There is a steady and recursive erosion of inherited Western culture and thought which is under way due in part to its overextension in time and space. Centuries, millenia of work is being called into question because of the corruption of the culture, be it various unsound scientific bodies of thought, political and economic philosophy, religious thought, or what have you. The culture is being rejected.
This is not to say that this is a bad thing, or that the good cannot be salvaged, or that even the bodies of thought which we are considering increasingly corrupt were even sound in the first place. But there you have it; it is happening.
And of course it could be picked up again in the future by a later culture with similarities, god forbid.
