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From Dawn to Decadence

The symptoms of decadence result from the hypertrophy of those very traits that defined the West: primitivism, emancipation, self-consciousness, and individualism

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“History is the product of individual initiative aided or stymied by chance,” says noted historian, scholar and author Jacque Barzun in his classic book, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present. “Above all it is concrete and particular, not general and abstract.”

Here are my notes and excerpts from this monumental work:

History is not, as one wag put it, simply “one damn thing after another.” There are patterns to be observed and docketed even if they can never be entirely plumbed. Movements in art or thought, Barzun observes, gain influence at the cost of variety.

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Cultural Nonsense, Moral Confusion

“Age of…” is a favorite shorthand of historians: the Age of Reason, the Age of Faith, the Age of Science, the Age of Anxiety. Such phrases are probably indispensable; they are also, Mr. Barzun observes, “always a misnomer, except perhaps, “An Age of Troubles” which fits every age in varying degrees.”

Barzun is convinced that our age, despite its vast technological capabilities, is a time of cultural nonsense, depleted energies, and moral confusion. Amen.

Barzun use “man” to refer to all of humanity, primarily, he tells us, for four reasons: “etymology, convenience, the unsuspected incompleteness of ‘man and woman,’ and literary tradition.”

“Intellect watches particularly over language because language is so far the only device for keeping ideas clear and emotions memorable.”

The Test of the West

The picture of the West promulgated by its enemies, as “a solid block having but one meaning” cannot survive scrutiny. It is central to Mr. Barzun’s task to show that the West has in fact been “an endless series of opposites — in religion, politics, art, morals, manners.”

The West has been working out a cultural impulse that it received in the Renaissance, an impulse that had becomes exhausted by the end of the twentieth century. This impulse was not an ideology or an agenda but an expandable list of desires, particular forms of which can be detected throughout all the cultural and political controversies of the great era.

The names of these desires are helpfully capitalized wherever they are mentioned, so that Emancipation is graphically shown to play a role in every major controversy from the Reformation to the women’s suffrage movement.

“Victory brings on imitation and ultimately boredom,” a most underrated catalyst of historical change. It is part of an historian’s task to discern continuities in what had appeared to be random; it is also part of his task to recognize the limits of those continuities.

Decadence and Revolution

Decadence “is not a slur; it is a technical label.” The sources of decadence are many and varied. Decadence has triumphed in various facets of modern life.

Manners are flouted and customs broken. Foul language and direct insult become normal. In keeping with the rest of the excitement, buildings are defaced, images destroyed, shops looted.

Angry debates multiply about things long since settled: talk of free love, priests marrying, and monks breaking their vows, of property and wives in common, of sweeping out all evils, all corruption, all at once — all of these are postulated as contributing to a new and blissful life on earth…

Voices grow shrill, parties form and adopt names or are tagged with them in derision and contempt. Again and again comes the shock of broken friendships, broken families.

Angst and Anguish

Authorities are bewildered, heads of institutions try threats and concessions by turns, hoping the surge of subversion will collapse like previous ones. But none of this holds back that transfer of power and property which is the mark of revolution and which in the end establishes the Idea.

Even the terrorist who drives a car filled with dynamite toward a building in some hated nation is part of what he would destroy: his weapon is the work of Alfred Nobel and the inventors of the internal combustion engine. His very cause has been argued for him by such proponents of national self-determination.

“How a revolution erupts from a commonplace event-tidal wave from a ripple, is cause for endless astonishment.”

This evocation describes many revolutionary periods. The term “decadent” can properly be used where people entertain goals for which they will not tolerate the means.

Labyrinthine in Nature

Decadent societies tend to become labyrinthine in both their cultures and their styles of government, as people seek to create small accommodations within a larger unsatisfactory context.

Decadence is not a neutral historical fact, it is a cultural, moral, and political disaster of the first order. The symptoms of decadence can be understood as resulting from the hypertrophy of those very traits that defined the West: primitivism, emancipation, self-consciousness, individualism, and so on.

What appear as motors for cultural development can, when pursued ruthlessly and without regard to other virtues, degenerate into engines of decadence and decline. Ridicule, denial, anti-art sensory simplicity mean that culture and society are in the decadent phase.

Art and Excellence

Western nations spend billions on public schooling for all, urged along by the public cry for excellence. At the same time, society pounces on any show of superiority as elitism.

