Ross Douthat's The Decadent Society is a frustratingly-chaotic book built of good ideas but lacking structure. Douthat sees six major symptoms of stagnation, in dimensions of Faith, Civility, Wealth, Population, Safety, and Technology.

Reviewer Mark Lilla suggests that Douthat could have concluded with a striking image he offers of decline: "It's possible that Western society is really leaning back in an easy chair, hooked up to a drip of something soothing, playing and replaying an ideological greatest-hits tape from its wild and crazy youth, all riled up in its own imagination and yet, in reality, comfortably numb." Douthat instead proposes a more hopeful, if mystical, future – but he's frustratingly vague about details.

Maybe a LOOPY-style micro-model might add insight, and suggest leverage points for action?

(sketch thanks to LOOPY, an ultralight tool for systems thinking ©2021 MITRE Corporation; cf Steady State Economy (2005-06-11), Suffering as Friends (2020-04-28), Emptiness Blessings (2020-07-20), Future of Work (2021-09-26), ...) - ^z - 2021-12-02