The Decadent Society

Ross Douthat's diagnosis of Western society's decadence — the stagnation, repetition, and failure to generate new ideas or achievements that characterizes early 21st-century Western civilization.

Decadence as civilizational diagnosis: Douthat argues that Western civilization has entered a period of decadence — not decline exactly, but stagnation and repetition. Evidence: scientific progress has slowed (Cowen's Great Stagnation), culture recycles its own past (remakes, reboots, revivals), politics is gridlocked, demographic decline accelerates. The decadent society is comfortable and safe but not dynamic. Douthat's own position: Catholic civilizationism, which makes his analysis both more culturally conservative and more attentive to spiritual dimensions than secular parallels.