> The modern impulse to impose its cultural norms upon the past is deeply upsetting.

It's not a modern impulse, it's pretty much an invariant aspect of culture.

Of course, so is the tendency to perceive invariant aspects of culture as both unique to the present culture and signs of decline.

> so is the tendency to invariant aspects of culture as .....

What are you trying to say here? Invariant is not a verb, and it's definition of "never changing" doesn't make sense in the way you used it.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/invariant

You want the mathematical definition. All cultures judge others according to their own norms, that's essentially the definition of what a culture is: a set of norms and behaviors by which things are judged.

I think they meant to say 'consider' before invariant

Yeah, i'll go so far as to correct you there and say its not a sign of declining culture. It IS culture, period.

Its arguably even the case that it could be argued to be the sign of a particular kind of ascending culture, since being able to reinterpret the past and spread your own cultural norms could be said to give weight/momentum to a particular culture's propagation...

Is it any different from any other time?

Things that are constant at any generation throughout history: the young always appear selfish and without morals; the past is not treated with enough respect; the overall culture is surely in decline. Athenians under Pericles were convinced of these, as were Romans under Augustus.

There is strong historical evidence for civilizational cycles.

Perhaps, but there's not for an association between most of the things people casually refer to as signs of civilization decline and such decline.

If chaos is an antonym to civilization, this might be reconsidered.

Cycles appear in hindsight, sure. Where's the cycle in foresight if everyone always thinks the young appear selfish and without morals?

There is no historical evidence that everyone always thinks the young appear selfish and without morals. Very often the youth have lead moral revivals (or panics, according to tastes.)

I don't mean to be unpleasant, but the idea that there has always been an oppositional libertine youth culture of selfishness is a modern canard.

There is, and Greek tragedy itself offers an abundance of them. For anyone curious, look into Euripides’ “The Bacchae”.

Very much agree. We may not agree with the past culture, but we should never forget the past or the progress we made.

History is cyclic. Humans flip between freedom to oppression, and I think so much of those steps back come from the fact that we are encouraged to forget the mistakes and lifestyles of the past. You see this in communism, various cultural revolutions, and other horrible things, yet certain revisionists wish to look back at those horrifying events with rose-tinted glasses. No, we should be willing to accept and see the truth, for all it's glory and brutality.

We can "save" the women of literature, yet ignore the oppression in the modern day woman, ie. the gender-driven infanticide that still exists today. If written words from 3000 years ago offends our sensibilities, what hope to do we, as a culture, have to hold up a guiding light to the rest of the world?

History is written by the winners. When those who disfavor women's empowerment are ascendant, they rewrite the past no less violently.

Fortunately, in our era those regressive forces are a frail, unsure, and declining culture.

Shocking. People exist in dialogue with the past.

Why so flippant ? The op explained his position pretty well.