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
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
more from the online archives
34.1—January/February 2021
What the World Needs Now It Hardly Knows by Anthony Esolen
16.5—June 2003
on the Importance of Fathers to Churchgoing by Robbie Low
33.1—January/February 2020
Do You Know Your Child’s Doctor?
The Politicization of Pediatrics in America by Alexander F. C. Webster
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