Declinism
Is it just us, or does it increasingly feel like Britain is going to hell in a handbasket? We have industrial strikes, a cost of living and energy crisis, high inflation, political instability, perennial problems with the European Union and widespread cultural malaise. But is it true that the UK finds itself in an interminable decline or is it merely a figment of our collective imagination?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss declinism. We delve into economic data, compare the state of the nation today compared to the 1980s and discuss the British Empire, Netflix, relative decline and evolution. Finally, we share the things we are optimistic about for the future.
In this week’s podcast, we discuss declinism. We delve into economic data, compare the state of the nation today compared to the 1980s and discuss the British Empire, Netflix, relative decline and evolution. Finally, we share the things we are optimistic about for the future.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
- The illusion of moral decline
- Stagnation nation: how can Britain pull itself out of its economic decline?
- Britain is much worse off than it understands
- Headlines claim Britain is declining. They aren’t new — but are wrong.
- The optimism gap
- Human development index
For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing broken Britain. Chris, you're looking even more broken than usual this morning.
Speaker B:Uh, what happened? Well, I was supposed to get here for nine o'clock this morning, but that didn't happen because of industrial action on our, um, with our rail workers. Hold on, I thought that happened because you got the times mixed up. Are you using this, is it just a great excuse, this? No, I did get the times mixed up, but I was scheduled to arrive here an hour and 20 minutes early. So I would have got here on time, but instead I didn't. And the reason for that is just a symptom, I think, of something I've just been feeling increasingly for the last, I don't know, few years that our country is breaking and it's like... Is it going to hell in a handcart? It is. I think it is, or at least it feels that way. So the question is, um, is it actually, is it actually true that it's, that it's, uh, in, that we are in decline, that our country is ruined or is this cyclical? Is it, uh, merely a figment of my, uh, limited imagination and limited experience of the world? Um, or, uh, or are we actually, yes, on the road to, um, oblivion? Wow. That's equally, he wants that to be true. I think he does actually. I think he does. It was easier to set yourself up as a king of the world at that point.
Speaker A:Yes. Yeah. It a bit like sort of, you know,
Speaker C:King, Chris, Chris will be king of the wasteland.
Speaker A:Yeah. Well, I sort of, I've now had a sort of a flash image into my mind of, of, of, of Chris on the back of a sort of ramshackle car.
Speaker C:Yeah. Like the humongous he ran back to.
Speaker A:Zooming across with, yeah, with like, and Chris or half naked in like leather and metal and
Speaker B:with a grill on his face or something. So pretty much every, every weekend when I go to my steam. Yeah. It's also Friday night in Bournemouth.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've immediately got some questions I want to ask, but maybe you do as
Speaker C: sm rearing its head. It's the: Speaker A: ternet was much better in the: Speaker B:By virtue of it not existing, for example.
Speaker A:Yeah, we've got the internet at all, which he thinks is worse. And climate change and, and, and what else? What other stuff sort of gets you down?
Speaker C:Yeah, we've got a few things like that. So that's the, that's, that's, I think that's the feeling. Come on, Chris, what other, what other things make you think that we're?
Speaker B:Definitely sort of cultural decline of, you know, the quality of things like television, films, literature, all the hallmarks of civilisation feel like they've been abandoned, like we're looking on them like, like ruins of the past.
Speaker C:Well, mustn't grumble. I, so I have tried to find evidence that Britain is declining, right? Okay. I've looked for it. And I'm, I have to say, I've, I've struggled a bit.
Speaker A:But hold on. So what you've just listed, what we've just listed, that's not evidence. No, that's just because...
Speaker B:Subjective feeling. Yeah, well, I mean... It doesn't count.
Speaker A:Well, but...
Speaker B:You actually do need to look at...
Speaker C:There is some data for some of the stuff we've said. Things have got worse. You can't just feel like... No, I know, but... And I'll tell you why, because people have been feeling like things are getting worse for 200 years, possibly more. I know, for more than that. Possibly more.
