Is there really such thing as "decadence"?

[mswas]

@Ludovic

Infighting is a sign of civilization, not decadence. Esprit de corps is a sign of barbarism. I am explicitly not denigrating barbarism. For instance, when English Victorians may look down on the middle east, italy, or ancient rome as being too treacherous and therefore decadent, it is a sign that while they may have considered themselves “vibrant”, that’s because those cultures are indeed more civilized than Victorian England.

(You know who else revelled in being called barbarians and looked down upon civilization as being decadent?)

I don’t think I can buy this definition of civilized. I don’t know that the Middle-East in the Victorian era was more civilized, nor do I think that ancient Rome was more civilized. Ancient Rome was not particularly civilized by modern standards.

And I wasn’t referring to infighting, I was referring to something beyond infighting, where different groups simply no longer consider themselves as part of the same body politic at all. Where the old ideas of the ‘in-group’ have become obsolete

@BrainGlutton

Isn’t there a strain of modern political conservatism that insists, “There is no such thing as society”? Didn’t Margaret Thatcher say something like that?

I don’t know if Margaret Thatcher has said it, but I have certainly heard it from some of the more hardcore conservative types. Usually the Libertarian who thinks that Monarchism is the best possible political system and is completely immune to any arguments that recognize the feudal nature of things, and how feudalism means that one person owns another.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

See this map. The Blue-Red divide is not Coasts vs. Heartland, it’s Cities (Decadence?) vs. Countryside (Barbarism?).

He said ‘coastal elites’ which is generally synonymous with ‘liberal elite’. So no, not necessarily Democrats, but I think for all intents and purposes the elite around Hyde Park in Chicago and the elites around oil money in Texas are by and large the same class as those in New York and Virginia.

@Syntropy

You have just described Paris Hilton’s last birthday party.

I think ‘decadence’ is a convenient excuse on which some historians blame the downfall of certain civilizations. I don’t find that it’s consistent enough throughout fallen societies to be labeled a precursor. It does, however, smack of a certain moral justification for the failure of whatever particular civilization/society is under discussion.

I disagree. I think it specifically refers to when wealth becomes devoted more toward amusements than to building a better society. It’s hard to comprehend in our modern society where the entertainment industry in some form from bartenders to film executives drives a huge portion of our economy.

@smiling_bandit

That’s not true at all. Barbarian cultures are, if anything, much more fractious and prone to infighting. The common charge against the middle eastern cultures is not that it was decadent, but that it was barbarous, although the two could and still can easily coexist. Note also that the English permitted a very high degree of personal liberty and social mobility: far higher than the others you mentioned, where massive changes in status were done more through force of arms or by a close alliance with the already-powerful.

Well I don’t know that Barbarian cultures are more prone to ‘in-fighting’, I’d agree that Civilization by definition is more prone to in-fighting. Because in a Barbarian culture there is no pretense that there is a common culture, there are clannish fiefs, whereas civilization brings together a lot of disparate groups with broader, often conflicting goals.

I didn’t say that, and I wouldn’t say that. It’s easy to think of New York and California and see the Dems have their problems, but I also look at some of the Republican strongholds in Florida and southern Cali, or even nomnally conservative wealthy cultural elites like Buckley Jr. They often are well-educated, smart, and perceptive. However, they are also very inbred culturally and while tyhey see very well, also only see what is easily accessible. They are all prone to identify with other well-off, well-educated, short-on-real-experience people.

Yes, but at a certain point you are simply asking that people who exist within our culture lose their power. Not going to happy. The wealthy-educated will always be in charage in every civilization.

Sarah palin is a good example, in that neither her overly-excited supporters nor her hate-filled adversaries understand a bloody thign about her. She’s not the second coming of Reagan crossed with the Virgin Mary, but at the same time, she’s absolutely nothing like the self-contradicting lefty image of her as psychotic Christianist Theocrat come to enslave all with laws while walking around barefoot and pregnant. I won’t turn this into a Palin thread, but she’s neither of those things, but rather something much different (and probably a lot more positive). Whether or not you agree with her politics, she derserves serious consideration. But the elites of neither Right nor Left could muster up anything more than lies or a snear. And that snear was based largely on the fact that she was hugely successful without them and without living her life in their accepted manner. She didn’t go to an Ivy league school; she didn’t drink martinis at the Harvard club while sneering. Her children made some stupid choices, and she opted to raise a developmentally disabled child. She’s not like them. But that doesn’t make her worse. That’s as may be.

