Since our founding he is our media fellow to help coordinate some of our events in the more contentious events you have seen. We are super pleased ross is joining us today on the release of his latesthe book knowing is one of the most commentators on American Culture today he has written more than a few books at this point and to have the title how we became something. But today the format will be i will engage ross in a conversation about the book and to have the pleasureay of reading it with a conservative athe way things are but its nice to explore whats going on in our culture. Once we have exhausted each other we will open the conversation to the rest of you. There will be people here with microphones and they will approach you. Dont be alarmed and ross will engage you and i implore you the more time ross has to respond to the better for everybody. Just a nice pointed question. Thank youu for coming. [applause] it is called the decadent society with decadence. Thank you for coming in for doing this its really a pleasure to be back at cua in the situation where i am not moderating between the two embodiments of modern american conservativism as delightful as that was. I promised midway through we will have wrestlemania style faceoff and give people their moneys worth. So decadence, the conceit is lifted from a definition of 20 years ago wrote a book from dawn to decadence so to make the argument not in terms of catastrophic moral corruption and with those luxury goods and weekends at las vegas with the perks at the faculty lounge without outrageous stuff but as a clinical term that describes a civilization that has achieved a certain level of Wealth Development and proficiency to find it stuck that is the distillation so so to say that the decadence properly understood to stagnation and drift and reputation at a high level of civilization and then the argument is that this term very reasonably applies to america the west to encompass the pacific rim since the late sixties and early seventies and for the sake of convenience but then i start the book with the moon landing and as a particular peak of western achievement that is expected at the time not to be the peak but the opening to be a new frontier and instead it basically turned out that our capacities are more limited than we t hopedhati especially f once a wasnt a soviet threat to compete with them that ietered out and that frontier was closed and then we really entered into what i described as decadence. So those four indicators and the reputation and stagnation and political so if you want to talk about and then to exemplify it so political sclerosis is the one that i think is the one in the western world recognizes and agrees upon that over the last few generations it has become effectively to govern western countries and reform or transform or build government programs. So add an age it was possible to elect the president and have a Dramatic Program of reform from Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson down three Ronald Reagan has given way to an age when president s are lucky if they can passs one major piece of legislation across the presidency as obama did with obama care they may pay a politicaly price that last the duration and overall with various stalemates and without building clearle majorities in the United States and the increasing form of government that consists with the executive branch. So now there is a version of this that is a different version in europe with the European Union to advance to a point that it is too big to fail with all kinds of problems but the wild and crazy english could take the step of leaving with that fierce and populist that they dont plan to leave the eu but it creates all the economic problems but it can move forward or back but not shrink to that european superstate that they envisioned so they also have the stalemate. So this is what im describing is sclerosis. So thats the easy one. And is debatable and with economical stagnation and is not does forgoing that reality with that. Of Economic Growth with that spectacle pace of growth since the Great Recession of 2008 but overall with that lower growth rates compared to the norm with the seventies and those growth rates to achieve basically through that perpetual borrowing where you could get at 2 percent growth with massive deficits with four and a half percent growth that complained as massive deficits so in effect and to be more sustainable but as a rich society to pay itself to maintain a form of progress that fundamentals dont justify. Also with that technological stagnation and give us a walkthrough that. This is an argument i am stealing from a group of economists and noneconomists over the last ten years have made the case that in spite of the iphone in your pockets and all the resources of the internet and so this has been made about how we expected flying cars and illyrians into the future and instead we have 140 characters on twitter. So now there is no great stagnation now its 280. And Robert Gordon at the university of chicago has written ach sweeping 1000 page book and the point they all make is that its not that technological project one progress has ceased but breakthrough of communication and transmission and simulation and is more that Technological Progress is mono dimensional and its all tech and nothing else and agriculture even the built environment dont see the progress that we took for granted between 1840 and 1970. And further