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I haven't published a book review in some time, largely this is because I work a wage job for a living and haven't had time to read, but also this is because I am reading a 1200 page scholary biography on Napoleon Bonaparte and this book will require at least one more rereading before I'm ready to write a review. I believe such a review will take at least three or four posts in the thread just for the review, it will be like a college essay (which I haven't done for 5 years at this point) and so that will take another month.
In the meantime, I listened to the The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat and will quickly summarize it here.
Ross Douthat is the house conservative, chained in the basement of the New York Times. Best I can tell he's like the gimp in Pulp Fiction, he lives in the box until the Times needs a ridiculous column on missing White Anglo protestants ( Opinion | Why We Miss the WASPs - The New York Times (nytimes.com) ) or denouncing conservative protestors in lockstep with the media left. Ross is actually a decent thinker, but he needs to free himself from the chains of the Cathedral. In any instance I see no need to summarize his biography so we'll go on.
The Decadent society is a simple book based on a simple premise, America (and the west more broadly) is on a path of decline. While living standards are going up, revolutionary technology is going down, the elites of society are self interested, culture is degrading, and we are feeling the ferver of a country at civil war while only cosplaying it. Everything we knew already, please listen to the next eight hours of audiobook to know why.
Really the writing of this book is like a superlong version of Ross's columns, this is not a compliment, but I will focus on three things in this book that I think were inciteful.
1) Ross explores early in the book how falling birthrates and immigration impact society and culture. If Ross took just this chapter and made it into a column it would be a good one. Basically Ross explains how smaller families and less children lead to a decline in the larger culture, whereas previous generations had large networks of trusted relatives, having only two siblings and a handful of cousins leads one to feeling atomized and alone. In addition replacing the lost fertility with immigration creates more problems, many feel uncomfortable with this and Ross to his credit openly explains this, it is discomforting to see your culture dying and being replaced by another who will take control of everything you worked to create and leaving no legacy. This chapter alone is worth a read.
2) later Ross explains how consumer culture and the internet have created a society where the far right and far left merely cosplay the fascism versus communism street violence of the 1930s. I'm not so sure of this. He wrote this just before the summer of Antifa rioting and the infamous day in January where some American citizens had the gumption to enter a building their tax dollars pay for. Ross contends we are too content to talk big and not take action. I don't believe this to be accurate as we see increasing political street violence.
3) Ross later talks about how Africa has seemingly escaped decadence. Africa continues to have high fertility, birth control is shunned, and Catholic missionary efforts have produced more Catholics in Africa then in Europe and Latin America. He also talks about Cardinal Robert Sarah, a french speaking black African prelate who was put on the map giving a homily in honor of the Vendee martyrs to a crowd of largely black catholics in France. Douthat argues that maybe in the coming years, the rejection of modern decadence by African societies will create a new ascendent order in the global south, something I really hope for.
Generally though, this is a pessimistic book, and it's really not well written.
I give it 2/5. Really I am not even interested in reviewing it and just pounded this out while waiting for steam to update so I can play civilization III. Because the decadent society means there's little social advancement over the last 50 years and therefore I'm going to go vegetate in 2005 for awhile.
Don't bother reading it. I'll be back in month to tell you about Napoleon.
In the meantime, I listened to the The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat and will quickly summarize it here.
Ross Douthat is the house conservative, chained in the basement of the New York Times. Best I can tell he's like the gimp in Pulp Fiction, he lives in the box until the Times needs a ridiculous column on missing White Anglo protestants ( Opinion | Why We Miss the WASPs - The New York Times (nytimes.com) ) or denouncing conservative protestors in lockstep with the media left. Ross is actually a decent thinker, but he needs to free himself from the chains of the Cathedral. In any instance I see no need to summarize his biography so we'll go on.
The Decadent society is a simple book based on a simple premise, America (and the west more broadly) is on a path of decline. While living standards are going up, revolutionary technology is going down, the elites of society are self interested, culture is degrading, and we are feeling the ferver of a country at civil war while only cosplaying it. Everything we knew already, please listen to the next eight hours of audiobook to know why.
Really the writing of this book is like a superlong version of Ross's columns, this is not a compliment, but I will focus on three things in this book that I think were inciteful.
1) Ross explores early in the book how falling birthrates and immigration impact society and culture. If Ross took just this chapter and made it into a column it would be a good one. Basically Ross explains how smaller families and less children lead to a decline in the larger culture, whereas previous generations had large networks of trusted relatives, having only two siblings and a handful of cousins leads one to feeling atomized and alone. In addition replacing the lost fertility with immigration creates more problems, many feel uncomfortable with this and Ross to his credit openly explains this, it is discomforting to see your culture dying and being replaced by another who will take control of everything you worked to create and leaving no legacy. This chapter alone is worth a read.
2) later Ross explains how consumer culture and the internet have created a society where the far right and far left merely cosplay the fascism versus communism street violence of the 1930s. I'm not so sure of this. He wrote this just before the summer of Antifa rioting and the infamous day in January where some American citizens had the gumption to enter a building their tax dollars pay for. Ross contends we are too content to talk big and not take action. I don't believe this to be accurate as we see increasing political street violence.
3) Ross later talks about how Africa has seemingly escaped decadence. Africa continues to have high fertility, birth control is shunned, and Catholic missionary efforts have produced more Catholics in Africa then in Europe and Latin America. He also talks about Cardinal Robert Sarah, a french speaking black African prelate who was put on the map giving a homily in honor of the Vendee martyrs to a crowd of largely black catholics in France. Douthat argues that maybe in the coming years, the rejection of modern decadence by African societies will create a new ascendent order in the global south, something I really hope for.
Generally though, this is a pessimistic book, and it's really not well written.
I give it 2/5. Really I am not even interested in reviewing it and just pounded this out while waiting for steam to update so I can play civilization III. Because the decadent society means there's little social advancement over the last 50 years and therefore I'm going to go vegetate in 2005 for awhile.
Don't bother reading it. I'll be back in month to tell you about Napoleon.