Decadence as a Theory of History

Abstract

The concept of decadence is closely related to ideas of temporality and historical change. However, although it is most commonly associated with the 'cyclical' approach to history offered by writers like Spengler and Toynbee, the idea of decadence is not dependent on a single theory of history for its intellectual underpinning; it is not necessarily tied to the organic metaphor, and it does not imply a single, unvarying trajectory towards a specified terminus. This paper explores the place of 'decadence' in historiography, considering its relationship to the related (but, curiously, less controversial) notion of 'decline' and to ideas of continuity and discontinuity between past and present. It compares the narratives of modern decadence with the critiques of modernity offered by Marx and Nietzsche; these present a similar perspective on the present but emphasize possibilities for the future, whereas decadence sees only a return to one of the possibilities already mapped out in the past.