when Tech Companies leave the world of tech to revolutionize realworld industry those of the companies that often end up being the suppose it unicorns utter frauds or ailures that the attempt to bring big tech to bear to solve problems of how you conduct a blood test with a multibillion Dollar Company and to revolutionize office space so that piece of the stagnation puzzle is progress ceased but along a particular dimension that feeds back into the larger pattern because it leaves people to spend more time in Virtual Reality and simulation. S of economic activities. You are getting a kindf indicator by which to identify. What might count as counter indicators in other words, signs of life that they would engage in. One of the indicators to suggest we are not in fact looking through the period of immense technological transformation of measurement to try to get at how technology isl affecting the way people work has been stagnant in the initial flush of the revolution there was in factol a surge of productivity growth in the developed world from lets say 1996 to 2001 so that suggests there was this brief window where there was a sense of possibility of dramatic growth returning to. It is a non decadent exception that didnt have the cascading effect. The defining feature of the democracy in the western world. American conservatives especially like to say because america has retained a more dynamic economy than western europe, its not sort of a socialist and its maintained a inrtain amount of optimism in the future and intense religious practice. Thats why the birth rate is still above replacement and we are a country oriented towards the future in a way that france or sweden or japan or not. So in that sense the United States wasnt decadent as long as the birth rate was exceptional. We are now indistinguishable from the fertility levels, so those were two good examples of how its not undermined attempts to creatundermine theattempt toc understanding of decadence there are things that could have been in have happened that would be an decadence and if it would happen it would be counted at least as a shift, a change. But the other poin point id mas that it is not i am not trying to examine each of these as a sort of force existing on their own. Every society has some decadence in it. Whats to think of the moment is the way these forces are convergingce so that slow econoc growth feeds political unhappiness and distrust which makes it harder to pass effective political programs that slows Economic Growth further and then drives down birth rates to cause people dont feelt like they have the economic capacity to have kids which in turn makes the societies more risk adverse which makes it hard to make political changes. Fut there is a h sort of convergence of these forces that makes our moment more decadent, not fully decadent whatever that was thwould mean, but more decat than the periods in the past that only had one of these forceses at work. Great. Talk about how we became the victims of our success. It is something i wonder at times it could be the United States and it could be the west or Something Like that and at times it seemed global in terms of your description. But i wonder whether expanding it to include more and more people who might be the victims of success leading to decadence it might be exclusive and exclude certain communities who might say we are not in the age of decadence. We are an age of prosperity or a sentence. Think of there is more and more representation. How inclusive is the point and in thinking about that analysis. I guess i will work backwards. So, take the case study of africanamerican. I think, and this is of course a highly debatable proposition, but i think that there was more progress for African Americans and American Life in the period running from 1940 to the moon landing or 1980 1980, take a ped like that. Then there has been in the period sends and i think africanamericans have participated as im describing it. They are particularly low with the current moment and with the election as a dramatic breakthrough if you look at the gaps in the racial Household Wealth and the reformers that are interested in the equal of the indian changing you get a lot more change in a lot ofet those cases and in the civil rights in particular but the whole great migration. In a socioeconomic way there is a participation in decadence, and i think it is a little more of an open question an questione are obviously in certain ways theres been a big increase in africanamerican representation in pop culture and cinema, but i also think sometimes that is overstated and there is a little bit of forgetting these paths if you go back to the 1980s the biggest stars in america at that moment were africanamericans. A. Of the ris. The rise of the pope figure really beats to the 60s, 70s and 80s and we are getting a sort of further cycle but its not a complete novelty. So, that to the larger sense, the questions the book raises and doesnt answer is is it a western developed phenomenon or a global phenomenon. And i think that i feel very confident in arguing that there is some kind of the celebration and . Stagnation japan, south korea, the United States and western europe share in common. A harder question is what is happening in the countries that we still call developing. What is happening with the rising cover of the world, china, india and so on and you could make the case the decadence of the west is what is going to