I am just not convinced that she’s very bright and I don’t think it has anything to do with Ivy League education. I am not trying to make this about her either. I think you have a much greater belief in the power of Ivy League elites, or even the cultural solidarity of Ivy League graduates in general. You can educate yourself on the issues without being an Ivy League graduate, she simply failed to to do so. Again, this is about your perception of coastal elites and not about her.

I’m talking about a wider concept of “coast” than some. And believe me, if I had wanted to say Democrats, I would have.

Does this include inland elites from Dallas and Chicago then too?

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

Ancient Rome was not particularly civilized by modern standards.

Well, that’s another thing. As I understand it, anthropologists and historians use the term “civilization” in a purportedly value-neutral sense, to describe a technological condition of a society, not a moral condition. Civilized cultures differ from uncivilized cultures in being more highly organized, with cities, agriculture, and – by some definitions – written language and use of metal tools. (The most advanced pre-Columbian cultures of the New World would not quite qualify if metal tools were a strict requirement.) By that standard, the “civilizations” of the ancient and classical Near East and Mediterranean – Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Judea, Greece, Persia, Carthage, Rome, etc. – were civilized, even though all practiced chattel slavery and some practiced human sacrifice or gladiatorial combat or judicial torture.

[smiling_bandit]

@mswas

He said ‘coastal elites’ which is generally synonymous with ‘liberal elite’. So no, not necessarily Democrats, but I think for all intents and purposes the elite around Hyde Park in Chicago and the elites around oil money in Texas are by and large the same class as those in New York and Virginia.

[snip]

Does this include inland elites from Dallas and Chicago then too?

Definitely. Really, it’s more of a big-city thing, but most of them happen to be where the trade is. I suppose it’s where the money is and where the elites feel comfortable. Many of them don’t come from there originally, but they don’t know and can’t understand the millions of Americans who may live very different lives in small or midsize cities or towns and rural areas. Chicago is horribly corrupt, Dallas is apparently obsessed with money, LA and San Francisco are where fame and political muscle trumps basic sense and sanity, and New York is, well, New York. There are a few other nasty locales I won’t go into.

Well I don’t know that Barbarian cultures are more prone to ‘in-fighting’, I’d agree that Civilization by definition is more prone to in-fighting. Because in a Barbarian culture there is no pretense that there is a common culture, there are clannish fiefs, whereas civilization brings together a lot of disparate groups with broader, often conflicting goals.

How do I put it? In a barbarian culture, you try to dominate and even kill other tribes. In a civilized society, you try to gain power to push through the things you want. Society is organized and casual violence discouraged. You disagree with others, but you don’t try to force them out of the political process by virtue of their identity or beliefs and respect their rights as equals in society. The Middle East is the most clear example of both, having wavered from one to the other throughout history.

Yes, but at a certain point you are simply asking that people who exist within our culture lose their power. Not going to happy. The wealthy-educated will always be in charage in every civilization.

No, they are in charge of politics most of the time. And I’m fine with that. However, I doubt the actual value of an Ivy education (which mostly seems to be a way for rich patrons to buy influence and a few bright souls to hang out with the best scholars) and that those who graduate largely deserve their repuations. I have very little respect for reputation over performance, and see very little evidence that Bucklery Jr., ferinstanz, is actually more knowledgable or more perceptive than most of the people who post here on the Dope.

I am just not convinced that she’s very bright and I don’t think it has anything to do with Ivy League education. I am not trying to make this about her either. I think you have a much greater belief in the power of Ivy League elites, or even the cultural solidarity of Ivy League graduates in general. You can educate yourself on the issues without being an Ivy League graduate, she simply failed to to do so. Again, this is about your perception of coastal elites and not about her.

This would make a fascinating thread if I wasn’t sure it would rapidly be Godwinized (or whatever) to death. All I will say is that Is ee her as far more in touch with the issues than most politicians, including those who are supposed experts or at least very experienced. She was unprepared in an early interview, it’s true, but as Gov or Alaska her elevation to national prominence was something unanticipated. She was floated as a VP candidate… but maybe in 2012 or 2016, not 2008. Despite that, the numbers don’t lie and she almost single-handedly saved McCain’s limp campaign. And I can understand people asking about her ability, but what ticks me off is that was hnever really the issue. Rather, it was every journalist (or so-called journalist doing Obama’s hachet jobs) trying to discredit her.