Speaker A:The Romans, there's stuff with the Romans moaning about it as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, they thought they were in decline. Well, they were wrong.
Speaker B:Cato says about, well, about Caesar, he says, you know, he owes his greatness to his country's ruin, you know, a mere 150 or more years before the peak of the Roman Empire. And it didn't collapse for hundreds of years after that. So people have always, yeah. Yeah, quite.
Speaker A:But I remember, because what I was thinking of, I remember, I don't know who wrote it, but there was a passage with some, you know, Roman, someone like Cato, moaning about the next generation. Probably Seneca. It's always Seneca. Right. Nick, you're a data guy and you started talking about it a little bit there. Are things really getting worse? Go for it.
Speaker C:So let's look at some indicators. Life expectancy. OK, let me ask you this, Chris, when were things great? When's the golden age for you? I think mid 80s. Right. So I've got, I'm going to go from.
Speaker B:1985, precisely.
Speaker C: OK, exactly: Speaker B:Hold on. That's even worse, though. You've got six more years of this rubbish.
Speaker C:Hold on. Hasn't it flattened out in the last 10 years or so? Nope. Yeah, well, a bit. I mean, it's gone up by like a year in the last 10 years.
Speaker B:I'm just going on the issue of life expectancy just before we go on. I do think that life expectancy is a really bad measure of things going well. This is what the declinists say. Why? No, let them talk. Why? Because I think there's this sense of things like, you know, conditions like dementia, you know, Alzheimer's and so on going up and effectively you're giving people extra time, but you're not giving them any quality of life in that.
Speaker C: five years. This is all since: Speaker B:So you're saying spending more time in an old folks home and more time at school is an indicator of things having improved. GDP, right?
Speaker C:I remind you that the UK has the sixth biggest economy. We hardly have, you know, poverty ridden backwards.
Speaker A:Well, let's talk about distribution. But what's happened in the last 30 years.
Speaker C:London is a proper country. The rest of the country I don't know about. I've been there a couple of times. I agree it's pretty rubbish. But it's certainly...
Speaker A:Well, not just geographic distribution, but, you know, like, you know.
Speaker C: years, that since: Speaker A:We don't need to hear more, right? We do, because otherwise you'll say, oh, no, this other thing is declining. No, no, no, Nick, I think you've successfully made your point.
Speaker C: First World War and like the: Speaker A:Nick, Nick, Nick, listen, I think you've made your point, because actually I probably agree with you. Crime, much lower than it was in the 80s. Stop. So, so... Yeah. You're overwhelming me with the truth and the fact. Yes. I suspect both I and Chris agree with you that there are lots of data points that would prove that declinism is not a thing and actually the opposite.
Speaker C:I just want to say one sentence. But I, well, I've got one question for you as well. OK. Well, deliver that question after I've said my thing, because your question is going to... Well, make your thing quick then. Go. OK. So it's just I used to work for this guy in Defence Intelligence, who was sick of the whingers who worked in Defence Intelligence. And they, boy, were their whingers in Defence Intelligence, right? And he said every time, you know, we would have one of these meetings where all the kind of managers would get together and they'd always moan about how bad things were. And he said, it's the same thing. You guys always say things are getting worse and things are getting worse and things are getting worse. And somehow things are better than they used to be. And they were. That's how I feel. Everything's getting worse. But somehow, magically, we're in a much better position now than we were in the 80s.
Speaker A:OK. So that sort of leads on to the observation I have after my question, which is... So here's the question, which is, given all those data points that you've mentioned, do you personally believe that things are getting worse? Despite what you said. That's the first question. Yeah. Observation. Isn't this... I think we're skirting around the subject here, really. Which is, this is just a human condition, you know. Chris, unfortunately, is quite... He's at the extreme end of the scale, but he's just representative of us, of the human race. And we're sort of biologically... What's the word I'm looking for? Yeah. Yeah. What's that thing that Darwin came up with? Evolutionary. We're evolutionarily disposed and designed to be like this. It's good to be cautious. It's good to be a little bit...
Speaker C:What's the advantage, Fraser?
