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The Decadent Society

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The Decadent Society

Auteur(s): Ross Douthat
Narrateur(s): Ross Douthat
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 From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a powerful portrait of how our wealthy, successful society has passed into an age of gridlock, stalemate, public failure, and private despair.

The era of the coronavirus has tested America, and our leaders and institutions have conspicuously failed. That failure shouldn’t be surprising: Beneath social-media frenzy and reality-television politics, our era’s deep truths are elite incompetence, cultural exhaustion, and the flight from reality into fantasy. Casting a cold eye on these trends, The Decadent Society explains what happens when a powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemate, and demographic decline creates a unique civilizational crisis.

Ranging from the futility of our ideological debates to the repetitions of our pop culture, from the decline of sex and childbearing to the escapism of drug use, Ross Douthat argues that our age is defined by disappointment—by the feeling that all the frontiers are closed, that the paths forward lead only to the grave. Correcting both optimism and despair, Douthat provides an enlightening explanation of how we got here, how long our frustrations might last, and how, in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end. Moderne Politique Sciences politiques Sciences sociales XXIe siècle Socialisme Capitalisme Justice sociale
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This book should be catnip for regular Douthat readers, as it synthesizes and extends many of the ideas he explores in his weekly NYT columns. Douthat continues to provide the smartest conservative take on where we are as a culture. Great reading for anyone interested in what the next century might look like.

A thoughtful reflection on our current predicament

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There is zero mention of the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic related to any of the topics/suggestions the author makes throughout this book. I believe they added the sub heading “before and after the pandemic” to make the book appear to be more relevant to the times/the globes current situation to simply sell more copies.

Ignore the sub heading regarding pandemic

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The best part of The Decadent Society is the beginning. In it, the author quotes great thinkers of times gone by, with some of their weightiest pronouncements. Right off the bat, I was eagerly awaiting reading the rest of the book.

The main theme of the book (that our society as presently constituted is, in fact, decadent) thus strongly established, the author proudly raises his head, defiantly sets back his shoulders, and then proceeds to tumble down the longest staircase of convoluted thinking strewn about with the homegrown banana peels of muddled thinking that I have seen in some time, having tied his shoes together at the outset.

Contradictory statements abound: Today's teens are happier and less self-harmful than teens have ever been. How so? Why because they consume anti-depressants and commit suicide more frequently than before. All while avoiding sex and cigarettes, otherwise known as pleasures.

When not contradicting his earlier attempts at making points, the author draws from hundreds of data points and even fiction to show just how complicated a place the world is, and always has been. Missing throughout the book is clarity and a proper ordering of probabilities which might offer the reader some wisdom, insight, or at least perspective. This is a book to leave you having heard or read many words, some of them multi-syllabic words, all of them important in their own way.

If there is one saving grace to The Decadent Society, it is that the author sometimes quotes legitimately worthy scribes that you should read: Yoram Hazony, Robert Conquest, and even - if you have time on your hands - Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. The problem, as always in this book, is that the author puts everyone, and everything on the same level playing field, evidence and truth be damned. Socialism, Marxism, and fears of climate change and "over-population" having been proved wrong for decades is no obstacle to our author, who cites their examples with full credulity. Meanwhile, real estate developer, businessman, cum-politician Donald Trump has authoritarian tendencies appealing to the "far-right" that never really manifest themselves because of his supposedly colossal incompetence.

The Decadent Society is worth reading for one main reason: To learn the names of some of the people whose books or writings you should be reading instead. If you are creative, you could play it as background sound at your next soiree with friends or family, or for yourself at night as a non-prescription sleeping aid. But if you are a serious reader interested in learning about our present state of affairs, you should look elsewhere. There are luckily many wonderful books available for you to read that can educate, amuse, and enlighten you on a wide variety of topics. This is simply not one of them. Recommended for masochists, the un-wary, and the most ardent lovers of English only. 1/5

Simultaneously convoluted and without wisdom

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