Politics: ideologies of decadence

Abstract

This article explores ideas of decadence and decline in political thought, from classical Greek and Roman speculation about the cycle of political regimes to early modern discussions of the importance of civic virtue, the role of institutions and constitutions, and the dangerous effects of luxury, culminating in eighteenth-century concerns about the risk of excessive civilization. It also considers the varied political stances of the decadents themselves in the wider context of the nineteenth-century critique of modernity and the historicization of the present as a “late” stage of human development. Such a diagnosis can be incorporated into either revolutionary or reactionary projects; since the early twentieth century, decadence has featured primarily as an important component of the worldview of fascist and other right-wing movements and has been an important tool in the mobilization of individual grievances and discontent for reactionary ends.