The Serbian Worldview

I have been doing research for countries in Europe and Eurasia. Teams will use this research for Online Cultural Training to help prepare them to better understand the culture in the country where they will volunteer to serve in construction camps or TEFL camps. I searched the internet for a worldview perspective on Serbia and found the following commentary on a blog written by an Orthodox Christian.

The only thing wrong with it is that the writer does not clearly state what he believes-- just kidding!

"It is no exaggeration to say that, from the perspective of a normal life viewed even 50 years ago, life today has become abnormal. Fundamental values and concepts of behavior have been turned upside-down. The spoiled and pampered generations know no law except the fulfillment of personal happiness "now." Parents bow down before their children's whims and these same children grow to adulthood merely substituting their childhood toys and games for grown-up amusements.

Life becomes a constant search for "fun" which is so empty of any serious meaning that a visitor from any 19th century country, looking at our popular television programs, amusement parks, advertisements, movies, music – at almost any aspect of our popular culture-would think he had stumbled across a land of imbeciles who have lost all contact with normal reality.
This "plastic" culture, which has been spawned by the "me generation," cannot support the development of normal human life, much less inspire a genuine search for truth. When this "me generation" turns to religion-which has been happening very frequently in the past several decades--it is usually to a "plastic," self-centered form of religion, filled with all the fantasy of a television program.

In only a few short years this country has been inundated with a shocking variety of brainwashing and mind-bending cults, deified gurus, swamis, and other self-made "holy men." And these are not the only ones who vie for the total allegiance of souls. The secular world today presents a constant state of temptation which makes equally totalitarian demands on the soul. We are constantly confronted by it--whether in the background music heard everywhere in markets and businesses, in the public signs and billboards, and in the home itself where television often becomes the secret ruler of the household, dictating modern values, opinions and tastes.

In its various forms it all speaks the same message--Live for the present, enjoy yourself, relax. Behind this message is another, more sinister undertone which is openly expressed today only in the official atheist countries which are one step ahead of the free world in this respect: Forget about God and any other life but the present one. This philosophy has forged a chain of concentration camps in the Soviet Union commonly called Gulag. As more and more people become caught up in the American "Disneyland" mentality, the true God is pushed away and unconsciously we are brought one step closer to our own Gulag."

(The above commentary was written as a blog entry from an Orthodox Christian viewpoint.) http://www.serbianorthodoxchristian.com/Fr.SeraphimRose.html