I am joe and the executive director. The institute here has been here for over three years now. An important member of the institute, things are since our founding, hes been our media fellow and help coordinate some of our events. So far more pretentious event you may have seen, ross was involved in. [laughter]. But anyway we are super pleased that ross is joining us today anything of the day of the really of his latest book. All of you know ross is one of the most important commentators American Culture today the rights of course the New York Times opinion page is written more than a few bucks at this point and they seem to all at least a couple of them is how we became something right. [laughter]. Ross you might want to steer clear that racing is on point. Host anyway today in the format will be i will engage ross in conversation about the book prayed and i had the pleasure of reading it and it really is an interesting book. In my judgment not the sort of typical conservative bring on the way things are but takes a nice tact to explore what is going on in our culture. Once he and i have exhausted each other, we will then open up the conversation to the rest of you so there will be people here with microphones so if you have a question please raise your hand and they will approach you and dont be alarmed in the major question and ross will engage you. And of course, as i always do, important, i am sure you to phrase the question of people, the more time ross has to respond the better for everybody so dont make a speech if you can avoid that if possible just a nice pointed question okay. Again thank you all for coming. [applause]. Ross lets begin, the book is called the decadent society so what is decadent in the book. Ross thank you all so much for coming. Joe thank you so much for doing this print it is a pleasure to be back at here in a situation where i am not moderating between the two embodiments. It is doomed like full as that was, i have promised the midway through, we will have some sort of wrestlemania style faceoff. [laughter]. And give people the moneys worth. So decadent, basically the book they can see around decadent since lifted from a definition offered about 20 years ago of the term by the great cultural critic who wrote a book called from dawn to decadence. And he made the argument that we should think of decadence not in terms of sort of just capistrano moral to instructional in terms of luxury goods in weekends in las vegas, the perks the faculty lounge heres the way and that kind of outrageous stuff but as a kind of clinical term that describes civilization that is achieved a certain level of wealth in development and proficiency. And prices have an effect stuck. Without clear lines of advance. The tip of formal way of putting it. It stuck is the columnist distillation. So the book, is to basically say that decadence, properly understood refers to stagnation drift and repetition and a high level of civilizational development. In the argument is this turmeric very recently by soup america in the west, developed world encompassing of the specific ram sense the 19th of the late 1960s or 70s, and for you know, the sake of convenience, but also i think for the sake of what it evokes. I start the book with the moon landing as this kind of particular peak of american and western achievement was expected at the time to beat nonpeak but beginning the opening of in the phrase, a new frontier and instead it turned out that our capacities were more limited than we hoped and space a tiny bit bigger and colder and less especially once there was not a soviet threat to compete with so the space age sort of petered out and that frontier was closed and at that point, weve really entered into what i am describing as decadence. Joseph reported areas, that they were in a period of decadence preview deemed a few of them, repetition, stagnation, economic and technological stagnation. Political, corrosive this, i think is one and sterility. Tell me and talk about one of those in a similar fight. As you do the book for those who have not read about it. Ross the easiest one to start with his political sclerosis. That is when i think that everyone in the western world and especially the u. S. , recognizes an agreedupon that over the last generations is been a lot harder to effectively govern it western countries into effectively reform or transform or build new or unbilled government programs. Sunnis when it was possible to elect a president and have a Dramatic Program of reform from Franklin Roosevelt and lyndon johnson, really down through ronald ragan has given away tonight were residents, like if they can pass one major piece of legislation across their presidency and if they succeed, as a vomited with obama care, they play pay a political price of it that last duration of the presidency. And overall, politics is dominated by very polarized parties competing with each other without building clear majorities. And we have in the United States congressional application, and an increasing form of government consists of basically negotiation between the executive branch and the Judicial Branch which a lot of actual american policy is made. In europe, somewhat different version, we have the institution of the European Union which has advanced to the point where in effect, too big to fail has all kinds of problems. But no one accepts, the wild and crazy english and theyre willing to actually take the step of living. Even the sort of fearsome populist and nationalist eastern europe, they do not actually plan to leave the e. U. But meanwhile, its inefficient. A race the common currency in all kinds of economic problems that are obvious to everyone but it can either move forward or back i cannot shrink back towards a more sensible arrangement pretty cannot move forward first time actually european super states that many of the architects envisioned so it too is sort of a stalemate. So thats what im describing as sclerosis pretty easy one. Thats the one the people not alone two. The others are a little bit more economically stagnation. It is not as sort of a the real reality as sclerosis. You have Economic Growth, we managed