I’ve recently been reading A Renegade History of the United States and the same concept keeps coming up, the more lax a culture becomes, the less productive it becomes. One example would be the interviews done with former slaves who lamented being free because they never worked harder then under northern freedom. The New England culture that was dominate at the time forced work, devotion, and working for a purpose versus working to live. This is also echoed in Thomas Sowell. His example of societies that improved off of British trains showed that only the most stringent societies were the ones improving upon the railways. This idea also plays into societal fatigue, where when a culture has no purpose they lose their will to continue.
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It's regressive culture. Like Kreia says, a Culture's teachings find definition in conflict, to constantly improve and build upon. Because post-modernism means nothing matters and American culture is so fixated on people's junk so that it isn't even about improving the lives of it's citizens but instead the oligarchs that control the country, a slow inevitable decline is what you get.
I have to wonder if this is the natural result of all Democracies, a slow decline into obscurity.