Ruinism

Ignorance, cast, and superstition abound in the south; Unitarianism and socialism in the east; Mormonism, Anarchism, and Romanism in the west; a stupendous race problem in the north; and ruinism both north and south and east and west.

Some call the present trend collectivism, some call it statism, but I call it ruinism. . . . Taxes have now reached the confiscatory stage . . . The reckless spending of the Truman administration has precipitated a federal fiscal crisis which many of us may not fully realize . . . There are many doors to the house of socialism.

Whether we call it Communism, Welfarism or Socialism, it leads to the same thing: ruinism.

At that time, "ruinism" actually became an artistic category, in demonstration of the depth of sentiment the ancient glories excited in the viewer's soul.

Already in the early 1960s, however, in the wake of John Cage's aleatoric compositions, some traces of 'ruinism' could be found, for instance, in Walter De Maria's radical proposal of May 1960 for an Art Yard, published in La Monte Young's An Anthology.

This is the inexplicable, says the Northern European: a Bauhaus of ruins. But there is no architecture in these rooms lacking arche. And no complacency for ruinism, a general lack of complacency.

The growth of tourism and the increase in the number of “picturesque voyages” were likewise crucial factors, since “ruinism,” a style first manifested in the veduta (view), was particularly popular among travelers.

Gone are the dark days of myopic ruinism and the primitive huts of fragmented postmodern pessimism. As visionary idealists, we must escape the oppressive grip of cynical postmodern despair ...