enable them on decadent developing world to develop in some sense test us when we talk about the pacific or asian century. That sort of implicit. At the same time i think there are ways in which if youti lookt for instance if you look at the demographics. The demographics of china is in the same low fertility trap and there are ways the u2 could see china is converging with the west. There is a bit of convergence and oligarchy is the billionaires compete this is sort of convergence in the low fertility oligarchy at the higher rates of wealth in the past that isnt the case of china leapfrogging past us and obviously what is happening in the coronavirus it raises a further host of questions that we can talk about in the apocalyptic portion of the evening. Another thing that i enjoyed about your book was it wasnt an end of the book. It doesnt say that they are in this decadent society and its only a matter of time before it is over. It is the kind of sustainable decadence. It sounds like a bumper sticker. One of the claims the book makes people hear the word of decadence and have the idea that they are sort of an iron logic of history once you become decadence, you are doomed and the absolute cliche versionnt of this is the writing on the wall, the babylonian palace or, you know, all the barbarians sweeping in and so on. In fact, i make the argument i think it is true decadence is a very normal condition for successful societies and empires and civilizations to fall into and once they do it can lead to collapse. But it can also lead to, you know, a kind of sustainable very long time. However you want to chart the decadence of this 400 years from the caligula moment to the actual full of road. However you want to chart the decadence of the chinese empire down through the 18th and early 19th century. These are long historical. Periods where prosperous and powerful societies in hindsight of decadence without them being tipped over into a crisis and collapse. And in certain ways, that is a more pessimistic vision for the future in the sense that i think theres an appeal to the idea that once you are decadent you are also doomed. There is a sense that some level people want history to follow a kind of morality play even if they dont want to actually be caught up themselves. And i quote at the start of the book saying Something Like im going to mean. Actually i dont have to. The book is right here. That is so convenient. So, he says what fascinates and terrifies us about the roman empire is not that it finally went to smash but that it managed to last for four centuries without creativity, warmth or hope. So, that is the dark version of the sustainable decadence. But, lets qualify it by saying that actually those four centuries that rome lasted under the decadence would especially from the point of view of, you know, the fac, this is the founo this university come in the period of dynamic change from within as there was a sort of development is very much i a no decadent religious faith edit and save the roman empire that did Carry Forward roman elements into the future down to the present day. I think you can imagine those that reinvigorate the civilization and the removal under decadence to create the best of our own legacy and that is the optimistic case that in fact decadence has its virtues. Theree are alternatives that are worse than the lives we have now and its not necessarily a horrible burdenn but as somethig that is not ideal but potentially a gift because it still leaves room for creativity, readable and paths back to dynamism and flourishi flourishing. I did not anticipate a. In the exceptionalism if you havent read it, i apologize for spoiling it. Ways of envisioning or imagining some sort off replenishment. My basic view is if you are thinking about the vulnerabilities of the civilization, the vulnerabilities of europe are starker van hours and in part thats because europe is more advanced on a statistical decadence indicators with lower birth rates for a long period of time. Theyve had relatively stagnant growth compared to us for a period of time but they are also more vulnerable in the sense that europe sits in the middle of the world where the United States has always had its splendid isolation and europe is in a pretty deeply unstable week with the freedom not only as people often think with islam in the middle east but also the current exception to demographic decadence which is the m contint of africa. So, we are headed for a scenario basically where europe used to have more peopleen than africa will potentially by 2075 or so have 500 million in africa could have 3. 5 billion. And one way or another it doesnt seem like tha the kind f equilibrium will hold so you can totally pessimistic story, one that i think ado lot of conservative and reactionary types tend to tell where europe will try to build a fortress against mass migration of the fortress will fail and there will be sort of migrant further details as far as the eye can see that you can also tell an optimistic story which is the ones that i was raising my referencing roman catholicisms most famous african cardinal and the sort of image of wauconda and black panther come to futurism that as a sort of interesting appeal in the decadent west as examples, with examples because they are not examples, they are more suggestions of what a more successful confrontation between europe as it is and will become in whatever africa is going to become and could play