#604: The Boring Decadence of Modern Society

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the surface, it can feel like we've made a lot of technological, economic, and cultural progress during the past 30 years. But if you look closer, you start to notice that in a lot of ways, we've been running on repeat for several decades now. My guest today argues that this is what typically happens to rich and powerful societies: A period of growth and dynamism, such as we experienced after WWII, is followed by a period of stagnation and malaise. His name is Ross Douthat and his latest book is The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success. We begin our conversation discussing Ross's idea of decadence and how it's particularly marked by the quality of boredom. We then explore how decadence manifests itself in different areas of our society: Ross and I discuss how even though the realms of the economy and technology might seem vibrant (or at least they did before the pandemic struck), Americans are actually starting fewer businesses, moving less for work, and making fewer life-altering innovations than in times past. We then discuss the fact that clothing styles haven't changed all that much from the 1990s, the repercussions of couples having fewer children, and the calcification of our political institutions. We end our conversation with how each of us as individuals can fight back against decadence. Get the show notes at aom.is/decadence.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's go.
0:07.4	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.0	On the surface, you can feel like we've made a lot of technological, economic, and cultural
0:14.7	progress during the past 30 years.
0:16.4	But if you look closer, you start to notice that in a lot of ways, we've been running
0:19.7	on repeat for several decades now.
0:21.6	My guest state argues that this is what typically happens to rich and powerful societies.
0:25.2	A period of growth and dynamism, such as we experienced after World War II, is followed
0:29.2	by a period of stagnation and malaise.
0:31.3	Name is Ross Douthit, and his latest book is The Decadence Society, How We Became the
0:35.1	Victims of Our Own Success.
0:36.6	We begin a conversation discussing Ross's idea of decadence and how it's particularly
0:40.2	marked by the quality of boredom.
0:41.9	We didn't explore how decadence manifests itself in different areas of our society.
0:45.5	Ross and I discuss how even though the realms of economy and technology might seem vibrant
0:49.7	or at least they did before the pandemic struck, Americans are actually starting fewer businesses,
0:54.0	moving less for work, and making fewer life-altering innovations than in times past.
0:58.0	We then discuss the fact that clothing styles haven't changed all that much from the
1:01.3	1990s.
1:02.3	The repercussions of couples having fewer children and the calcification of our political institutions.
1:06.6	We enter conversation without each of us as individuals can fight back against decadence.
1:11.2	After the show's over, check out our show notes at aowim.is-decadence.
	...

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