We are living at a late stage of a long process of descent. The Traditional view of history is cyclical. Ages rise and fall according to the degree of spiritual and qualitative force present in them. The present age is characterized by the dominance of quantity, the dissolution of higher forms, and the almost complete absence of a recognized center. In the language of certain Eastern traditions this final phase is called the Kali Yuga, the dark age.
This diagnosis is offered as clarity. A man who refuses to see the character of his age will waste his energy fighting the wrong battles or expecting the wrong results. Clear sight is the beginning of any serious orientation.
You will be surrounded by people who treat the present as the highest point yet reached by humanity. They speak of progress as an automatic upward movement. That belief is one of the central myths of the modern world. Once you see the age as a late and degraded phase rather than a summit, many of the pressures placed on you begin to look different. The demand to conform loses some of its authority. The sense that something essential is missing starts to make sense.
The diagnosis is not an invitation to despair. It is a refusal to be lied to about the nature of the time you were born into.