The degradation of culture is permanently ongoing. It's come to the point already where we live in what is, essentially, a monoculture. Whilst different social groups may exist with their own slight nuances (the nomenclature and details of said groups are irrelevant), they all share one thing in common: the idea of complicity being a pathway to 'popularity' or the ever alluded to state of 'coolness'. People have become the same as one another: in spite of their differences in style and other areas, that mindset is common. Although fashion has always been a shared and emulated thing, almost viral in its ability to spread; the latest trends transcend that: behaviour is replicated; tastes are duplicated infinitely.

Individuality is all but a by-gone. People no longer grow to become the sum of the combined effort of all the people affiliated with them, but to the predefined mould of the social group chosen by them or the one which they are chosen by. Of course, creativity also suffers through this process: we are haunted by swathes of bands/artists creating the same type of music, with many songs being discernible from one another (and has become a product rather than an art), and many television programmes all follow the same generic formula (which is generally related to the incarceration of people in a 'strange' environment or the humiliation of people who really should have been told earlier in life that they have no talent).

The widespread fear of 'causing offence' through published artwork of any sort (be it traditional art, music or writing) also stifles the creativity of the general populous. Content-control based on standards set by far from representative watchdog groups (most often all of them white, middle-class, middle-aged males, a far from representative group of modern Britain) makes people show caution around expressing themselves; restricting the scope for art to develop, further digging the grave of our ailing culture. The 'mono' element of the monoculture is furthered by this: new writing, new art, new music must be careful not to step on the toes of any of the groups labelled to be 'easily offended', as such we are left with repetition of the old.

The Arts need originality. Originality needs individuality, and the freedom associated with it. Individuality needs the individual, not the mass conglomerate of near-identical, factory-produced drones taken in by the barren landscape of modern culture. It has been said that originality is lacking in current times due to the fact that, simply, everything that can be done with the currently available media has already been done. Personally, I can not prescribe to this theory: it is my thought that people aren't pushed to find themselves and thus the originality required for new art is never found - people are just doomed to replicate the things which they are exposed to, and may not actually be able to create. The well of creative motivation is beyond dry. It's far too easy to fit in, and far too much work to be unique in any large regard.