Social Change Is Slowing Down (10) Modern Culture Where the Database Is Complete

10. Modern Culture Where the Database Is Complete

In this series of articles, I have been arguing for the "deceleration theory," which states that “social change has been slowing down over the past few decades.” In the first through sixth installments of this series, I discussed the stagnation of economic growth and technological innovation, as well as the deceleration of global population growth.

The seventh article, which summarized the first through sixth installments

Following that, I discussed how "the deceleration of social change is narrowing the gap in sensibilities and values between the old and new generations (the young and the middle-aged/elderly)" (Part 8), and as an example in the cultural sphere, I noted that changes in fashion have slowed down since the 1970s, making it harder for new things to emerge (previous installment, Part 9). This time, I will discuss "deceleration" in several other cultural areas.

As I will explain below, creation in modern culture has become a matter of selection and combination from past accumulations—a database—and it is almost impossible for original "new elements" to be born.

In that sense, it can be said that the database of basic elements of modern culture has reached a state of near completion. And I believe that “modern culture is in a situation where it possesses a massive database but has lost a clear sense of direction.”

＊The thumbnail photo is of the Yoyogi National Gymnasium (1964, designed by Kenzo Tange). Such architecture, which still looks modern and gives a sense of the "future" even today, was created over 60 years ago. Sixty years before 1964 was 1904 (the Meiji era, around the time of the Russo-Japanese War). Compared to the 60 years leading up to that, hasn't the change in the 60 years since this building been slower?

Hollywood movies have become a collection of past films (Film critic Tomohiro Machida)

In the previous installment (Part 9), I discussed the "deceleration" of fashion over the past few decades based on basic knowledge of fashion history and the views of some experts. And as I stated before, I believe that “the difficulty in creating new things is not limited to fashion in the cultural sphere.” Deceleration is also occurring in fields such as art, literature, architecture, and video works. Fashion is a field that has always pursued "newness" as a particularly important value. If it is decelerating, it is no wonder that the same thing is happening in other fields.

For example, movies. In his 2006 book (Asahi Bunko edition in 2024), film critic Tomohiro Machida states the same thing about recent Hollywood movies as Naomi Yokota did about modern fashion in Part 9. He says that

“Hollywood movies have become a collection of past films.”

The idea that modern movies are a "collection of past films" is the same as what I stated in Part 9: that modern fashion is made up of "acts of selection from a database" or "revivals" and "restyling."

The above text by Mr. Machida is from his 2006 book, but as you know, sequels and remakes remain common in Hollywood movies in the 2020s. In Japan today, the remaking of various anime and tokusatsu works that are nostalgic to middle-aged and older otaku belongs to this trend.

And even if they are not sequels or remakes, if someone well-versed in film watches them, they will see that modern Hollywood movies are full of borrowings and citations from past works in various elements. This is something that even a general audience member like me can feel to some extent, but when a critic states it clearly, I think, "I knew it."

Certainly, with the development of CG, as well as recent technologies like drone filming and generative AI, "new" images are being created. However, the frequency and impact of such creation have become more limited than before—it is likely from this perspective that Mr. Machida uses such strong language. Also, generative AI itself has a strong aspect of being a "technology that performs 'collection' from a database."

It is also true that "Hollywood is not the only source of movies." However, it cannot be denied that Hollywood works are important in both quality and quantity within the film industry as a whole, and they typically represent (and in that sense, embody) the state of modern cinema. If Hollywood can no longer create "images never seen before," it is a clear indication of the deceleration of cinema.

And doesn't the deceleration of cinema also influence, or rather bring about, the deceleration of the development of video works in later media such as television and the internet?

Also, Mr. Machida is a critic with a perspective on various cultural genres, not just film, and following the quoted passage above, he also states the following.

The above statement that “so many things have already been created that truly innovative things are no longer being born” is a view that overlaps exactly with the idea that "the low-hanging fruit has already been harvested," which I mentioned when discussing economic development and technological innovation in Part 5 and elsewhere.

