Some troubling signs of decline are hard to fight precisely because they ride on top of centuries-long trends that are, in many ways, genuinely positive.
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We’ve seen a long-term drop in violence and everyday aggression (which some read as softness).
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Marriage has shifted from a primarily financial arrangement toward an emotional bond (which some read as instability).
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People place less emphasis on property and more on quality of life (which some read as hedonism).
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Extreme poverty feels more and more intolerable to us (which some read as rewarding idleness).
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Those who are different are less likely to be ostracized (which some read as social breakdown).
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Fewer people work directly in production and more move into “science” and research—sometimes at the price of swelling the ranks with mediocrities (which some read as a decline in standards).
We can criticize what’s happened in the last generation (and I often do), but that doesn’t change a basic fact: none of us would choose to live in a society with the level of violence, the model of marriage, and the social arrangements of the 16th century—let alone earlier eras.
And yet:
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Some of these processes have begun to move too fast, and they’re being pushed with far too much aggression.
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It may be that some of these trends have reached an optimal point—and that pushing further is no longer beneficial.
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Or something else is being smuggled in under their moral cover. If someone manipulates a confused young person, pumps them full of hormones, and ultimately mutilates them, that is not “expanding freedom of choice.”
Even so, it’s remarkably difficult to take a healthy approach to these questions. It requires careful analysis—and the discipline not to be swept away by immediate emotions.