“It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates,” echoed the introduction line within the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter who killed 51 folks in a mosque in 2019. His declare was that white individuals are being “changed” by different races and gained’t survive with out motion.
Just a few years later, the identical obsession with start charges has grow to be a catchphrase of Elon Musk’s day by day social media activism.
Don’t get me fallacious, Elon Musk is neither a white supremacist nor a right-wing terrorist. But, like different folks with extremist opinions, he promotes the view that society is in decline and that motion is required to stop a associated apocalypse. These rhetorical overlaps are hardly coincidental. They stem from a reactionary philosophy that has an extended historical past of going viral.
Nervousness that low birthrates inevitably result in inhabitants collapse has been haunting the west since mass consumption grew to become its dominant way of life. This flips the older Malthusian worry of exponential inhabitants development that can outpace our capacity to supply meals. Seen within the greater image, each are variations of a generic narrative often known as decadence.
The concept of decadence – ethical decline triggered by extreme indulgence – informs many components of on a regular basis sense-making, particularly cultural criticism.
Ever learn American historian Christopher Lasch’s well-known bestseller concerning the up to date tradition of narcissism? Ever come throughout the favored meme that claims “weak males create arduous instances”? Ever adopted the Cultural Tutor’s tweets concerning the lack of magnificence in structure? Ever doomscrolled by means of Jordan Peterson’s 1,293 YouTube movies? The element varies, however the overarching theme of decadence is similar each time.
Decadence is a helpful double-edged sword as a story. It frames the plenty as sluggish and in want of self-discipline. The corrupt elites, in the meantime, merely must be changed. It bemoans the erosion of authority and attracts on the premise that each society rests upon everlasting hierarchies. An excessive amount of freedom, enjoyable and adaptability, the story goes, jeopardises order and, thus, prosperity.
Therefore, some guidelines for all times: males should subordinate and obey for the sake of the better good. Ladies should breed to safe the existence of our folks and a future for our youngsters. A brand new the Aristocracy shall substitute the liberal elites and recreate tradition. In any other case, civilisation, or at the least nations, are at stake. Does this sound acquainted?
Ever because the biblical legends of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Hindu fantasy of Kali Yuga, adversaries of equality and the rule of legislation accused societies of being decadent.
From historical populists within the Roman empire to Italian fascists, decadence is the transhistorical scaffolding that binds collectively the branches of anti-liberal philosophy.
At this time, neoreactionary thinker and advocate of a “darkish enlightenment”, Curtis Yarvin, declares within the New York Instances that democracy is “useless”. He longs to exchange it with an American monarchy. Political scientist Patrick Deneen’s declare of a “almost full disassociation of the governing class and a citizenry and not using a cives” equally attracts on a decadence narrative.
All these concepts relaxation on a cyclical notion of time. Rise and fall. Blossom and decay. Apocalypse and palingenesis, that means a nationwide or ethnic rebirth.
Wikipedia/Musée d’Orsay
In my analysis, I’ve analysed tons of of German and French neo-fascist magazines. In the long run, the info was the identical limitless repetition of decadence and apocalypticism. I dubbed it conservative disaster narratives.
The politics of disaster
Normally, there’s no want to fret. Decadence is only a cliché. However that’s the reason all people can so simply promote personal variations of this story – so long as they recap the grand narrative. Information don’t matter and the satan isn’t within the element.
“If I’ve to create tales in order that the American media really pays consideration to the struggling of the American folks, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Donald Trump’s vice-president J.D. Vance frankly admitted through the 2024 marketing campaign. His confession reveals a sociological fact concerning the operate of disaster narratives.
Based on American anthropologist Janet Roitman, who delved into what she calls the “politics of disaster”, such a story “can’t be taken as an outline of a historic scenario nor can it’s taken to be a analysis of the standing of historical past”. As a substitute, she elaborates, it’s a “essentially political denunciation”.
Each disaster narrative essentially strengthens the decision for redeemers. “The 2024 election is the final shot to avoid wasting America,” claims Donald Trump. “Solely the AfD can save Germany,” reposts Musk. It’s a scaleable story.
EPA/Christopher Neundorf
Elon Musk’s philosophy
In France, the far-right thinker Guillaume Faye, who impressed the identitarian motion, invented a reactionary philosophy referred to as “archeofuturism”. It goals to mix skyrocketing technical progress and a medieval morality of heroism and hierarchies. That’s not removed from how Musk solutions the decadence narrative with a name to radical long-termism.
The “digital city sq.” that X claims to be, as an illustration, is a signifier of the feudal public sphere. Musk’s digital reenactment of historical Rome’s aesthetics displays the far-right want for an American Caesar. Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, essentially the most influential e-book in pre-fascist Germany, promoted the exact same concept.
Musk’s philosophy seems to be that males shall undergo the CEO-king’s long-term ambition. To overcome house, colonise Mars, and merge human brains into one singular synthetic intelligence, the person and its wants grow to be negligible. And that’s what the decadence narrative is all about within the first place.
