Does a Closed Frontier Lead to Decadence?

On Ross Douthat and Cultural Sclerosis

Ross Douthat writes in his new book, The Decadent Society, that a decadent culture can be defined as one that is bored, sclerotic, repetitive; one where people feel that they are at the end of their ambition and have little left to strive for. The subtitle of his book is How We Became Victims of Our Own Success. Let’s leave aside the question of whether…