out. So, in that sense, there are some examples of how the places where the decadent civilization may seem more vulnerabl vulnerae the places that in thisla timele offer the most hope for renewal. And i quote him giving and giving a sermon about the murders. So it is a sort of fascinating example of a very conservative traditionalist Roman Cardinal from Africa Talking at a sort of monument to the catholic dead of the french revolution and affect sort of trying to call europe back to the ancestral faith while also building bridges to increasingly christian and reasonably Catholic Africa and what comes of that i dont know, but i think that its sort of an example of how history could presentt an expert at syntheses that you wouldnt have all anticipated up 30 or 40 years ago. And on the subject, you seem to be, it is a reasonable argument to make that what we are seeing is a kind of long playing out over time. But you do also think through the apocalyptic and today your column talked about the virus as a kind of test case that you had an anticipated in the thesis in your book. I didnt anticipate it happening while i was literally promoting the book. I figured we could have some sustainable decadence for the book to her, and then does stephethestephen kings scenariod get. Yeah, i dont think the virus is the thing that ends our decadence, but it is an example of how unexpected events were not completely, this isnt completely unexpected global pathogeglobalpathogen in certaie most predictable thing on the list of potential model transformers. But, you know, its something that can hit the weak points in the decadent society. So you know, its the fact that under decadence as i was saying our government clearly doesnt work particularly well to the publi, thepublic clearly doesna lot of trust in public institutions. You have had a certain amount of naivete and the wave o in the we western world is exported part of its Industrial Base and become so dependent in their supply chains on china, a country that in certain ways seems to be headed towards a more stable authoritarianism but in certain ways could be vulnerable to totally unexpected turmoil, evenn revolution. So, in a way, yeser i mean i wouldnt say i would describe the virus as a kind of stress test for decadence. And i dode think its actually quite serious and you should all a weeks worth of canned goods in your home, that, too. How is it a stress test, is it because the decadent society will not be capable of responding in an adequate way or the stress test i think, i mean again, we will be capable of responding to it in an imperfect but fundamentally adequate way. But i dont think it is guaranteed, and i think it puts pressure on precisely the institutions that under decadence are least functional and most vulnerable to outside stress. What i said in the column and i will repeat it here you have this effective stalemate in western politics between, you know, some sort of centrist establishment that believe to really intensely in the globalization and sort of the promise of the early 21st century and that has i think it is fair to say ms. Governed western world in various ways. And that has conjured up this populist response. The populist response seems perpetually unready to actually govern the country. So the virus you could say is a threat that on the one hand is not consciously accepted baby in a providential way of exploiting the mistakes of the establishment, the mistake of saying its fine to have all of your supply chains go overseas. Its fine to manufacture your own antibiotics domestically. We are not going to go to war with china and so on. Its fitting that sort of naivete but then its also hitting the fact that we come at the establishment isnt running for the populist is running the government and that means we have acting department of homelandpu security had testimoy today and donald trump, write, say what you will about donald trump, you would think that the populist got elected talking about how we need to police the borders and be tough on china would be the man for this hour. But, trumper has not make you know, he seems convinced that he can sort of talk to markets in two home instead of actually acting like a german folk nationalist which might be the thing America Needs right now. [laughter] very good. Very good. One of the four indicators does seem poised to respond to this or i think at least both of us are anticipating it and that is technology. I think that we assume the one area of technology that is going to be responsive to this, so while we are not exploring the stars with human beings in the wh anticipated, you know, all of us i think more of us take for granted that probably by the summertime there will be some kind of medical response to this and if the summertime it will be shortly after that because thats what they expect. And i think that is reasonable and a counterpoint to some of these arguments that its not just that i would put it this way. I dont think that we necessarily expect an incredibly Effective Public Health response. I dont think we necessarily expect a sort of governmental side, but we do expect there to be at some point in vaccine. I think that is an expectation that we have and that has been weve effectively come closer. We have sort of managed past the threats like this one not always with a vaccine but, you know, even the last great plague aids was eventually not dealt with, but at least sort of responded to with some