Speaker A:Because threats are more valuable than good things to our survival of our genes. I think that's an interesting idea.
Speaker B: . Oh, I thought you meant the: Speaker C:Well, since we're talking about the personal, there's an interesting phenomenon, which has been widely documented. Which is that people think things are getting worse, right? That's just a general thing. You ask people, okay, what's everyone, how is the country doing? You know, how is the situation you're in doing? People will say it's getting worse, on average. That people always think things are getting worse. When you ask people, how are you, is your life getting better? They all think their own lives, on average, are getting better. So there's like, your personal experience seems not to be able to overwrite your sense of everything going horribly wrong. I put, and thinking about me personally, it is getting better. And actually, when I think back to just the area I live in 10 years ago, when I think back to what it was like in Finsbury Park, where I grew up in the 80s, it's a different world now. Now you might think, oh, it's boring. Chris would probably say that's boring. And Anodyne, you should bring the muggers back. It's more exciting. But when I was, you know, a kid in Finsbury Park, it was people, some people didn't go there. There was because it was considered to be a sort of crime ridden hovel. Now you look down. Yeah, I don't go there now because you live there. Well, it's lovely cafes and restaurants. And you know, the streets are much, much cleaner. There aren't people outside Tesco's collecting for the miners strike. It's much better than it was in the 80s. Look, let's cut to the chase. No, I'm just saying my personal experience is that things have got better. Like London is a lot nicer than it was 20 years ago. And yeah, you look on the internet, everyone's, oh, London's so dirty and smelly. It's all going horribly wrong. And there's dog poo everywhere. And I think you should have seen it in the old days.
Speaker A:OK, guys, let's get straight to it, because I think there's two things going on here, or two questions I want to ask. We're going around all this boring data stuff, right? But my question is this. First of all, I think Chris, both of you actually kind of made a good point there, but especially Chris, which is about this kind of cognitive assonance or dissonance, whichever it is, which we can believe two contrary things and sit with them fine, right? i.e. Hey, I'm perfectly happy. Things are fine. Oh, my God, everything's getting worse. And that feels about right. That feels quite comfortable. I feel like that as well, because I kind of agree that things are generally getting worse. But actually, specifically, I feel great. Life is good.
Speaker C:I don't know if you, Declinists, have really given me... Chris says generally he thinks films now are crap. That's more or less his indicator. He doesn't like all the superhero films. But do you remember Canon Cinema in the 80s? I mean, do you remember the videos that you used to get from the video shop? They were awful. Brilliantly awful.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, you know, so I'm not even sure that holds up. What's coming out of the cinema? We've got Dune Part Two, Oppenheimer. We've always got those bloody Marvel films. You know, there's a new Wes Anderson film. These are all... It's not like these are kind of all... No, because superhero films are... Even those people...
Speaker A:Maybe the question and the answer is more complex than we might imagine. Maybe some things are getting better, some things are getting worse.
Speaker C:What is getting worse?
Speaker A:Well, definitely some films are getting better and some are getting worse.
Speaker C:So your sense of national decline is because you don't like superhero films?
Speaker A:No, but you asked me to talk about a specific example. That's what I've done. So look, but hold on. Second thing, really, this is a proper question. Really, what do you... Do you really think things are getting worse? Is... Let's simplify that question. No, sorry. Let's make it a little bit more detailed, but still quite general, which is, is stuff getting... Is Britain getting worse?
Speaker B: w in confidence. In the early: Speaker A:I genuinely agree with Chris. Nick, any, just briefly before we move on.
