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Summary
Summary
Today the Western world seems to be in crisis. But beneath our social media frenzy and reality television politics, the deeper reality is one of drift, repetition, and dead ends. The Decadent Society explains what happens when a rich and powerful society ceases advancing--how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of "sustainable decadence," a civilizational languor that could endure for longer than we think.
Ranging from our grounded space shuttles to our Silicon Valley villains, from our blandly recycled film and television--a new Star Wars saga, another Star Trek series, the fifth Terminator sequel--to the escapism we're furiously chasing through drug use and virtual reality, Ross Douthat argues that many of today's discontents and derangements reflect a sense of futility and disappointment--a feeling that the future was not what was promised, that the frontiers have all been closed, and that the paths forward lead only to the grave.
In this environment we fear catastrophe, but in a certain way we also pine for it--because the alternative is to accept that we are permanently decadent: aging, comfortable and stuck, cut off from the past and no longer confident in the future, spurning both memory and ambition while we wait for some saving innovation or revelations, growing old unhappily together in the glowing light of tiny screens.
Correcting both optimists who insist that we're just growing richer and happier with every passing year and pessimists who expect collapse any moment, Douthat provides an enlightening diagnosis of the modern condition--how we got here, how long our age of frustration might last, and how, whether in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.
"Clever and stimulating . . . Informative and well balanced . . . [An] intriguing theological-political idea." -- Mark Lilla, The New York Times Book Review
"Well-timed . . . This is a young man's book. Douthat can see our sclerotic institutions clearly because his vision is not distorted by out-of-date memories from a more functional era. . . . Charming and persuasive." -- Peter Thiel for First Things
"A scintillating diagnosis of social dysfunctions . . . His analysis is full of shrewd insights couched in elegant, biting prose. . . . The result is a trenchant and stimulating take on latter-day discontents." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Ross Douthat is the rare pundit who has managed to keep his head through the ideological turbulence of recent times -- and his new book grows out of his characteristic equanimity and good sense." -- Damon Linker, The Week
"Douthat's best book yet, a work of deep cultural analysis, elegantly written and offering provocative thoughts on almost every page. It's hard to think of a current book that is as insightful about the way we live now as is this one." -- Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
Author Notes
Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times op-ed page. He is the author of To Change the Church , Bad Religion , and Privilege , and coauthor of Grand New Party . Before joining the New York Times , he was a senior editor for the Atlantic . He is the film critic for National Review , and he cohosts the New York Times 's weekly op-ed podcast, The Argument . He lives in New Haven with his wife and four children.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A comfortable but unoriginal, tired, and frustrated age has arrived, argues this scintillating diagnosis of social dysfunctions. New York Times columnist Douthat (To Change the Church) surveys a contemporary world where technological advance has subsided into the engineering of trivial digital apps; sclerotic, gridlocked governments dither; birth rates have fallen below replacement rate; young men lose themselves in video games and porn rather than start families or change history; the arts endlessly rehash boomer cultural touchstones and superhero franchises; and a managerial meritocracy entrenches itself in a soft authoritarianism of health and safety, while radicals playact at resurrecting communism and fascism in defanged social media tantrums and feckless street theater. Douthat's elegy on the death of progress is unsparing and often pessimistic, but never alarmist; decadent modernity may muddle along without apocalyptic collapse, he contends, or perk up again with a religious revival or renewed space exploration. His analysis is full of shrewd insights couched in elegant, biting prose. (American political partisanship, he writes, is "an empty traditionalism championed by a heathen reality-television opportunist, set against a thin cosmopolitanism that's really just the extremely Western ideology of liberal Protestantism plus ethnic food.") The result is a trenchant and stimulating take on latter-day discontents. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM/Sagalyn. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
A journalist sees materialism and complacency pervading contemporary life.New York Times op-ed columnist and National Review film critic Douthat (To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, 2018, etc.) delivers an impassioned but not entirely convincing critique of American and European society, which he condemns as depressed, enervated, and bored, and he points to economic stagnation, cultural and intellectual exhaustion, and a dearth of technological and scientific marvels. According to Douthat, America's space project was the last time technological prowess ignited the public's imagination; now, instead of a shared vision of a "giant leap for mankind," we are left with a sense of resignation. The domination of near monopolies quashes economic risk-taking and growth; "below-replacement fertility" portends a "sterile, aging world"; a polarized, sclerotic government is mired in gridlock; and a narrowing range of cultural offerings reflects widespread cultural malaise. Movies reprise "unoriginal stories based on intellectual properties that have strong brand recognition"; publishers depend on "recursive franchises and young-adult blockbusters"; and pop music reveals "a sharp decline in the diversity of chords in hit songs" and repetitive lyrics. Douthat acknowledges that readers, many of whom have heard similar arguments in countless recent books, may not be as distraught as he is. Despite social, political, and ecological problems, they may ask, "instead of bemoaning the inevitable flaws of our present situation, shouldn't we work harder to celebrate its virtues"? The author thinks not. Although within a decadent society individuals can still "work toward renewal and renaissance"; although sustainable decadence "offers the ample benefits of prosperity with fewer of the risks that more disruptive eras offer," still, he insists that "the unresisted drift of decadence leads, however slowly and comfortably, into a territory of darkness." Describing himself as a believing Christian, Douthat underscores religion's entanglement with decadence. No civilization, he writes, "has thrived without a confidence that there was more to the human story than just the material world as we understand it." Underlying his call for change is an invocation to look "heavenward: toward God, toward the stars, or both."An earnest analysis buoyed by debatable evidence. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
The Decadent Society offers an 11-section set of gloomy musings that dwell on a flagging American spirit. The US birthrate--like the birthrates of all advanced nations--is falling as society becomes more rigidly stratified. The mature economy based on consumption, not production, is sputtering and offering diminishing opportunities. Those in the impregnably powerful social-economic-political elite have blocked progress toward a more just and humane society. Disillusioned, citizens find little solace in arts, literature, and entertainment, where remakes and repetition replace originality. Church attendance and moral standards are falling, and the internet is a highway for pornography. In sum, the US population has become bored, hopeless ... and decadent. Douthat (a columnist, film critic, author, and editor) cautiously opines that there is a way out, but he gives it little attention. These lamentations would be terrifying if they were all true. However, readers have long known that literature is one story, told repeatedly. Science, despite Donald Trump, is advancing, along with knowledge in general. Douthat says nothing new, although what he says he says vividly, provocatively, and well. No illustrations, notes, or bibliography are included. Summing Up: Optional. General readers. --Douglas W Steeples, emeritus, Independent Scholar
Table of Contents
| Introduction: The Closing of the Frontier | p. 1 |
| Part 1 The Four Horsemen | |
| 1 Stagnation | p. 17 |
| 2 Sterility | p. 47 |
| 3 Sclerosis | p. 67 |
| 4 Repetition | p. 89 |
| Part 2 Sustainable Decadence | |
| 5 Comfortably Numb | p. 119 |
| 6 A Kindly Despotism | p. 137 |
| 7 Waiting for the Barbarians | p. 155 |
| 8 Giving Decadence Its Due | p. 177 |
| Part 3 The Deaths of Decadence | |
| 9 Catastrophe | p. 189 |
| 10 Renaissance | p. 205 |
| 11 Providence | p. 233 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 241 |
| Index | p. 243 |