Now, of course, she’s left her job, not apparently because anyone had any dirt on her but rather because they kept claiming to and having endless spurious accusations. Plus, it looks like she knows she can do better outside government.

[Syntropy]

@mswas

I disagree. I think it specifically refers to when wealth becomes devoted more toward amusements than to building a better society. It’s hard to comprehend in our modern society where the entertainment industry in some form from bartenders to film executives drives a huge portion of our economy.

As I said. Moral judgment.

[BrainGlutton]

@Andy_L

Slight hijack. This is “Betelgeuse Bridge” by William Tenn. Great story.

Found it in the library, in a collection of Tenn’s stories. The Betelgeusians have sold Earth a supply of “revitalizers,” machines which can prevent cancer and degenerative diseases and, with decennial treatments, extend a person’s lifespan fivefold. The price is all Earth’s radioactive elements. The Betelgeusians deliver the machines and leave with the radioactives. Six months later the revitalizers stop working; on inspection it turns out their fuel is . . . radioactive elements. The point of the whole scheme was for the Betelgeusians to get fuel for their own revitalizers.

The sociologist (not anthropologist) Dr. Towson explains:

He gestured bitterly. "Oh, we’ve been taken, Dick. The whole human race has been had. I know what you’re going through, but think of me! I’m the failure, the man responsible. I’m supposed to be a sociologist! How could I have missed? How? It was all there: the lack of interest in their own culture, the overintellectualization of esthetics, the involved methods of thought and expression, the exaggerated ettiquete, even the very first thing of theirs we saw – their ship – was too heavily stylized and intricately designed for a young, thrusting civilization.

“The had to be decadent; every sign pointed to that conclusion. And, of course, the fact that they resot to the methods of feuling their revitalizers that we’ve experienced – when if we had their science, what might we not do, what substitutes might we develop! No wonder they couldn’t explain their science to us; I doubt they understand it fully themselves. They are the profligate, inadequate and sneak-thief heirs of what was once a soaring race!”

[mswas]

@Syntropy

As I said. Moral judgment.

Yes, I know what you said. It’s not a valid rebuttal. Something being a moral judgment does not automatically mean the people doing the moral judgment are wrong. Morality exists for a reason. If licentiousness and immorality become the norm then society breaks down.

An easy way for this to be grasped for people who are having a difficult time, would be to regard a neighborhood that shows an increase in petty theft over time. If you were constantly having things like your lawn mower or VCR stolen from your neighborhood and your neighbors experienced similar problems like having windows broken, or if some new people moved in and had cars up on blocks and partied into the wee hours of the morning on a Tuesday night with drunken revelry. What would happen to property values? I am sure they were stay the same right? Because anyone who is opposed to such things is merely making a moral judgment.

[Lemur866]

The problem is that the theory of decadence implies a sort of civilizational narrative. A civilization establishes itself, and it’s a young thrusting civilization. Then it becomes a mature civilization. Then it becomes a decadent civilization. Then it collapses, and some new civilization takes its place.

But but it seems to me that historical cycles like this don’t actually exist.

Take the example of Wiemar Germany. If Wiemar Germany was decadent, how did it become replaced overnight with the young thrusting Third Reich? The same people lived in Germany. The country transformed itself overnight, seemingly. But the problem is that the “decadence” of Wiemar Germany was limited to a few Berlin cafes and nightclubs. Or was Nazi Germany the decadent civilization? Thing is, the Nazis were big on communitarian virtues that are the antithesis of decadence as has been defined–shared sacrifice, everyone working together

Decadence implies an inexorable downslide, where a civilization destroys itself due to the contradictions of civilization. As in the old saw, industry leads to wealth, wealth leads to indolence, and indolence leads to poverty. It’s a sort of Marxist dialectic. But it doesn’t seem to correspond to any real world examples. Or, there are examples of societies that seem decadent, yet they somehow renew themselves and become “young thrusting” societies overnight.