effectiveness. So i agree there hasnt been. One way to put it, that hasnt been the kind of incredibly dramatic medical breakthroughs that the prior round of breakthroughs led us to expect when nixon declared war on cancer and we have slowly made some progress against cancer. The same goes with alzheimers into thand the array of chronic illnesses. There have been some slow progress and than theres been some specific progress on the rare conditions that is dramatic and there is an effective effece response is, effective respons responses. And in that sense i would agree there is its not full decadence to put it that way. If it were for decadence, we should not expect a vaccine and i think that we reasonably do. Theres there is a lot in thm of technology. Even the way in which i think your book assumes in the Technological Progress measured a good but notis to have it becomes a kind of marker. There are ways Technological Progress and decadence that would be in fact very dark. There is a sort of trans humanist, posthuman scenario that as a catholic i would oppose it under my definitions would count as an escape. So in that sense, it is and that all progress is good. But i guess what i do think is that society that we have built up is a society that expects and depends on the progress and its hard to imagine getting back to the society where that is not a big part of what is expected and so on. So, id dont think, as much asi find a certain kind of agrarian perspective and appealing in certain ways, i dont think there is a kind of pasota robles window retreat from then modern world. There is for some people and communities but not for the culture in the world. In that sense i think that the alternatives are succeeding in finding new ways to grow or stagnating rather than finding the arcadia again. Let me ask two more questions before we turn to the audience for questions and comments. So, what are some you entertain the alternatives. The liberal democracy this is what is happening there is that a response to this or a re envisioning of society or is it Something Else . My take is that both the revival of socialism embodied by the figures as the likely next democratic nominee for that nights debate and Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbin or others and the kind of populist nationalist democracy mixture on the right responsive. They are sort of summoned up as rebellions against stagnation. So they are basically saying yoh know, what we took a wrong turn in the 60s and 70s. We took the wrong turn with reagan and thatcher and we can get back to the more utopian perspective on what the government can do. Very least scandinavian utopia that may be something beyond that. It is a future slogan saying we want to get back there in the future and there is a future that we were promised that they have not been given a death we sent to achieve again. In that same, they are both kind of alternatives to the stewardship of decadence. Michael bloomberg, jeb bush, to some extent barack obama bought media for campaign but barack obama that governor mitt romney they arthey are all sort of prog liberal or conservative politics and stewardship of the Service Technician in a sanders and trump theyre all in different ways saying we can do Something Different to do something better. That said i have some skepticism about how far this could go. I think one, as i said once the populist state power and, and the same would be true for socialists, they are constrained by their own limitations and larger Structural Forces that make it hard to pursue the change even if you want it. That existed 20 years ago and today it is a one party situation that resembles mexico across 20th century or japan more than it represents mussolini italy so its a democracy that is a real democracy so it is a normal social conservativism of the post seventies and liberalism has obviously changed so a standard conservativism can look more exotic from where progressive seem to be going im just not completely sure that you see the return of history alternative is a slightly more conservative in ways that i like or dont like version of the existing late modern democratic order once you crowned the keying in hungary and have these places reaching for a different source of legitimacy, even putinto pretends to be add democrats multi and maybe in the Sanders Campaign if they intervene russian interference humor but there are still elections in russia. And there are certain kinds of freedoms and there is a lip service to democracy and hes not crowning himself and is not destroying the romanovs. So it seems to me you cannot declare a post liberal world until you have powerful and important governments claiming some sort of legitimacy is not just a version of the normal liberal democratic view. But i could be wrong. The final question is it starts with the moon and ends with the stars. I would be a bad question on christian if i didnt. And that the book ends with hope that faith can provide hope for people so is that the argument more or less that was at the root of the decadent society that it is a hopeless society . Because that is a theme i would love to see and not believing. But i have written two books about religion and to become a little more sheepish. [laughter] but i think but to go back to the loss the decadent Society Faces and that implicit the loss that it faces is a loss of confidence in this is part of a story with a particular destination. And it is a religious