The same nations deplore violence and sexual promiscuity among the young but pornography and violence in films and books, shops and clubs, on television and the Internet, and in the lyrics of pop music cannot be suppressed, in the interest of “the free market of ideas.”

The confusion generated by such contradictions attends every aspect of cultural endeavor. In the arts, it leads to the rise of anti-art. The transformation of art into anti-art could not have succeeded on it own. It required the collusion of institutions that certify artistic achievement as well as audience whose interest ultimately sustains it.

If a new work or style was not easy to like, if it was painful to behold, revolting, even it was nonetheless ‘interesting.’ “Art is what you can get away with” …Andy Warhol, 1987.

How Decadence Comes To Be

“When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.” Futility and absurdity only seem normal to a damaged sensibility. That damage has been wrought by a progressive loss of resistance to humbug. One then becomes susceptible to all manner of cultural viruses.

This lowered resistance has affected connoisseurs, critics, and teachers. It has also affected the public at large, whose healthy rejection of absurdity one used to be able to count on. No more.

The questions with which intellectual history confronts us can be parsed as elements of that large, perennial question, “How should I live my life?”

The stolid bourgeois used to aid culture by resisting it; by the late twentieth century, he had been transformed into a “docile consumer” for whom the avant-garde achieves “the status of a holy synod.”

The Great Switchover

The realms of social relations and politics are equally beset by confusion. One result is the “Great Switch,” “the reversal of Liberalism into its opposite.”

If Liberalism originally “triumphed on the principle that the best government is that which governs least,” today “for all the western nations political wisdom has recast the ideal of liberty into liberality.”

The universalization and extension of the welfare state has nurtured a culture of entitlement. What began in an access of largess ends in an explosion of regulation and hectoring scrutiny.

Motives that had once encouraged unity and social comity such as emancipation and  self-consciousness, now act as centrifugal forces: forces of decadence.

Decadence vs Progress

As Oswald Spengler said in 1918, “One day, the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be, though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes may remain, because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message” will be gone.

Sooner or later, some few intrepid souls will turn with new curiosity to the neglected past and use it “to create a new present,” discovering along the way “what a joy it is to be alive.”

The forces of decadence are formidably potent. But decadence is no more inevitable than progress. Myopia is perennial, despair a temptation to be resisted. One never knows what reparations await the touch of fresh energies.

Indeed, so completely will the modern age be forgotten that its rediscovery will have an impact quite as revolutionary as the impact that classical culture had on the late medieval world. The result, we hope, will be another renaissance, when the young and talented will again exclaim what joy it is to be alive.

A Cheerful Explanation

The one thing that I think you can say about From Dawn to Decadence is that it provides the most cheerful explanation you are ever likely to encounter as to why Western culture is ending.

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Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®



 
 
 

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Family

Honoring All Mothers on Mother’s Day

Attacks on motherhood and Mother’s Day are no less than the attempted repudiation of all that we hold dear

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Despite the continuing theatrics of the Left, I can state with 100% confidence that you had a mother and were born as a result of your mother, a biological human female, being pregnant and bringing you to term. I can further claim that at birth, you were either a boy or a girl. Your mother was impregnated by a male. So, you had both a mother and a father and your birth was able to occur.

Rightful Acknowledgment

Held on the second Sunday of May, Mother’s Day has long been a holiday revered by most people. It is a celebration that acknowledges mothers everywhere, whether they have had one child or more, and whether they bore or raised a child.

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Although we’re familiar with the American version of Mother’s Day, many countries designate a day to acknowledge mothers, generally in March, April, or May.

Some nations have been celebrating Mother’s Day long before the U.S. – we are new to the tradition, having started early in the 20th century. Ms. Anne Jarvis organized what is recognized as the first American Mother’s Day “service of worship” in Grafton, West Virginia at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church.

Gripers Gonna Gripe

Some people have lamented that Mother’s Day, as with most holidays, has become commercialized. Sure, greeting cards, gift baskets, chocolates, and promotions are advertised, urging offspring to offer a gift to their mother on this special day.

A distinct few within America — Leftists — loath the basic concept of Mother’s Day. They object to the word “mother.” They insist on obtuse nomenclature such as “birthing person” which implies that someone other than a biological female can give birth. Sure thing.

In 2020, a unique hospital opened on New York’s Upper East Side, focusing on labor and delivery. Three cheers for the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns. Leftists railed against this institution because, they scream, nonbinary and transgender individuals who don’t “identify as women” are able to become pregnant and bear children. So “pregnant people” should supersede the term “pregnant women?” They are all still mothers, right?