a respectable amount of growth since 2008 but overall, you see a pattern of real deceleration, lower growth rates compared to what was norm prior to the 1970s. And you have this growth rates achieved basically through a kind of perpetual borrowing. We can get to 2 percent growth, massive deficits were as in the 1950s, he could have porn growth with what then were sometimes complained about as massive debt deficits but they werent really deficits at all. In fact mark more sustainable and some sm thing. It takes rich society itself to maine taint a form of progress in his own fundamentals dont really justify. Joseph talk a little bit about stagnation. Technological stagnation. You refer to back to the future. Please exemplify this. Talk to that. Ross this is an argument any of basically stealing from a group of economists and non economists who over the last ten years, and make the case that in spite of the iphone in your pockets, and all of the resources of the internet, technological processes the apollo era has been pretty disappointing so this is an argument that tyler and george mason has made, and very famously made with his line about how we expect a flying car. The laureates, ticking away into the future and said we got 240 o no great stagnation. And at the university of chicago, or northwestern who is written as a sort of swimming, has a facebook the rise and fall of the american growth. The point that they all make, is not the Technological Progress that it seeks. Obviously the internet era has demonstrated a lot of breakthroughs in communications and information transmission and stimulation. That progress is come more mono dimensional all tech and nothing else. In areas like Transportation Energy agriculture coming in the built environment, dont see the kind of progress that we took for granted between 1840 and 1970. And then further, when Tech Companies sort of leave the world attack, and they try to revolutionize realworld industries, this of the companies that often be that supposedly uniforms turn out to be front failures. So the attempt to bring big tech to bear on a very oldfashioned you know, work solving problem of how do you conduct easy blood test. But it is not working enough with the billion multibilliondollar company evaporating before we were trying to revolutionize a similar story. So that i think is the core of that and that piece of the stagnation, is that again, progress hasnt ceased but his progress along a very particular dimension that then feeds back into the larger pattern because it leads people to spend more more time in Virtual Reality and simulation of reality into retreat from both certain kinds of Economic Activities but also to bring us another force, returning from family formations and childbearing which is the aspect of decadence which i call the royalty. And wonderful comparison in these books, both of which involve kind of a sterile escape which i thought was just really brilliant and fun. But lets start to take a look at this critically about what you wrote. So it was a counter indicator. Youre giving a kind of, providing indicators exhume ansari. Thank you michael. Joseph you provide indicators, what might count as cancer indicators in other words signs of life. Ross lets give examples. One of the key indicators to suggest that we are not in fact would be through. Immense technological transformation is that productivity grows in economic measurements that tries to get it and how technology is affecting the way people work. Has been stagnant and kind of pathetic for a long time. And that was not true however in the late 1990s the initial flush of the internet revolution was in fact there was a surge of productivity growth in the developed work world from a site 1996 to 2001. So that suggests one, i would live in, i was a teenager and really was a sort of brief window where the was this sense of sort of possibility of really dramatic growth returning. It had that continued, i think the argument i made today, was entitled to making a different argument that that window was known decadent exception the did not have that cascading effect that people expected it to. Or another example. I mentioned the defining feature of demography in the western world. Since the babyboom, since the 1960s and 70s, is fertility. And people having too few children to essentially replenish the population this is true everywhere. For a long time, america was something, as an exception. So down to, the early 2007 american conservatives especially like to say, because america has retained a more dynamic economy than western europe, is not sort of the social ballistic and sporadic and it has retained certain amount of optimism about the future and religion and artists and that is where birthrate is still above replacement and were still a country and oriented towards future france and sweden or increasingly japan or not. So in essence, the United States was not decadent as long as its birthrate was exceptional but over the past ten or 15 years, it is ceased to be exceptional and we are now indistinguishable at fertility levels. Those are two examples of how is not under my attempt to create a statistical understanding, or things that could happen and have happened that would be on deck intent if they happen again, i would count as at least a shift, change. The point i would make is that it is not, im not trying to examine each of these forces has sort of forces that are just existing on their own, the recent that every society has some in it. What is distinctive about moment is the way that these forces are converging. So that slow Economic Growth, seeks distrust of government and makes it harder to pass effective Political Program policies. Which in turn slows Economic Growth further and try some birthrates because people dont have or feel like they have the economic capacity to have kids. Which interns make society older and more risk averse and makes it harder to make political changes. Anyway you follow me. And this is the sort of convergence of these forces that make our moment more decadent, whatever that would mean but more decadent than periods in the past that only had one of these forces