idea and other books i make the argument that basically society cannot escape to have a religious impulse. So that is true in this case. The more specific thing i want to claim is that we should be cognizant for those of us who are religious believers and Catholic Christians should be cognizant if we are in an interesting point in theis story and it starts from a christian perspective with the admonition to fill the earth and to do it. And for better or worse with that environmentalrs catastrophes along the way, we have done that. And from a christian perspective that prior hinge moment came when there was not a true world empire but seemed empire that had similarly had a republican. Entering the imperial. And that is when god entered the world. And mrs. An interesting moment of world civilization is an interestingas moment. So what i draw is not just the idea that we need our recovery of faith and religious revival. And that force pushing againstha decadence but then to become a little more speculative maybe just a christian revival may be that strong that that thing is figuring out a way to leap into the stars and to say that it doesnt give enough to the reasons we cant build a warp drive. But then they filled this one place they dont know if we can go further but there is a huge universe out there and we are supposed to go further or maybe this is a moment when its not us going up but something unexpected coming down. The strange place it is justified and to reach that moment of human achievement if you believe the human story has a purpose in a direction then you would expect an interesting plot twist to come along not now been the next 200 years. The lectern. Roach if you have questions raise your hand. So you mentioned decadence with disaster apocalypse and the radicalization of politics with Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbin but how will this end up . Are reliving in First Century rome or 1780 in paris . My bet is that its more First Century rome than a century paris so what we are talking about but it applies to the desire to the alive spirit of the french revolution and the desire that is hard too meet in a society thats rich and old and stagnant and relatively stable. My expectation is you could put a socialist in the white house and it would not be the french revolution by the leftwing version of the struggles the Trump Administration has had to enact much of the legislative agenda. Ac so in that sense i disagree a little bit with my friends that has that cultural progressivism and reducing christians. I do think that cultural progressivism in certain environments but there are some limiting principles in this in certain ways are more likely that the secularism of today is neither as vigorous or dangerous that murdered nuns in the french revolution and the christianity of today is neither as vigorous or as dangerous as the Catholic Reaction the 19th century. So we are beating at each other with weak fists. And that is happening online im not convinced its about to break out into dramatic revolutionary chaos. That nicholas and alexander russia. And that guillotine and to say we weremy to decadent. And for that presentation and that was apropos and to speak at this university and also spoke at my university and common good capitalist. And the virtues notwithstanding how does that fit in with that alternative that is proposed now with the financial lies redistributionist thinking of the left . Full disclosure with some caveats to basically support some version of that. So to the extent different ways like senator rubio and josh holly of missouri to put more policy meet on the bones i am very interested in that and going back to books i wrote when i had more hair. And those virtues of that program to push back against those specific features as decadence so it contains the efforts of pro family policy and to stability and has that emphasis of industrial policy and funding for research that gets us back if not the Manhattan Project but the interstate highway. So the promise of that agenda is that it is a goal to build up political majority and not just one of these 47 plus one political coalitions to Exchange Power in politics and arguably over the last ten years. The clearest way out of political decadence of a stalemate and gridlock in washington dc and to win landslides and rubios goal is how do you take existing conservativism to make it middle and workingclass americans so to that is not just the White Working Class conservativism that donald trump has managed to rally so i am favorably disposed and with populism and socialism both. And that is very hard and then to achieve that much. And to be supportive of those efforts and to be realistic about their prospects because a lot of us involved in conservative policy in the late 2000s and early 2010 had this idea that we were building the incrementalist reform agenda that jeb bush would embrace in 2016 and rice to victory buton instead trump cameme along and adopted those ideas in a very different way to blow it up and destroy my preconceptions so i would like to see a Republican Party led by holly and rubio and is quite possible that future of the Republican Party isy an endless battle to john trump and yvonne that we should be prepared for that. T. But that cant solve that decadence. But those that you are describing with those limited principles and that ingenuity of what we can do that seems to be beyond our capacity to form policies. I will