cultural pessimism en · NOUN
Etymology
From cultural + pessimism.
Meanings
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(uncountable) An attitude that sees sociocultural changes (in general or in the present situation) as predominantly tending towards a less moral, less constructive, or generally worse state of affairs; particularly, the idea that at some point civilizations and cultures reach a peak after which they must inevitably decline.
One obvious consequence of our cultural pessimism is its paralysing grip on politics, since the first thing a successful politician has to sell is an optimistic vision of a better future.
2001 August 27, Madeleine Bunting, “The end is nigh: pessimism rules”, in The Guardian:But the word Abendland is a strikingly old-fashioned one, meaning literally “evening land” (ie where the sun sets). It was used by Oswald Spengler in his monumental post-first world war tract of German cultural pessimism, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, only weakly translated as The Decline of the West.
2015 January 18, Timothy Garton Ash, “Germany’s anti-Islamic movement Pegida is a vampire we must slay”, in The Guardian:
Translations (1)
de Kulturpessimismus (Translations)