The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims

The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat

• The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success
• Ross Douthat
• Page: 272
• Format: pdf, ePub, mobi, fb2
• ISBN: 9781476785240
• Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Download The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

Free ebook download pdf The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success in English 9781476785240 by Ross Douthat

Overview

From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a powerful portrait of how our turbulent age is defined by dark forces seemingly beyond our control Today the Western world seems to be in crisis. But beneath our social media frenzy and reality television politics, the deeper reality is one of drift, repetition, and dead ends. The Decadent Society explains what happens when a rich and powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of “sustainable decadence,” a civilizational languor that could endure for longer than we think. Ranging from our grounded space shuttles to our Silicon Valley villains, from our blandly recycled film and television—a new Star Wars saga, another Star Trek series, the fifth Terminator sequel—to the escapism we’re furiously chasing through drug use and virtual reality, Ross Douthat argues that many of today’s discontents and derangements reflect a sense of futility and disappointment—a feeling that the future was not what was promised, that the frontiers have all been closed, and that the paths forward lead only to the grave. In this environment we fear catastrophe, but in a certain way we also pine for it—because the alternative is to accept that we are permanently decadent: aging, comfortable and stuck, cut off from the past and no longer confident in the future, spurning both memory and ambition while we wait for some saving innovation or revelations, growing old unhappily together in the glowing light of tiny screens. Correcting both optimists who insist that we’re just growing richer and happier with every passing year and pessimists who expect collapse any moment, Douthat provides an enlightening diagnosis of the modern condition—how we got here, how long our age of frustration might last, and how, whether in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.

More eBooks: [Pdf/ePub] A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson download ebook here, {pdf download} Igneous Rocks and Processes: A Practical Guide by Robin Gill, Godfrey Fitton, Robin Gill, Godfrey Fitton link, Read online: Taste of Home Ultimate Chicken Cookbook: Amp up your poultry game with more than 362 finger-licking chicken dishes by Taste of Home read book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy by David Corn, David Corn on Audiobook New download link, [PDF EPUB] Download Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky Full Book download link,