work. Joseph talk to me about that week. How we became the victims of our success. Who is the we hear. It is something that i wondered as i proceeded through the book. At times it could be the United States at times it can seem like it would be the west. In the time seems almost global. In terms of your description but i wondered whether, aside from expanding it, to include more and more, people who might be this week who are the victims of upsets that are now leading to decadence. It might be exclusive, finer grained you go. And excluded, certain communities. It might say, we are not an agent tech, we are actually an age of prosperity or ascendance. Because, africanamericans, and the United States. President was recently elected. More more representation, and what extent white thinking about that refinery analysis. Ross i guess i will work backwards. So take a case study of africanamericans. I think and this is of course a highly debatable proposition but i think that there was more progress for africanamericans and American Life in the period of running from 1942 men monday or 1940 to 1980 are. Like that. Then there has been in the periods sense. In that sense i think, africanamericans have participated to some extent and decadence as i am describing. So this is very little enacting american employment late reach a low at the moment and obviously the election of the first black american president , is obviously a break through but if you look at the gaps in the household with, the blackwhite income gap in the test score gaps, all of the sort of things that the reformers who are thinking are interested in racial equality are interested in changing changing, you get a lot more change and a lot of those cases. In the era of the Civil Rights Era in particular but really the whole zone from the great migration through the king assassination into the 1970s. So that sense, at least in some socioeconomic way, there is a kind of participation and decadence there. And i think, a little more of an open question and culture. Obviously certain lenders minute big increase in africanamerican representation and pop culture and sentiment but i also think that sometimes that too, is overstated and i think theres a little bit tough forgetting of the very recent passing, if you go back to 1980s, the biggest stars in america at that moment were africanamericans and run the most bill cosby, not something that started because for celebration at the moment but bill cosby eddie murphy, is not the case that snow africanamerican representation. In the rise of the africanamerican popculture figure really dates to the 60s and 70s and 80s. Western developed world. Or is a global phenomenon . I feel very confident arguing there is a deceleration and stagnation that japan, south korea and the United States share in common. What is happening with the countries we call developing . China, india and so on . You could make a case that the decadence of the west will enable the nondecadent developing world past us or a nation sentry, that is implicit. At the same time there are ways in which you look at demographics, the demographics of china is in the same low trap, and there are ways china is converging with the west and is the government decays there is a convergence in all our garlicky, it is not the same as the politburo but there is a convergence in stratified low fertility all log guardian and higher cases of wealth, not a case of china leapfrogging past us and what happens with the coronavirus raises a host of questions we can talk about in the apocalyptic portion of the evening. I had a question about that but we can save it. Another thing i enjoyed about your book is it wasnt the end of book. It doesnt say we are in this decadent society and only a matter of time before it is over. It is sustainable decadence. You get shirts made with sustainable decadence. And then of course it leads into what wouldnt one claim the book makes is people hear the word decadence and feel theres an iron logic of history, once you are decadent you are doomed and the absolute cliche version of this is the writing on the wall, the babylonian palace, orgies in rome, the barbarians sweeping in and so on. In fact i make the argument that decadence is a normal condition for successful societies, empires and civilizations to fall into. Once they do it can lead to collapse. If they have a rival who can exploit the decadence, it can lead to a sustainable stasis that can last a long time and however you want to chart a roman decadence it is 400 years from the nero, youll a moment of the fall of rome. However you want to chart ottoman decadence or decadence of the chinese empire to the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. These are long historical periods were prosperous societies look decadent without being tipped over into crisis and collapse. In certain ways that is a more pessimistic vision of the future. There is an appeal to the idea that once your point you are doomed. There is a sense at some level that people want history to follow morality play arc even if they dont want to be, up in the sacking of rome themselves. I quote w h ogden at the start of the book saying i am going to mangle the quote, the book is right here, so convenient. He says what fascinates and terrifies us about the roman empire is not that it went smash but managed to last four centuries without creativity, warmth or hope. That is the dark version of sustainable decadence but lets qualify by saying those four centuries rome lasted under decadence were, from the point of view of the face that founded this university, period of dynamic change from within, development of a nondecadent religious faith that did not in the end save the roman empire but did preserve and Carry Forward roman elements into the future down to the present day and was there when the empire went smash as a powerful force, you can imagine versions of that, renewal under decadence that reinvigorate our civilization, renewal under decadence that when our civilization falls, create something new to carry on the best a legacy and that is the optimistic case. In fact decadence has virtues. There are alternatives