “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

        Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom 3:9-20)

    • laura r

      its not wickedness ifs somones vomiting in their own home.

  • cree

    We’re finding out what the left’s idea of utopia is all about. A part of their delusion about it all is that it they don’t recognize what is dystopia.

  • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

    Some here may find r/K Selection Theory of particular interest in shedding light on why liberals behave as they do. http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/the-theory/rk-selection-theory/

    “Biologists have long noted that species will tend to evolve behaviors which best aid them to effectively exploit their environment.
    r/K selection theory describes two environmental extremes, and the strategies a population will produce to exploit each extreme. As a result of these strategies, each of these two environments will produce a very particular psychology in the individuals exposed to them. The first environment an organism may face is the presence of freely available resources, which is referred to as an r-selective environment. the r-strategy is designed to exploit an environment where resources are freely available, everywhere. Here in the r-strategy, we see the origins of the Liberal’s tendencies
    towards conflict avoidance, from oppositions to free-market capitalism,
    to pacifism, to demands that all citizens disarm so as to avoid any
    chance of conflict and competition. Even the newer tendencies to support
    the ”everyone gets a trophy” movement are outgrowths of this
    competition-averse urge, and desire for free resource availability.
    Similarly, Liberals are supportive of promiscuity, supportive of efforts
    to expose children to ever earlier sexual education, and, as the debate
    over Murphy Brown showed, Liberals are supportive of low-investment,
    single parenting. Finally, as John Jost has shown, Liberals show
    diminished loyalty to in-group, similar to how r-selected organisms do
    not fully understand the reason for even perceiving an in-group in
    nature.”

    The industrial revolution in the West produced for the first time in history an r-type environment for human beings and liberalism arose in direct response to that environment.

    • johninohio1

      In other words, a prosperous society tends toward libertinism.

      Perhaps because, when a society is poor, it becomes manifestly necessary for each individual to contribute their efforts toward producing the necessities of life for the whole group. Thus, their habits and behaviors are expected to conform to that necessity, and not be wasted on self centeredness.
      When a society is prosperous, the individual becomes much less important in supporting the well being of their society. Therefore, self centered habits and behaviors can, and will be, tolerated. This is instinctively understood by many people in that society, leading some to feelings of insignificance, meaninglessness, depression, resulting in self medication or self destruction in all it’s forms.

  • Virgil Hilts

    Bovine rutting! LOL!!! Wish I’d written that!

  • laura r

    being a libertarian i say bring it on. let people do what they do, its their business. im not responsible or the consequences. i thought the radio was censored, but explicit lyrics can be sold in a cd.

    • http://sunderedsheres.com Renaissance Nerd

      Being libertarian is so freeing that one needn’t pay pay attention to capitalization, grammar or punctuation!

      • laura r

        hiring low to middle skilled office workers for spell check ect. i do the thinking you do the typing. you also can remain scared of colored folk in fuerguson. im not.

  • http://www.architecthomedesign.org/ Kikaro Yusuph

    Thanks, this is a great song, people of different age can enjoy it, its like a wonderful home design in which every body can enjoy it.