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The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

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Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#51

Post by MereInterest »

pjc50 wrote: post #3

Well, there's something you don't see very often these days: conservative intellectuals. The old stalwarts of Ross Douthat and the AEI. The problem is though, if you skip ahead to the conclusion: > [T]he only thing more frightening than the possibility of annihilation is the possibility that our society could coast on forever as it is—like a Rome without an Attila to sack its palaces, or a Nineveh without Yahweh to p…

As a counterpoint to this entire line of thought, I'd recommend reading "The Fremen Mirage", a series of blog posts linked to below. It does a fantastic job of going through the history of the idea of "decadence" as what destroys society, and of the idea of "hard times" as the crucible to form strong fighters. The long and the short of it is that there is no historical evidence for this idea, that the "decadent" groups had massive advantages over everyone else, and that the original idea of "decadence" tended to be created for internal political reasons, rather than any true comparison with outside groups.

https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

(My description is summarizing to the point of uselessness, and I highly, highly recommend reading the series.)

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#52

Post by golergka »

082349872349872 wrote: post #38
golergka wrote: post #12

There's a lot of talk about how civilisation lifecycles lately, and articles, books coming out, and yet one of the best works in this space goes completely unnoticed and unread, it seems, at least in anglosphere: Lev Gumilyov's Ethnogenesis. May be it's because he worked in Soviet Union, where there were not much interaction between historians on different sides of the Iron Curtain, or may be there's still no good tr…

Could you please summarise "passionarnost, ethnos, and phases of ethnogenesis" for those of us who might be willing to read more if we were convinced there was a there, there?

I'll try, although I don't think I'm qualified enough.

First of all, what he's talking about is usually described as different stages of _civilisations_ in english literature. However, he goes into much length to explain why he talks about ethnoses instead: in sub sense, it's a different definition, and a group which is smaller than what you usually call a "civilisation", so this distinction is important. It's derived from the word "ethnic", but again, he's very particular that it's not exactly the same as ethnical group in a genetical sense, although one usually correlates to another.

In general, it's very hard to summarise his work, because he goes into a lot of details that are really important to understand his ideas correctly. Unfortunately, it's very easy to misunderstand them, and sometimes in some very awful ways, if you just assume that the words he uses have meanings that you usually ascribe to them.

Then, he describes different stages of lifecycle of ethnos. Once again, there are stages that you would expect, from birth to death, but he adds a lot of detail, describing how an ethnos can be both in a dynamic arc going from beginning to an end, but also in a static, balanced state that can continue, without outside interference, for an eternity. He's a historian with a deep knowledge of very wide array of different human eras and places, and draws a lot of examples to make his point from all over the human history.

After that, he tries to describe the underlying forces that influence this process. He goes through all possible theories and finally arrives at his concept of "passionarnost" (derived from passion) to describe the cultural energy that drives these transformations.

After reading other contemporary books on the matter, such as Guns, Germs and Steel, and Neil Ferguson's Civilization, as well as dozens of articles and blog posts discussing these things, I think that his analysis and thoughts are one of the most interesting and engaging ideas about it.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#53

Post by francisofascii »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #27
beamatronic wrote: post #19

Life is a lot easier these days, thanks in no small part to advances in cars. As an American, cars are a central feature of your life. I feel like a large part of my “character building” years was spent struggling with unreliable, old, leaky, carbureted cars. All the energies I spent keeping that thing running could have better spent working or socializing. And yet I have a deep appreciation for what it takes to make…

> As an American, cars are a central feature of your life. Unfortunately true and frankly one of my least favorite features of American life.

I may take a century to realized it, but I think you are right. Historians will look back and see America's car-centric culture as its height of extreme decadence and the pivotal point to its eventual decline. When you think about the trucks and SUVs that people drive around everywhere, the entire infrastructure dedicated to it, the health outcomes, etc.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#54

Post by readarticle »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #49
serjester wrote: post #43

While I don't necessarily disagree with his thesis, I think the author cherry picks points and creates a narrative where there isn't one. He mentions the last "shared cultural moment" was Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon. Personally after watching it live, I'd argue Space X launching humans into space is one of those "moments". This all comes down to your own interpretation of the events and there's so many other exam…

I don’t disagree with: >world progress can’t be binned into a coherent storyline But if you think SpaceX has anywhere close to the cultural impact of the moon landing, you really need to get out of your bubble.