Postmodern architecture

Now, among the various fields of culture, I have long had a greater interest in architecture than in the fashion and film I have discussed so far, and I believe this field is also slowing down.Is it not the case that contemporary architecture is also established through a "collection of the past" and "acts of selection from a database," making it difficult for something new to be born?

This trend has been particularly noticeable since the 1980s, when "postmodern architecture" was especially popular—that is, from the time when modernist architecture reached a major "turning point."And there are indeed experts who argue that contemporary architecture is characterized by "selection and combination from a database" (I will introduce and quote them later).

The concept of postmodern architecture began to be advocated by some theorists in the 1970s as an "anti-thesis to modernist architecture, which eliminates ornamentation and pursues rationality and functionality."

Modernist architecture, around the same time as modernist fashion, had its foundations formed in the West in the early 1900s, and by the late 1900s, it had become the global standard for architecture. A typical example is the "glass-walled skyscraper composed of vertical and horizontal straight lines." The mainstream of modernist architecture is made primarily of lines drawn with a ruler and compass.

In contrast, postmodern architecture is characterized by complex decorations and shapes that are not tied to function, and the miscellaneous combination of various past styles (such as Art Deco, Baroque, Gothic, Greco-Roman, and non-Western architecture like Japanese...). In other words,postmodern architecture has a strong aspect of "selection and combination from a database."Therefore, the text by Tomohiro Machida that I quoted earlier used the expression "like postmodern architecture, a collection of past films..."

As for architecture familiar to us, for example, Kenzo Tange's Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (completed in 1990) is considered postmodern. Indeed, the exterior of that building, which is said to be modeled after the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, is not a "simple and functional" image.

Alternatively, one might recall the chaotic architecture of random styles in the future city depicted in the 1982 film "Blade Runner" (set in Los Angeles in 2019). In the book I quoted earlier, Machida also explains this city as something postmodern. He also states, "Since 'Blade Runner,' no image of a future city to replace this one has been born."

In contrast, in terms of equally famous sci-fi films, the spaceships and space stations (especially the interiors) that appear in the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" are generally modernist in design, based on rationality and functionality.

Postmodern-like, hip-hop

Furthermore, it can be said that hip-hop, which can be called the "most contemporary" of the major genres, has a postmodern aspect. I do not intend to delve into music, but I will briefly touch upon this point.

In hip-hop, "sampling," which involves editing and processing existing sound sources from various genres, plays an important role in music production. This is a "method of juxtaposing sources while ignoring their history," which is similar to the postmodern architectural approach of miscellaneous combinations of various past styles.

Toshiyuki Ohwada, a researcher of American literature and popular music, states,«Hip-hop is truly compatible with postmodernism... there is no other genre in such a commercialized field where postmodernism has been so thoroughly implemented»(Machizo Hasegawa and Toshiyuki Ohwada, "Introduction to Hip-Hop for Cultural Types," Artes Publishing, 2011, p. 81. "Juxtaposing while ignoring history" is from Ohwada's other book, "History of American Music," Kodansha Sensho Metier, 2011).

Hip-hop artists surely do not consciously think about "compatibility with postmodernism," but for Ohwada, an intellectual in the humanities, that "compatibility" is obvious.

If music based on such "selection from a database" is "contemporary," it can be said to be one piece of evidence indicating the slowing down of music. However, this is my interpretation; while Ohwada points out the postmodern character of hip-hop in the aforementioned book, he does not specifically state that music is slowing down.

However, sounds that have never been heard before must also be born from sampling. But is that not different from innovation that adds new original elements to a "database"?

In short, what is postmodern?

Ultimately, what is postmodern? For now, it should be understood as "an antithesis to elements and values that we generally consider 'fundamental to modern civilization,' such as rationality, functionality, or systematic order and systems."As I mentioned before, if one were to translate this, it would be "post-modernity."

Furthermore, among those familiar with ideological texts, the explanation that"postmodernism is the negation of 'grand narratives'"is also known.