The Sheer Lunacy of the Left

Does Mother’s Day join the gargantuan list of traditions the Left fervently longs to destroy? “When we talk about ‘birthing people,’ we’re being inclusive. It’s that simple,” proclaims NARAL (originally, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws). Fortunately, a majority of our population frown on terms such as “pregnant people” and “birthing person.”

With the Left, every institution, holiday, tradition, celebration, acknowledgment, or recognition is subject to disparagement. In their quest for complete social anarchy or some vaulted notion of a one-world government, they seek to bulldoze everything in their path. Society crumbling in total chaos? They relish the thought.

If you succeed at diminishing the notion of motherhood and Mother’s Day, what else is vulnerable? Namely everything — fatherhood, families, communities, governing bodies, and the United States of America itself.

Attacking on All Issues

An attack on motherhood and Mother’s Day is no less than the attempted repudiation of all that we hold dear, of world history, and of human history. These are the same people who seek to sexualize six- and eight-year-olds, and to convince them that they were born into the wrong type of body.

These are the people who would deny Christians and Jews the right to worship, if they could, while giving Muslims a free pass. These are the same people who ignore the irrefutable data that show black on white violence is overwhelming compared to white on black violence.

These are the same people who will gaslight every observation you can make about their destructive policies and then do it again with vigor. And why not? Look who’s on their side: the mainstream media owned by a handful of woke corporations that cave on cue; academia filled with over-educated, irrational professors; book and magazine publishers; TV producers; and rock stars and rappers.

The Vital Role

On May 14th, to our heart’s content, let us celebrate mothers and those who have raised children. Let us look forward to an unending stream of Mother’s Days, when we celebrate, honor, and remember those very special people: our mothers – all mothers – who have done the vital job which keeps society intact and provides the cohesion for our civilization to continue.

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Family

Recollections of My Father

Some say that one of the wisest things you can do in life is to choose your parents well

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My father, Emanuel Davidson, whose birthday is today, passed away 46 years ago, long before ubiquitous smart phone and video recorders. Like many children, I often recall my overall memory of him, while not reflecting on the specifics of what made him, him.

As time passes, it is all too comforting to fixate on a general notion of how a loved one was, but recalling the habits, personality tidbits, and other idiosyncrasies that made the person unique, is more endearing and enduring.

My father was a member of the generation that had experienced the Great Depression, won World War II, and, by the late 1940s, fueled an ever-expanding economy. He was from the generation that expected to, and indeed proceeded to, exceed the educational level and material wealth of their parents and, in turn, expected the same for their children.

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He bought his first house, in Hartford, on Cambridge Street in 1949, and two years following the birth of his twin son and daughter in 1953, made the decision with my mother to move to Bloomfield, Connecticut to a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house in the up-and-coming suburb of Hartford.

Always Striving

My father had long been a teacher in English and history, and when needed, he also taught math. After many years, he became vice principal at the Dominic Burns Junior High School. Like so many parents, he wanted more for his children, and his teacher’s salary simply wasn’t enough. So, for the duration of his adult life, he worked at least one additional job, often a second, and sometimes a third.

Emanuel Davidson, my father, graduated from Weaver High School in 1934 and then Connecticut Teacher’s College, later known as Central Connecticut State University in 1938. At Central, he was their first baseman in varsity baseball for three years, and their starting offensive varsity guard in football for two years. He went on to get a master’s in education at Columbia University and, after WWII, a 6th year degree at University of Connecticut , with one year to go for a Ph.D. which he did not pursue.

My father was a veteran of World War II. He served in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. As a soldier, he first trained in Paris TX where he also married my mother. He also took math and physics courses as part of his U.S. Army assignments at VMI. He was shipped to and stationed in France, primarily in logistics, rising to the level of sergeant. He was involved in some limited combat and suffered a partial loss of hearing in his left ear from a grenade explosion. Yet, remarkably, he would sometimes hear a whisper when he didn’t otherwise hear anything. He recalled, and somewhat regretted, having to kill a German soldier in close combat.

After the war, he worked some more in carpentry with his father for a brief time while advancing his education and then started teaching at Canton High. For most of his career, he taught English and history at Northeast Junior High in Hartford.

If you’ve read this far, the rest of the story (6 pages!) is here.  Some say that one of the wisest things you can do in life is to choose your parents well. In my case, I hit the jackpot.

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