June, 2018
June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 7)

Does Declinism Matter?

Rather than betting on declinism as an amorphous political force, we should take the hard route, the one that requires intellectual honesty. Perhaps, in the face of the huge challenges of climate change, or the various social injustices we’re still facing, it is useful to “scare straight” those who believe that nothing needs to change. But then, scaring straight has never been shown to be a particularly good strategy in law enforcement, either, and it might as well backfire.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 6)

The Political Uses of Declinism

There are many reasons, then, to be sceptical of declinism. Independent from its truth, however, there are the political uses and abuses of declinism. (I return to declinism in its general, not merely cultural, form here.) Here I find myself torn, similar to when I wrote about relativism. Relativists, I suggested, are wrong about morality; still, culturally, socially and politically I normally find tolerant, open-minded relativists more sympathetic than dogmatic, close-minded realists. The world would probably be better if everyone was a relativist than if everyone was a realist.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 5)

Specific Problems for Cultural Declinism

Let us move on to specific problems for cultural declinism. The following are, admittedly, a grab-bag of objections, some a bit experimental. Still, I have found, declinist attitudes more often than not run afoul of one or more of these various problems.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 4)

History and Psychology

There are two straight-forward attempts to refute declinism, in its cultural form or otherwise. The first is historical, the second is psychological. The historical argument simply points at the long history of doomsayers. Cultural decline has been constantly predicted and proclaimed—so why believe it now? Once you place declinism in its historical context, the thought goes, we can see it for what it is: a reflection of the particular anxieties of the here and now, but little supported by the evidence.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 3)

Understanding Cultural Declinism

The first problem is how we are to understand declinism. In particular, how should we formulate the central thesis of cultural declinism? And second, even more pressingly, how would we measure cultural decline? Outright numerical measurement is probably impossible, as it is unlikely that there is one commensurate scale on which we can assess the quality of cultural production and consumption.

Still, we would like there to be some way of determining cultural progress or decline, however rough. You do not need to suffer from the positivist misunderstanding that only what is measurable is real to think that an unclear notion of “cultural decline” undermines it as a thesis to be taken seriously. Here, however, cultural declinism—and mutatis mutandis, other forms of declinism—already encounter some important roadblocks. It’s useful to highlight some of them.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 2)

Types of Declinism

To get started on declinism, it’s useful to distinguish different versions of it. Some forms of declinism are just outright silly, as you have to discount lots of evidence to the contrary. Modern societies are by far richer, healthier, more populous, more scientifically knowledgeable, more technologically advanced, more peaceful, and more socially liberal than almost all societies in the past. (If we choose the appropriate time span of comparison—more on this later.) This is true, in most cases, whether we focus on the progress of individual societies or the world as a whole.

In the face of all this—easily measurable—progress, the category in which our societies are declining must be some other dimension.  This should already give us some pause. If our lives are getting worse, this must be, on many form of declinism, a case of starving amidst abundance. This starvation must be one of the mind, or of culture, or of communal bonds, or some such.

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June 9, 2018
Problems with Declinism (part 1)

Introduction

Impressive fictional histories of American decline have been assembled. They are fictional because they never happened. They are the predictions of a wide arsenal of historians, writers, and others who predicted America’s immediate, or at least slow and embarrassing, decline. Just as unrelenting optimism seems a crucial part of the American psyche, so is an apocalyptic declinism.

Declinism is not uniquely American, however. Britain, with its stinging memory of falling from the heights of Empire, has its own elegiac form of declinism, in which well-clad dons mutter about Britain’s brighter past. 71% of British respondents think the world is getting worse, only 5% that it is getting better. France has a “booming”, declinist “industry”. In the face of Muslim immigration to Europe, German right-wing populists also predict the immediate downfall of the Abendland.

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