One of the representative examples of a "grand narrative" is the Marxist view of history, which was particularly influential until the 1960s. This is a historical view that, based on the flow of world history from ancient times, argues that "development from capitalism to socialism and communism is inevitable." Alternatively, a social view more common than Marxism, such as "development and progress through technological innovation and economic growth are wonderful," can also be called a "grand narrative."

"Grand narrative," to summarize in layman's terms, is "a discourse that attempts to explain a wide range of social and historical phenomena collectively based on a certain set of values and concepts."Such "grand narrative" ideas and discourses were widely supported until around 1970, before postmodernism became influential.

However, here, rather than putting the "negation of grand narratives" at the forefront regarding postmodernism, I will proceed with the discussion based on a more introductory understanding aligned with the state of architecture, such as "an anti-thesis to rational and functional modernism." However, at the root of modernism in architecture is a "grand narrative" such as "human progress based on rationality."

At the core of postmodernism is "criticism" and "rebellion" against the value that became the standard, which is modern (modernism). Therefore, in architecture, it did not produce anything clear and systematic that could be called a "postmodern style." Such a "clear specific style" is contrary to the spirit of postmodernism.

Postmodern architecture was particularly strong in the global architectural world in the 1980s. As I mentioned briefly last time (the 9th installment), in fashion as well, some designers launched "postmodernism," which emphasized irrational elements such as decoration, as "something new" during the same era.

In the 80s, postmodern ideas and orientations had influence in various fields of thought and culture. Among them, the humanities such as philosophy and the world of architecture were representative fields where postmodernism became influential.

However, since the 1990s, the trend in cutting-edge architecture has basically returned quite a bit to the modernist simple route. This does not mean simply returning to the previous modernism, but rather something based on various attempts including the postmodernism that existed until then, but I will not delve into that point here. In any case, brandishing postmodernism has become less popular in the current architectural world.

Contemporary architecture that has a sufficient database and is wandering (Architectural Historian Taro Igarashi)

And one of the experts who views contemporary architecture as "being created through selection from a database" is architectural historian Taro Igarashi.

In a book where Igarashi discusses contemporary architecture, there is the following passage. This is based on the words of architect Fumihiko Maki (1928–2024), who can be called a "master of modernism."

«...has a sufficient database of the past, but is wandering and does not know the path it should take»And after this, Igarashi also states that contemporary architecture is in a state of being."Modernism has become a database" overlaps with the "completion of the database" in fashion stated by Hiroshi Ashida (quoted in the 9th installment).

What Igarashi calls "each person operates a vast accumulation to assemble architecture" is exactly what Ashida calls "acts of selection from a database."
However, Igarashi does not go as far as Ashida in saying that "no new elements are born from selection and combination." After the quoted passage above, Igarashi also mentions the possibility of something new being born in regions other than the West, which has led modernist architecture until now, while also quoting Maki's words. However, as a keynote, he views that "contemporary architecture is wandering."
"Wandering" means that there is no development with a clear direction, as seen in the early 1900s when modernism was vibrant. This situation, Fumihiko Maki expresses (if the above quote is organized) as

"Along with the thought and style of modernism, its mission has also disappeared."

And such "wandering" without a visible direction can be considered close to what I call "slowing down" in this essay.

***

Above, I have taken up examples of film, music, and architecture as supplements to fashion, based on explanations and statements by experts in those fields.In this way, there are experts who recognize that "it is becoming difficult for new things to be born" and "fundamental creation has already ended" in multiple fields.

The knowledge about each culture mentioned here is very basic for those who know the field, and it might be said that "I already know that."

However, when you compare various fields simultaneously based on such "obvious" information, a common thread of "deceleration"—a situation where creation and innovation in culture are slowing down—should emerge. I believe there is an overall picture that becomes visible through such "synthesis" and "abstraction," and that this is important.

(Continued in Part 11)
Next time, I will discuss the political realm, which I have not yet addressed, based on the "end of history" theory that argues for the superiority of liberal democracy.