Speaker C:I think we, while we're on the level of kind of, of intuition, of introspection and trying to talk about what we feel like, the thing I feel like which has, which has changed, if you go back to the 80s, the remarkable thing is that we faced almost certain death by nuclear war, that objectively Britain was in a terrible state during nearly all of the 80s. We look back on it, obviously, as a period of kind of national revival. And I personally think right, rightly. So apologies to all those Thatcher haters out there. But I think all of those economic reforms needed to happen. You know, if you think about, I mean, but during most of, I mean, you look at the, certainly that first period of the 80s, it's, it's, you know, it's industrial strife. It's a recession, the Falklands War, the threat of, you know, nuclear war. It was not actually objectively a fun time. But I think what Chris has touched on, which is interesting, is there was a sense of hope. And I can't put it any other way. If you look at kind of American films, they were not, they were upbeat. They were bombastic. And they weren't cynical about the idea of progress. The goodies won. And, you know, there were goodies and there were baddies. And, and, you know, the hero kind of got what they wanted. And there was a straightforwardness to that kind of story of we, they were. Whereas I feel like now everything has that kind of cynicism to it. You know, if you sit there and go, oh, I think things are getting better. You look naive. You look sort of naive and stupid because, no, everything's obviously going to shit. And you're just, you're living in a fantasy world. So I do feel like this, this sense, this nebulous sense of hope, of kind of hope for the future has disappeared. And I think it's unjustified. We have no right to have stopped hoping for better. And I think we should get back to that.
Speaker B:So what's actually declining is optimism. That's what you're saying.
Speaker C:Right. I mean, which is weird. Like optimism is, well, I don't even think that's true. If you look at like business confidence, that's just not particularly lower. I think it's not something necessary that crops up in a kind of how optimistic I use type survey. It's something different. It's a feeling about the world. It's just a feeling which feels like when you, you know, you read things, people write and you listen to what people are saying. It feels like a kind of a sense that there's all this kind of polarisation. It feels like people are kind of at each other's throats. It feels unstable. You have you sort of Trump and Brexit and all of that. And there's a sort of sense of uncertainty. I feel like technology is not helping. Obviously, the Internet has had this massive impact on our lives that has not yet finished playing out or perhaps even started playing out. And then things like, you know, the chat, you know, the kind of large language models and art generators turn up. And it sort of feels like what is there for humans to do now? You know, when you were a kid, it's like, what did you want to do? You wanted to be a, you know, a train driver. Well, train drivers are automated now. Maybe you wanted to be a journalist. Well, it's automated now. It's like, it's like, well, what do we as, where are we going? You know, that, there you go. That's my best attempt to try and encapsulate what deep down what this kind of unease about the future is that that, yeah, despite all those sort of understood threats, I don't think really existed in the 80s. And I was a very anxious kid. So it's not like I was, you know, kind of super optimistic and happy in the 80s. But there was something, there was a feeling that you just don't get anymore.
Speaker A:Yeah. So I think the answer to my question is, yes, stuff is in decline. No. No, it's a yes. Right. Nick, where are we? Move us on. Is there something else?
Speaker C: n average than we were in the: Speaker B:Yeah, well, I think I think that's a really interesting point. And if you think about, you know, it's about whether relative decline is important or not. And if you look at the countries with the highest average level of happiness, according to the UN survey, right. They are. So the top 10 going in reverse order is New Zealand, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Israel, Iceland, Denmark, number one, Finland. All right. Now, but what I think this tells us is something interesting. None of those countries are major powers. Right. And if you look at them from a population point of view, the highest is Netherlands, just under 18 million people. So they're all quite small countries. They're all obviously developed countries. None of them are particularly unstable, although you've got countries like Israel and some other countries, you know, bordering Russia at the moment and so on. But they're not they're not the US and they're not China and they're not India. You know, they're not the sort of regional or, you know, they're not superpowers. And and I wonder whether this means is decline actually that that bad. Right. And I think about you think about Italy. OK, you know, you've got Rome, you've got the Renaissance. You've got these huge peaks of cultural and political power in their history. And now they are, you know, a country similar to sort of Britain in terms of, you know, standard of living and all that kind of stuff. But they're not they're not the Roman Empire of old.
Speaker C:Right. Yeah. But also it's worth thinking about the fact that the Romans didn't even have tomatoes. Now, would a modern day Italian want to bring back the Roman Empire, but do away with tomatoes? I would be surprised.
