The Decadent Community

How do we grow our culture, history and trust in a time when none of those sentiments seem valued?

Earlier this week, this publication put forward the latest results from our bi-monthly reader survey. You can read results here:

I read these results and not only do they made me curious, but these numbers make me sad as well.

Granted, these surveys aren’t the work of trained statisticians. But, the answers provided by our friends and our neighbors do hold some meaning. Why do our respondents, who tend to be older and long time residents, seem so despondent about our community’s future? What are they seeing? What are they perceiving?

How people feel about their hometowns is hard to determine in a purely scientific sense using quantitative data. In other words, it’s not a numbers game, when we are looking at these numbers.

Rather, people are transformed by stories. The experiences we have with the places and the people that shape our community, also shape the highly personal perceptions we all have of our hometowns. And as I look at my own view of my hometown, I am perceiving a deep sense of decadence that has taken hold of our community.

When most people think of decadence, an image of someone enjoying a large and oppulent meal might pop into our heads. But, that isn’t exactly the decadence I am talking about. In my mind, decadence is more about the slow decay of a community’s history and culture. In other words, it feels that we are slowly losing what makes our community special and trading it in for another sanitized, plastic version of “Anytown, USA”. Perhaps that might be a bit harsh, but it is a theory that deserves a bit of an exploration.

My own research found that decadence in a community is a complex phenomenon that goes beyond mere cultural decay. It's a condition where a community, often at its peak of wealth and development, begins to stagnate and decline in a way that isn’t always defined by numbers and statistics. This decline manifests in various ways, but at its core, it's characterized by a loss of history, vitality, purpose, and perhaps most importantly, trust.

One of the hallmarks of a decadent society is institutional rigidity. Imagine a body that's lost its flexibility - that's what happens to institutions in a decadent community. Government bodies and other organizations become set in their ways, resistant to change, and inefficient. When decadence sets in, the purposes of these institutions aren’t to necessarily serve the resident or the customer, but it’s to serve the institution itself so it continues to survive.

This rigidity leads to a kind of paralysis, where necessary reforms become nearly impossible to implement. You might see endless political debates that go nowhere, or agencies sticking to outdated methods simply because "that's how we've always done it.”

I can’t help but think about the current issue of recreational cannabis in our community. First, the city administration tried to fast track a legislative process in which public comment were to be curtailed. Second, we saw grandstanding by the City’s Planning Commission when the City Council asked the group to study the issue further. None of these actions seemed to be done with the citizens at the front and center of everyone’s mind, rather they were done to serve the desires of those institutions that have become rigid.

I also think about the debacle over the I.O.O.F. building. Faced with an option of solving a problem or opting for more litigation and delay, there were too many in positions of power that exercised a belief that it was more important to be right, rather than to do right.

This institutional sclerosis goes hand in hand with a growing distrust in these very institutions. People lose faith in their government and in other social structures that once formed the backbone of their community. This erosion of trust isn't limited to specific institutions - it's a pervasive loss of confidence that spans across political, economic, and social spheres.

As trust in institutions wanes, there's often a shift towards self-indulgence. When a society becomes overly focused on pleasure and personal gratification, it can lose sight of larger goals and responsibilities. This isn't just about individuals being selfish - it's a cultural shift where entertainment and stimulation become more important than substantive change or progress.

And sadly, we are seeing in this in our own community. As was pointed out during the recent approval of our city’s new Comprehensive Plan, the future for Troy isn’t based on an industrial ethos of building things, it’s built on a theory of tourism that consumes things. Take a look at the City’s Development Department webpage, one of the initiatives you will find proudly highlights is the city’s Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area. Trust me, I am no teetotaler, but when one of our community’s economic development strategies revolves around relaxed open container laws, it is a clear shift towards creating a more decadent community.

This sense of community decadence is also exacerbated by growing media skepticism. Not only is there increasing distrust in traditional media and skepticism about the objectivity of journalists, there is even a near complete ignoring of our community by traditional media. Our community for decades was served by a daily newspaper, now that newspaper is shared with another community, and it publishes editions only twice per week.

Social media platforms, aren’t much better. First and foremost, we have a local government that absolutely does not use social media to it’s highest and best use. Instead of using it as an opportunity to engage residents, our local government has shown time and again that it sees the greatest value in social media to “correct the narrative” and keep residents from engaging with each other on important issues by not allowing comments on social media posts. Local social media groups have become inundated with anonymous posts that aren’t necessarily designed to improve community discourse, but rather to inflame emotional responses from our friends and neighbors.

All in all, this loss of trust as we march toward more decadence becomes a reinforcing behavior; as people lose faith in institutions, those institutions become less effective, which in turn leads to even less trust and less faith. This cycle makes it increasingly difficult for our community to address its challenges and move forward.

And the ones that lose the most tend to be our youngest residents. Growing up in this kind of decadent age, I can’t help but think that younger generations experience a crisis of faith in societal institutions. This generational disappointment can lead to a sense of alienation and disengagement from civic life. These youngsters, when given the chance, will likely leave town and never look back.

All these factors - institutional rigidity, loss of trust, self-indulgence, political frustration, and generational disappointment - feed into each other, creating a cycle of decadence that's hard to break. For instance, as our institutions become more rigid, our residents might become more frustrated and turn towards self-indulgence, not only as a distraction, but as a publicly approved way to deal with this decadence. It’s almost farcical when this self-indulgence is explicitly promoted as ecoomic development.

Breaking out of this cycle isn't easy. It requires a community to recognize these patterns and make a concerted effort to address them. This might involve reforming institutions to make them more responsive and efficient, fostering a culture that values innovation and progress over mere comfort, finding new ways to build community and shared values, and working to restore faith in our local decision-making processes and other social institutions.

It's important to note that not all change is decadence, and not all traditions are worth preserving. The challenge for any society is to find a balance - to be flexible enough to adapt to new realities while maintaining the core values and institutions that hold the community together.

Decadence in a community is marked by a kind of societal inertia - a resistance to positive change, a focus on immediate gratification over long-term progress, a loss of shared values and trust, and decision-making systems that frustrate more than it accomplishes. It's a state of stagnation where the bonds of trust that hold a community together have frayed, with a real risk of leaving people feeling isolated, disillusioned, and disconnected from their community. And if we don’t think that is happening, look at the survey results referenced above.

Recognizing these signs can help communities take action to reinvigorate their community, their culture, and their civic life, steering away from decadence and towards renewed vitality and progress.

Yet, there are bright spots on the horizon. New schools will be built in our community over the next few years, representing the first such capital investment in public education in quite a long time. These new buildings will begin to create a new set of stories and perceptions that will help shape our collective story in the future. The Board of County Commissioners, picking up on the amazing exterior renovations of the courthouse, are now renovating the inside. This historical preservation effort can help tell the story of our county’s past to our next generation of residents. Nonprofits throughout our community are growing and are adding to the cultural fabric of our tight-knit community.

And I believe this project is an important part to fighting the strong sense of decadence in our community as well. Each edition is built with the desire to inform, inspire and involve our residents in a community that can stay true to our history and our culture while stepping forward into a future with bright and innovative ideas.

What Do You Think?

Do you think our community is in a state of decadence? Has our community peaked? What do you think about today’s topic? Our paid subscribers are more than welcome to leave their ideas and insights in the comment thread!

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