Decadence: Radical Nostalgia, Narcissism, and Decline in the Seventies

by Jim Hougan

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688029507
• ISBN13: 9780688029500
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Not Avail
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly prescient

I remembered being quite impressed by this book when I read it many years ago as an undergraduate. Having picked it up recently, I find it has aged fairly well. While it probably needs revision to bring it up to date, its core thesis is still cogent.Hougan's "decadence" is actually a conservative critique of contemporary capitalism, and its dance with countercultural style. He points out how its notion of style and "lifestyle" represent an inheritance from the various cultural movements of the 1950's and 1960's, and chronicles the breakup of the original "counterculture" into its various balkanised subcultures as seen today. The vast majority of these subcultures, moreover, are coopted by high capitalism, which uses them as marketing opportunities. This part seems quite prescient.The part that fares somewhat less well concerns his vision of technological stalemate. There are, indeed, problems that technology cannot conquer; but we don't seem to have hit any of them yet. Hougan's basic faith is that when technological breakdown comes, the balkanised culture and the people who inhabit it will find themselves unable to cope. Written in a bizarre but readable and indeed vivid style, this book remains a memorable social critique. His argument contains quite a few gaps, but you can probably fill them in given the inclination; a more connected style would make the book drier and duller. His criticism of subcultural balkanisation, the superficiality of it all, and how it is cultivated by marketing, remains memorable. These are things that do not feed the soul. A reissue, or better, a revised edition would remain welcome.