Speaker B:Or pasta for that matter. Yeah. So, yes, no, it's but but the point is, there's there's something about, you know, if you want to think what kind of country should you actually be to in order to be happy. It's not the best, most powerful country that that feels, you know, I guess that's quite stressful being that that country. But if you're, you know, a sort of a developed nation that's, you know, kind of freeloading off the international order a little bit and and, you know, your standard of living is maybe that's what you should aspire to. So I actually look at Italy and I think of all the countries I would want to live in and be part of a country like Italy is, you know, right up up there. And and yet actually, you know, in terms of these tables of where they are, they're slightly below the UK, you know, on a bunch of measures. So so, yeah, I think actually what you should be aiming for is is probably managed decline and sort of that's you know, that's the key to happiness.
Speaker C:I mean, it's so obvious, but it bears saying that the size of your country obviously does. I mean, in terms of GDP, in terms of your sort of national resources determines what your country, right, whatever that means, can do. But it says nothing about your personal level of prosperity. And obviously, like China has been growing enormously, has a huge economy. But obviously, there's a lot of I don't know if you know this, but there's a lot of Chinese people. And so you like on average, they're still what we would consider to be very poor. But they themselves are a lot richer than they were, you know, 20 years ago and probably have a right to feel like things are getting better. But I think this reminds I mean, you touched on it a bit earlier, Fraser, this kind of evolutionary pressure. I think there is a sense in which it's good for us to constantly feel like, you know, things aren't doing aren't going as well as they should be. And I think I've said this before, I feel like this lies at the heart of all of the problems with human nature, which is that we are not we've not evolved to be happy. Evolution does not make happy people. It's not what I mean, I literally mean it like happiness is not by itself a thing. Happiness is what drives us to do stuff, or at least the kind of promise of happiness is what drives us to do things like go over that hill and see if there's some nice fruit there. Or, you know, to go and kill that other tribe who are kind of eating our fish or whatever. It's that thought that in the future, things are getting better. And but if only we do this thing first, like if there's one tribe here who are just happy with what they've got and another tribe who's restless and wants to expand and because it thinks that that tribe is going to do better. We're that tribe. We evolved to be those guys. So so this sense of like, OK, things could be better. We need to work harder. We've got it. You know, things aren't as good as they could be. That is something, unfortunately, we just have to shoulder. And I think it's interesting that, you know, the fact that our intuitions that things are getting worse and the fact that people that ever have been saying things are getting worse, you know, and and sits alongside the fact that actually, objectively, things are much, much better than they used to be. It tells you that story.
Speaker A: is. Right. Even at his age in: Speaker C:No, I think you're touching on something really important, which is actually probably a podcast in itself. But, you know, we were talking about this kind of perception of relative standing actually makes a difference.
Speaker A:Yes, just don't let me forget my fourth point in a moment.
Speaker C:OK, but keep going. But I mean, there's no doubt about it that your relative standing and whether we think of ourselves as the nation or as an individual and the neighbours, your relative standing really does impact on your sense of well-being, unfortunately. Right. Right. So the Internet exposes us to lots of people who are doing better than us. You know, all of those influencers. I mean, it does. But no, no. But the point is that has that has a serious psychological impact. Absolutely. If you're, you know, if you're in a tribe of 150 people. I don't think that's the main point. If you're in the top five people of your tribe of 150, you're doing pretty well. Now, you take that exact tribe, you suddenly show them. Oh, did you know there's people with 19 bedroom houses, you know, not just one of them.
Speaker A:But this is a well-established thing with Facebook. Stay off it.
Speaker B:Because you see, I think that's what you're saying. I think what's interesting here is that that we what it hints at is that we measure ourselves relatively rather than absolutely. So nobody says I've or at least we're far more influenced by the fact like, oh, my neighbor's got a better car than I have than we are. Oh, I've got a better car than I had 10 years ago. Yeah. And why is that the case? Well, it must it must be that we've heuristically evolved to measure ourselves relatively because that's a lot easier to do than objectively when you didn't have access to all the facts that Nick has been.
