Are We Living in a Time of Cultural Collapse?

Some say I believe this—but do I really?

Many articles have been written about me over the years. But I’ve never been hit with an opening sentence like the one published on Monday by The Atlantic.

Last year, I visited the music historian Ted Gioia to talk about the death of civilization.

Whoa! That makes me feel like a Bond villain.

I need some henchmen—any volunteers?

What an unexpected turnabout! For many years, I was known as an expert on music, especially jazz and blues.

But now I’ve taken on a new guise. I’m the guy you consult about the total collapse of everything.

I don’t sing the blues. I don’t write about the blues. I now deliver the blues.

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I originally declined the interview request from The Atlantic. But their staff writer Spencer Kornhaber pushed back, insisting that I was an essential source for his article.

The subject was, he explained, a “pervasive suspicion that we're in an era of cultural decline, especially in arts and entertainment.”

He said that I needed to be part of the story—because everybody saw me as the decline-of-culture guy.

This caught me surprise. But I thought it over. Maybe this is why I don’t get invited to many parties anymore.

Dammit, Ted, we’re trying to have some fun here—and you keep droning on about the collapse of the Roman empire.

I eventually agreed to a phone conversation with Spencer, and that went well. And this led to him getting on a plane, and visiting me at home here in Austin.

To help him in his research, I laid out more than 40 books on a countertop in my library—these were essential works, I explained, for anyone studying social or cultural decline.

[At a future date, I will provide more details about these books, and share a reading list on—to quote The Atlantic—the “death of civilization.”]

I laid out more than 40 books on cultural decline and collapse on a countertop.

But this begs the question: Is our culture really collapsing?