So how does that work? If a society is decadent, it’s decaying and falling apart. If the society isn’t decaying and falling apart, then so-called decadence is just a period of fashion. Are the powdered wigs and elaborate clothes of the Regency period an example of decadence? Contrasted with the plain and severe Victorian period? But the chronology is backwards! And the Regency period wasn’t a period of decline for the British Empire.

And over in France, the foppish aristocrats ended up decidedly shorter, but the decadence of the French court under Louis XVI didn’t enervate the French nation, rather there was a burst of revolutionary fervor, and pretty soon a massive series of imperial wars headed by a certain Corsican.

The point is, if societies can become decadent, and if decadence means anything, how does the theory of decadence explain how all these decadent societies suddenly threw off their decadence?

[mswas]

Lemur866 I think any sort of view that these cycles are hard and fast rules are the problem. The underlying assumptions that decadence ultimately hurts the society are not where the flaw lies. The flaw lies in the assumption that civilizations cannot survive their decadent period. Right now we are coming out of a decadent period in our own culture. We may or may not survive it. I tend to be optimistic and think we WILL survive it.

[mswas]

@smiling_bandit

Definitely. Really, it’s more of a big-city thing, but most of them happen to be where the trade is. I suppose it’s where the money is and where the elites feel comfortable. Many of them don’t come from there originally, but they don’t know and can’t understand the millions of Americans who may live very different lives in small or midsize cities or towns and rural areas. Chicago is horribly corrupt, Dallas is apparently obsessed with money, LA and San Francisco are where fame and political muscle trumps basic sense and sanity, and New York is, well, New York. There are a few other nasty locales I won’t go into.

You seem to have a general antipathy for cities, but the reality is that in a country where the majority of the population lives in either urban or suburban environments you are going to get a large cross-section of these people. Another side-effect of urban dwelling is a thriving intellectual culture. Intellectuals living in close proximity get together and form relationships. It’s just the natural progression of urban life.

How do I put it? In a barbarian culture, you try to dominate and even kill other tribes. In a civilized society, you try to gain power to push through the things you want. Society is organized and casual violence discouraged. You disagree with others, but you don’t try to force them out of the political process by virtue of their identity or beliefs and respect their rights as equals in society. The Middle East is the most clear example of both, having wavered from one to the other throughout history.

I have a problem with your definitions. First off ‘barbarian culture’. Barbarian cultures by definition are not fighting an in-group, they are fighting an out-group. When a Civilization begins to fight itself then it starts to backslide into a barbarous state where the tribal structures stop seeing themselves as commonly part of the larger cohesive system and revert to their older tribal affinities.

No, they are in charge of politics most of the time. And I’m fine with that. However, I doubt the actual value of an Ivy education (which mostly seems to be a way for rich patrons to buy influence and a few bright souls to hang out with the best scholars) and that those who graduate largely deserve their repuations. I have very little respect for reputation over performance, and see very little evidence that Bucklery Jr., ferinstanz, is actually more knowledgable or more perceptive than most of the people who post here on the Dope.

I don’t doubt the value of an Ivy education at all. Most of the people I know who have them are very smart people who are astute. You say they are not more perceptive than many members of the dope, and while that’s true, many members of the dope are ivy league educated and would fall comfortably into your definition of ‘urban elites’. Your view of ‘reputation over performance’ is highly subjective, as you are judging their performance. What makes you think that YOU are erudite enough to effectively judge someone’s performance? (Not a personal attack, I am sincerely asking what your criteria for intellectual judgment are.)

This would make a fascinating thread if I wasn’t sure it would rapidly be Godwinized (or whatever) to death. All I will say is that Is ee her as far more in touch with the issues than most politicians, including those who are supposed experts or at least very experienced. She was unprepared in an early interview, it’s true, but as Gov or Alaska her elevation to national prominence was something unanticipated. She was floated as a VP candidate… but maybe in 2012 or 2016, not 2008. Despite that, the numbers don’t lie and she almost single-handedly saved McCain’s limp campaign. And I can understand people asking about her ability, but what ticks me off is that was hnever really the issue. Rather, it was every journalist (or so-called journalist doing Obama’s hachet jobs) trying to discredit her.

Yea, I disagree with you in general about Sarah Palin, I think she’s an airhead celebrity, her grasp of politics is on par with Ben Affleck. I have lots of opinions on everything else you have said but do not want to continue the hijack. We talk about Sarah Palin enough.