Yeah, it’s obviously all anecdata here but I don’t run in tech circles outside of work, and genuinely can’t remember a single post, tweet, or meme about Space X that didn’t come from my coworkers or few tech friends.

Tiger King though, whew. Even my grandmother tried out her new Netflix subscription with that.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#56

Post by [deleted] »

serjester wrote: post #43

While I don't necessarily disagree with his thesis, I think the author cherry picks points and creates a narrative where there isn't one. He mentions the last "shared cultural moment" was Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon. Personally after watching it live, I'd argue Space X launching humans into space is one of those "moments". This all comes down to your own interpretation of the events and there's so many other exam…

[deleted]

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#57

Post by tumblerz »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #23

This is a fascinating discussion because it hits directly at a topic that civilization-after-civilization has faced throughout history: are we able to reasonably assess whether we are continuing towards growth and progress or stagnation and extinction? Frankly, the historical record is not encouraging. Usually, when this topic comes up people chime in with easy takeaways like "people have always complained about this…

I like your style.

I recently read "Decadent Society" as part of a binge on what another commenter calls "conservative intellectual" literature of the past couple of years. I'm not sure Douthat really makes a great case for his thesis but there is, to me, a sort of haunting note of truth to it--a sense of your "Fizzle" having entered a feedback loop that is difficult to ascertain from the inside.

Since I did march through the literature binge, I'll add that some conservative authors are quite a bit more pointed in their analyses than is Douthat. "Age of Entitlement," and "Return of the Strong Gods" are two titles that come to mind.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#58

Post by MereInterest »

bzb5 wrote: post #22
pjc50 wrote: post #3

Well, there's something you don't see very often these days: conservative intellectuals. The old stalwarts of Ross Douthat and the AEI. The problem is though, if you skip ahead to the conclusion: > [T]he only thing more frightening than the possibility of annihilation is the possibility that our society could coast on forever as it is—like a Rome without an Attila to sack its palaces, or a Nineveh without Yahweh to p…

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.”

A succinct and pithy saying, but generally incorrect. Historically, good times create a food surplus. A food surplus creates well-nourished armies. Well-nourished armies, for better or for worse, create hard times for everybody else.

As I've posted elsewhere in this thread, I would recommend reading the following series of blog posts.

https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#59

Post by eli_gottlieb »

waynenilsen wrote: post #39

Unfortunately this site has received the hug of death however anyone that finds such a headline interesting may also find this interesting: "Industrial Society and Its Future" https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab... An excerpt from the introduction: > The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those…

Ah yes, once we get rid of modern technology, I can die of bronchitis five times before age ten (that almost happened), and then be murdered after the next outbreak of Black Plague for using the blood of Christian children to bake my bread (yes, many people actually died because of the Blood Libel).

The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution and their consequences are the only reason I'm not dead several times over, and the only reason I can walk down the street in the place I live today in any kind of safety, so no, I'm really not buying that they were a disaster for the human race.

Re: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

#60

Post by bluetomcat »

seibelj wrote: post #37

I disagree with criticisms of current art or “pop” art like pop music, popular fiction books, etc. To become broadly popular you must appeal to as many people as possible. This is a balancing act between mediocrity and edginess that pushes just the right amount of boundaries to feel “new” and “fresh” without turning off a lot of people. So by definition the most popular song in the world is going to usually be fairly…

The quality and sophistication of mainstream pop art is an important indicator, though. It is consumed by the majority of the population and gives sense to the "wisdom" of an era.

Nowadays you simply don't find any mainstream music approaching the levels of sophistication of, say, 1980s mainstream music. Where's the Dire Straits, the Gary Moore and the David Bowie of the 2010s?

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