be more optimistic that. My basic assumption is that to really get us out of decadence the rubio approach to need more disjunctive events with that development we are looking for and that innovation that even now is prepared to push radical change and in that sense the answer is yes. And now that decadence takes more and its not a either or you can mitigate decadence. And it was temporary but really did create a non decadent window on window in the american economy. And with the iliad line there is the rest is not our business with human ingenuity that yes we can hit up against how long we can extend human lives and you space travel and so on but its not a feeling but a bottleneck. And to shoulder your way through of the unexpected of range of innovations on the other side. Is not all pessimism. So going back to the discussion if decadence is a western a global phenomeno phenomenon, look at the world 50 years ago with tremendous disparities between the western world and the rest of the world. To have all of these barriers to transportation communication and this is a true decadence question. Can the case be made that maintaining and that growth and that is a significant achievement. That case can be made. And then to have a suitably dramatic name that basically makes the case that we should not expect that you develop it is unreasonable expect them to achieve dramatic growth anymore they are as rich as they can ge get. We have resource constraints only so far we can go in there for our goal should be convergence want to get india and china to get to as close to the gdp as we can get. And then to be comfortable with the current frontier the best you can do with 2 percent growth and with those deficits that the richss can maintain those deficits and thats a great achievement. And i think it is worth taking seriously in the book. If it really is the case for certain technological feelings and that we will not invent the warp drive that we should not totally be unhappy with that scenario. O. That being side on that being said there is a tendency for that reason ability to become a council of course i despair. And we just have to accept the limits on the imagination. And increasingly to one side and also the aspect of decadence that we have talked a little less butct where and that brave new world scenario even under those conditions are under a real peril. And not the gulags but where peoples horizons are narrow and you will have small families because you dont want a Carbon Footprint and you dont have wide kinship networks and then the next thing you know you are right it is territory and that is why. I dont think we are there but there are elements in society that we have online pornography that is a substitute for real life romance, sex and marriage. And then with that sustainable decadence and that people trying to be fertile and creative but then you can drift along way with the brave new worldmu endpoint. And then you wake up one day and you are hooked up. But you know what im saying. How does as decadence analysis apply to the Catholic Church today and what is the response to the present decadence . Qu so you can see this argument with the last book for those of you that missed it was the analysis of the controversies in the church. And then to end up fairly critical with the holy father and then arguing that some of the changes that people around him were pushing for our a dramatic with a potential to create schisms down the road but this is the qualifier of the analysis but the two and half years since i wrote the book it is more powerful but as a conservative who was doubtful as some of the reforms but im rooting for decadence with that stalemate rather than a sweeping liberalization but that is a pending events in germany. If not francis himself to have that to reform agenda and then to push forward but then beyond that whether homosexuality or samesex blessings and then with celibacy in the priesthood and then each time the holy father backs off so return that the Catholic Church is very clearly decadent in various ways and then to adapt and in some type of slowmotion decline and decadence seems like even the francis pontificate has ended up as what the church should be doing it is a tricky question for the hierarchy for people for the bishop or the archbishop supervising theer church a city or region from on high is under conditions of decadence throw yourselves into revolution or transformation it may fail or make things worse there is a understandable desire for as long as it digs on exists. But that inr turn makes it that much more important for catholic institutions who have the capacity to be adaptable to think more what it looks like from within and to take the roaming case study with the roman Catholic Church with the renewal as the christians in this imperial context and its not quite like that in the sense of what some twitter accounts occasionally argue it will not necessarily persecute but there is still a sense that you try to breathe life into an institution from within and i would just give you one american example context. What does the American Church need right now . A lot of things but maybe a missionary order capable of treating significant and that is something as a newspaper columnist that there are people who are in a position potentially toop do that and to become the Catholic Diocese to meet to the order where you have threepiece coming in to living in the oratory handling seven parishes