Popular
metanarrative/
theory that is the overriding factor in explaining
life, the universe, and everything for some. Generally, it holds that
the good old days were the best, and everything's gone
downhill ever since.
Men were men and women were women, you didn't have to lock your doors at night, etc. Lack of
religion, changes in
sexual mores, the perception of increased
crime,
dependence on technology and
separation from Nature, etc. are popular choices for the specific form of
declension. Basically summarized by "
This country is going to hell in a handbasket!" Popular with groups from
the Christian Coalition, to
neo-Luddites, to
Gaians, among others.
The problem with most
declensionists is that they rarely have any grasp of
history whatsoever; in my book declensionist Christians and declensionist Gaians are the worst. They generally have, respectively, no idea of what
early Christianity was like or the history of their own
religion, and no idea of what it's like to live in
Nature.
Declensionism shows up so often in everyday life, as
grandparents wax
grandiloquent or
conservatives reminisce about the
idyllic paradise that was the
1950s, so it's fun to trot out the above
fifty-cent phrase.
Its
opposite/
complement is the
ascension metanarrative.