Now, of course, she’s left her job, not apparently because anyone had any dirt on her but rather because they kept claiming to and having endless spurious accusations. Plus, it looks like she knows she can do better outside government.

I think she left her job because she thought she could make more money by writing a Memoir than doing her duty.

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

Right now we are coming out of a decadent period in our own culture.

Which do you regard as decadent? The counterculture, drug use, sexual promiscuity and sociopolitical discontent of the '60s and '70s? Or the rampant capitalism, conspicuous consumption, and military adventurism of the '80s, '90s, and Oughts*? Or both?

*Oughts? Naughts? We still don’t seem to have a short name for this decade that’s about to end . . .

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Which do you regard as decadent? The counterculture, drug use, sexual promiscuity and sociopolitical discontent of the '60s and '70s? Or the rampant capitalism, conspicuous consumption, and military adventurism of the '80s, '90s, and Oughts*? Or both?

Most specifically I’d refer to the culture of speculative investment that artificially inflates prices without actually offering any service in return. IE, driving up the cost of living so that people cannot afford houses, while the market for houses caters to a large degree to the speculating house-flippers who drove prices, which lead to overproduction, which lead to the problem of rampant illegal immigration which lead to mild civil strife and an overall artificially inflated market that catered to both the house-flippers and the illegal immigrant workers who were building in order to feed the ravenous appetites of the hordes of house-flippers.

Military Adventurism is definitely part of it as it disconnected our ability to pay for military adventures with a sort of bleeding heart colonialism where we had an infinite wallet to pay for forcing the ethnics to solve their problems based upon our ideals.

I think the sociopolitical unrest in the 60s doesn’t really cut it, though the ‘Me Generation’ sense of entitlement that lead to hippy culture where all these bourgeois suburbanites were going to save the world by living on the land, when really what happened was that they depleted the resources of local charities so that they could travel around following the Dead or going to the next Rainbow Gathering.

Sexual promiscuity contributed to it in a large part as men divorced themselves from the consequences of their night of pleasure by abandoning women they knocked up to single-Motherhood forcing them to go on WIC so that society at large could pay for their short-sighted pleasure.

The drug epidemic certainly was a bit of decadence, but it was only a part of the overall rampant consumerism. The Drug War is actually more decadent than doing drugs. The idea that we can use a muscular foreign policy to force third world nations to burn cash crops and remain economically depressed as a result just to keep some white kids from doing blow once in a while was pretty ill-conceived. It wastes billions of dollars every year, and meanwhile, it is demonstrable that as a direct result drug use has gone up, not down, and the cartels are more powerful, dangerous and prevalent than ever, leading almost the total collapse of the government on our southern border.

*Oughts? Naughts? We still don’t seem to have a short name for this decade that’s about to end . . .

I’ve always heard Oughts.

Based on what I see with my own eyes, Americans will have learned nothing at all if we recover too quickly.

[ralph124c]

Cosider this: The USA, in the last year of the first decade of th 21st century is:
-bankrupt. We have a 4 trillon $ deficit. Congress goes on spending as if the Chinese will fund us forever.
-morally corrupt.Our imperial government catres only about purpetuation of its rule. Wshington and its pampered elites are out of touch with America.
-foreign military adventures are draining the treasury.
-cities are decaying-infrastructure is collapsing.
-we are dependent upon imports of petroeum, from areas which are hostile to us.
Overall, I think this is a good sign. It means that we are close to collapse, and that is the ONLY way this country will ever get reform. I gave up thinking that the present two-party system could ever reform itself-that i impossible.
Fast forward to collpase!

[BrainGlutton]

@ralph124c

Cosider this: The USA, in the last year of the first decade of th 21st century is:
-bankrupt. We have a 4 trillon $ deficit. Congress goes on spending as if the Chinese will fund us forever.
-morally corrupt.Our imperial government catres only about purpetuation of its rule. Wshington and its pampered elites are out of touch with America.
-foreign military adventures are draining the treasury.
-cities are decaying-infrastructure is collapsing.
-we are dependent upon imports of petroeum, from areas which are hostile to us.
Overall, I think this is a good sign. It means that we are close to collapse, and that is the ONLY way this country will ever get reform. I gave up thinking that the present two-party system could ever reform itself-that i impossible.
Fast forward to collpase!

And what kind of “reform” are you hoping will come after the collapse?