Arthur Herman, The Idea of Decline in Western History. Originally published in 1997, but there is a 2010 edition. It is an intellectual history, somewhat sprawling and tangled. I get the sense that the book should have made more of a splash than it did, and that I should have come across it sooner.
He draws a distinction between what he calls “historical pessimism” and “cultural pessimism.” I think of it in terms of the REM anthem, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” Both types of pessimists agree with the first phrase, and the cultural pessimists add the last four words. They want to see the world end so that they can create it anew. I think there is a pretty obvious link between cultural pessimism and the religion that is animated by finding and persecuting heretics.
Non-pessimists these days would be people like Matt Ridley or Steven Pinker. Many conservatives are historical pessimists, who fear for the fragility of civilization.
Arnold, off topic, but I think you will be interested in this. I can explain why the U.S prime age lfpr has fallen over the last two decades even though it has risen elsewhere.
Also, why business investment has been low and the fall in the labor share.
The article is called Skill Stalagmites, Technology Stalactites and can be found here https://seekingalpha.com/article/4361570-skill-stalagmites-technology-stalactites
I’ve split the article into two parts: the first part provides an overview, the second part is the full version. Follow the link at the bottom of the article to get to the full version.
I read his How the Scotts Invented the Modern World and Everything In It and was impressed so thank you for the top on something else of his to follow up with.
Speaking of decline calls for some Swinburne:
Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands
And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves
Rain-rotten in rank lands,
Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves
And grass that fades ere any of it be mown;
And when thy bosom is filled full thereof
Seek out Death’s face ere the light altereth,
And say “My master that was thrall to Love
Is become thrall to Death.”
Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan.
But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;
For haply it may be
That when thy feet return at evening
Death shall come in with thee.
The Herman book on decline brings out the deep negativity or nihilism of progressivism, which utterly devalues all that exists in order to support an eschatological vision of utopia.
Here’s a presentation on the book by Arthur Herman himself
C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?79768-1/the-idea-decline-western-history
YouTube
https://youtu.be/ndYN43usxJk?t=210
23 years was a long time ago. Herman now is a booster for the Trump administration’s economic nationalism and pivot against China trade, especially in terms of domestic sourcing for the defense and technology industrial sectors.
When he writes about current events, see here, he now often, well, “expresses concern about national decline”.
A recent one was “Riots, Looting and America Burning — The End of the Progressive Dream”, and another was a comment about whether the US could launch DDay again today, the implied answer to which, based on his argument, was probably not.
See, there are two kinds of ideas of decline, and they are not the same at all, even though he tried to make that connection in the book.
One kind of decline idea is failure to maintain, it says, “we needed to do certain difficult things to flourish and be powerful, and we are no longer doing those things, so we are getting weak and culturally sick.” If you stop exercising and dieting, you will get unhealthy.
The other idea is more along the lines of side-effect alarmism, “it turns out what we were doing was profoundly toxic and harmful all along, we are weak and getting even sicker. And if we keep doing it, especially if we keep increasing it, we will doom ourselves. So we must rip up the rotten structure from its foundations and make a new start on a better, healthier, more just footing.”
On the one hand, you could have people lament the loss of our industrial capacity, like Herman now does. On the other hand you have radical environmentalists like the unabomber who say that industrialization was and continues to be the problem, and the solution is getting rid of it.
Unlike what the old Herman implied, those two views are not really manifestations of the same thing after all.
Yes, I’m sure “decline due to a failure to maintain” is different than the “decline due to bad side-effects, like pollution”.
These are related to Arnold’s “historical” and “cultural” declines, but both are more oriented to the historical.
The cultural is more related to the oft-discussed “moral decline” :
“we used to accord status to virtues like honesty, modesty, loyalty & fidelity, but now we give status to rebels who are more cool, and not so virtuous.” For myself, I’d add “far more promiscuous than virtuous”.
Whenever promiscuous cultures compete with non-promiscuous, the less promiscuous culture is more likely to win / do better.
The REM song is great, but often reminds me of the Supertramp album cover to Crisis? What Crisis?
https://socialbydesign.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/2421135485_de8cc56203.jpg?w=594
Historical, pollution side-effect decline.
On the cultural decline, while the deluded utopists “feel fine” about the decline, in order to do a more greenfield new development, there are many conservatives who see that cultural decline and are dismayed. Sad. Angry?
(Angry enough to vote for Trump? 62 million probably yes)
There’s also the ever-relevant note about how the kids today don’t respect their elders, etc. Much like Archie Bunker might complain. But it was written to be generally relevant, and seems relevant every year – written by Plato.
Finally, Herman’s book had some bad facts, early – so many reviewers probably decided to pass on it. No surprise it had such a small impact.
https://www.enotes.com/topics/idea-decline-western-history-arthur-herman