For those wanting to take a deep dive. This longer article (essentially an excerpt from his forthcoming book), Ross Douthat wrestles with the protean concept of decadence. I used to think this term, decadence, the purview only of cranky conservative-types who thought contemporary America (and I'm thinking back to the 50s and 60s) was beginning to embody the decadence of Roman decline or fin-de-siecle France--languid debauchery. But Douthat, following the lead of Jacques Barzun, looks at decadence through a wider lens, political and economic as well as cultural. Perhaps, given my age, I've come under Saturnine influences, but I find that Douthat provides some compelling insights. Are we stuck in neither the best of times nor the worst of times? And if we don't like where we are as a nation, as a global civilization, how might we proceed? More to come! (See the following.)
I offer this article (a bit longer than the usual newspaper column) from John Cassidy of the New Yorker. I find that it compliments the Ross Douthat article that I posted immediately before this one. In this article, Cassidy asks what has seems to me (for a very long time running) the question of whether economic growth can continue indefinitely. My admittedly rudimentary sense of biology tells me that Nature doesn't allow unlimited growth to continue, that at some point, constraints will appear, either internal (structural ability to incorporate new growth) or external (inadequate resources to allow further growth). Indeed, the fall from growth, whether it's in a Petrie dish or an entire civilization, often occurs quite abruptly and--if humans are involved--catastrophically.
Does this mean that we're doomed? Does this mean that we'll inevitably suffer a decline in standards of living? No, to both questions. Of course, a level of material prosperity is necessary for a good life. Squalor and poverty don't make for a good life, But then after meeting the basics of material prosperity in Maslow's hierarchy, money, our measure--imprecise as it is--of economic well-being, doesn't matter all that much. (That some have a seemingly infinite lust for more money is a pathology, not a virtue, as our society often seems to believe it is.) In fact, the challenge is to have a comfortable, secure material life with the potential for intangible well-being that need not be constrained by material circumstances. Possible? Why not? Change--big change--is coming because of the imperatives of Mother Nature, but we can guide that change to our collective ill or our collective betterment. A great challenge by which we can escape our decadence (read the Douthat article).