Speaker A:You're absolutely right. And I agree. It's definitely a factor. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, you know, we always knew there were awful people out there. Now we can really see it. But it's very visible. Final thing I want to say. First of all, we need to stop. But next question to finish us off on. Right. So see what you think of this question. Okay. Notwithstanding everything we've said. What are you optimistic about?
Speaker C:Yeah. What are you hopeful about? Over the last few years, I don't know if you're following the news, but there was this pandemic, right? What happened was we very quickly, I want to say we, I mean, scientists invented a bunch of vaccines using techniques that didn't exist, you know, 20 years ago and probably saved millions of lives. And I think that's the tip of the iceberg, really, of kind of what science is going to be able to deliver for us, you know, in terms of sort of cures for things. I mean, look, no one, look, survival rates for all of these diseases that used to be death sentences are now, you know, extraordinarily high. There's just, you know, that is undoubtedly, I mean, that's one of the biggest improvements, really. Like the big story, if you were to look at the last 200 years is healthcare. That is what has saved, changed people's lives really more than anything else. That is, I think, you know, when we all just, we just use it and we go, oh, yeah, okay, well, I've got antibiotics. But you didn't die, you would have died if you hadn't had that. And now it's like, oh, I've got to take my antibiotics again. And it's, you know, if you think about what that is doing for us as a species, it's enormous. So yeah, there you go. That'd be my answer.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think I want Chris to go last. Mine is actually, it's rather boring, but I'm just generally quite happy and optimistic about, you know, what's going to happen, you know, just personally for me, my family over the next few years. But even just saying that actually makes me worry, because it just makes me feel like, oh, what's, you know, the moment you sort of feel and you identify that you're happy is when you're at the most risk of something awful. I mean, I might not be here tomorrow, you know, I might be knocked over. Well, that's cheered us up. It's bad for me, good for you. Right.
Speaker C:Well, why would you be in this studio tomorrow? I think. Well, a lie by me. Oh, I see what you mean. It reminds me of.
Speaker A:Because I might get knocked over by a bus, you know, when I leave here.
Speaker C:Mr. Worry, you know, the Mr. Men. Right, go on. At the end of Mr. Worry, he basically, all of it, everything goes, it goes fine. And all of the things he's worried about disappear. And then at the very last page, it says, Mr. Worry started to worry because he had nothing to worry about.
Speaker A:I think that's really profound.
Speaker C:I think so. I remember thinking so when I was about four.
Speaker A:Good old Roger Hargreaves, he was a philosopher king.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, Chris, the final word has to be yours.
Speaker B:Well, I suppose the thing I'm optimistic about is, and this is really, this is really cheesy, but I am actually optimistic about the next generation in that. Children of the future. Well, well, the children of now, actually, and where they're going, because it seems undoubtedly true if I look at myself and my siblings and I look at our sort of attitude, our level of endeavour, diligence in work and academia. Right. And I think, OK, we had a fairly lackadaisical attitude to things. And I think of all our children and I think of the sort of most of the children of the friends that I have, they are all very, very diligent, very much, much more focused on achievement and sort of academic excellence than anybody in my generation was. You're looking at me like this must be.
Speaker A:Appropriately, a rags to riches story, because this is not the case. I don't feel I work way harder than my children work. And I was way more driven than they are, all their mates.
Speaker C:I'm on Chris's side. Are you? Yeah, but also, I mean, you've only got to look at how boring kids are now. That's what I mean. They don't drink, they don't smoke. They don't fucking read anything.
Speaker B:But they're much, well, yeah, exactly. But they seem much more equipped to turn our country into Germany than we ever were. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, Germany of the post. Oh, thank God. Yeah, not the other Germany.
Speaker A:God, this is a bombshell. I completely disagree with this.
Speaker B:So anyway, so I'm optimistic that, you know, give it another 20 or 30 years, and we'll all be driving around in Volkswagens and Mercedes.
Speaker A:God, thank God we'll be either dead or, you know, rolling, you know, dementia by then. Yeah, apparently me tomorrow. Yes, I don't have to worry about that. Okay, nice. Okay, we're going to stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. You've been here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.
