A Short-Lived Luxury
Decadent societies are terminally ill and do not last. They are overtaken by lean and hasty nations that see their opportunity—like Goths contemplating the Roman settlements on the far side of the Danube, or Latin American crime lords eyeing American metropolises, or Chinese leaders developing space-based "defense" networks while America congratulates itself on its invincible ground and air forces. The chief decadence of decadent societies is their virtuosity in ignoring history and lying to themselves about their prospects.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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more on history from the online archives
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
more from the online archives
27.4—July/August 2014
The Bible, Sacred Theology & the Mind of Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
28.2—March/April 2015
Neo-Pagan Family Policies Doom Any Recovery by Allan C. Carlson
21.10—December 2008
Early Christian Teaching on the Incarnation & Redemption by Patrick Henry Reardon
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