with the diocese itself fails to generate patience that is just one example but you are not trying to save the whole structure and also not to abandon the structure in dynamic ways even amid the decay. Im old enough to remember we wandered around the neighborhood and we didnt oowear helmets and thats just meant to be a tiny metaphor if they are just extremely riskaverse . Thats not a tiny metaphor but that gets to one of the core questions but teenage life in america is safer than it has ever been to spider predators on the streets and pedophiles on the internets if you look ats drinking driving and marijuana or other form of drug use and teen pregnancy and all the substance of 1000 rock n roll songs, everything is safer than when i was a kid and even safer two years apart in age. And literally people have this argument on twitter the other day and to circulate the aversion so the only thing kids are doing more of his playing call of duty and then to be in favor of call of duty you knew it would come back. [laughter] there is something about the spirit of the place that is not a sufficient analysis but also they are somewhat more dedepressed and anxious and suicide rates have gone up more steeply as other indicators have improved and beyond that we will see how things look in ten years but it seems the anxious iphone using teens that have trouble in the past generations forming meaningful relationships how to figure out how to pair off and that seems to be the crucial decadence tradeoff to have more safety and stability in many ways than in 1969 that is what conservatives wanted and said there has been a terrible collapse the dynamism of the baby boom generation was destructive so we need a recovery of stability but that could feel more like a sickness than fruitfulness so what came out once upon a time in hollywood is a portrait in many ways cultural conservatives with that sexual revolution reaching its peak and then the moment where the manson family shows up and people are murdered in the dark seventies began. But its exciting to watch that. To see how young and vibrant the america that tarantino conjures up seems to be and the theme of the book in the sense i am a cultural conservative in certain ways nostalgic for a certain degree of chaos and find myself to my own surprise referring to a stability that doesnt seem to have real fruitfulness about it. Thank you. You referred to a number of artworks so i am curious to reflect on the relationship and if i could preempt that i am thinking of the decadence movement and the way that it raises a very confident and overconfident to sees itself as the rejection or critique with that confidence andnd progress. So if im right there isnt a one one correlation what kind of art might we expect or hope or dread rising in a decadent culture . Under my definition this is the eccentric claim to make they werent really decadent in the sense they were over right and highly us to decide is and that 69 in American Culture with that transgression so they felt they were in the fact renewing with that late victorian moment. I dont thank you really have that in the arts and that transgressive miss that conservatives have reached the endpoint to give way to that early adolescence culture and my impression of where cinema has ended up in a space that is perpetually 14 years old not childish leaving childhood behind we always come to your powers with adolescent angst but never move on to adulthood but there h is no sex or real romance it is scary adulthood and you never quite get there. And in the same way what is distinctive in the hierarchy that the retreat from cultural significance i dont think i enough ofrsed contemporary painting i dont think i am completely equipped to comment on the aesthetic quality of certain areas of the hierarchy. And that place in society has shrunk and what has taken their place with a very well educated to go to the opera to sustain with the algorithmic entertainment context. It is pretty good every netflix show was pretty good. But it is in its own way to do the same thing over and over again. I feel like the moment of the golden age of tv like i see the internet boom there was a a moment when a bunch of figures could create and then that echoed the cinema of the seventies but now just the algorithm is creating television entertainment. And the ways that we are in a period of repetition and that on creativity. Something like the internet has not had the expect that people expected to homogenize things further but the promise of the internet now im old enough to look back on a set of big newspapers you have bloggers set of huge pop stars you would have 1 Million People playing the guitar and that exist in the way that they use ticktock and youtube didnt exist but in terms of cultural production to be a consolidating force so now you have a few big newspapers like mine doing well but even small or midsized recording artist. And to be more eccentric figures with commercial viability so it is pushed in different ways towards that marvelous nation of culture i enjoy the marvel movies but they do seem to represent the aversion of the repetition that im talking about in the book. Thank you spirit the book is fantastic. And then to be sophisticated. Im glad to hear you have goals in your life. [laughter] and to live in a decadent society. We are really grateful joining us its a privilege to have you here please stay for the reception. [applause] [inaudible conversations]