declinism en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
- /dɪˈklaɪnɪzəm/ (UK)
Etymology
From decline + -ism.
Meanings
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(uncountable) A pessimistic belief that things are in decline.
The chancellor came to Bloomberg’s HQ in the City of London on Friday seeking to raise the country’s spirits, hail the split with Brussels and dispel the “declinism” he says saps Britain’s energy.
2023 January 27, Phillip Inman, quoting Jeremy Hunt, “Jeremy Hunt overdoes the Es: why his economic plan is a letdown”, in the Guardian:Instead, declinism ruled—the belief that Britain was in a state of terminal, irreversible decline being widely shared, and—as glam has demonstrated—frequently and forcibly expressed.
2018, Simon Philo, Glam Rock: Music in Sound and Vision, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 104:Laudably, he [Cullen Murphy] ends on some optimistic notes, and some prescriptions, rather than wallowing in declinism.
2007 May 13, Walter Isaacson, “The Empire in the Mirror”, in New York Times:Scholars point out that strains of declinism can be found in most eras of history, which raises the question, is it logically possible for the world to be going to hell interminably — to be endlessly on its way to hell, ever worse than before, and ever better at each earlier epoch?
So maybe declinism is just a quirk of human psychology.
2015 January 16, Pete Etchells, “Declinism: is the world actually getting worse?”, in The Guardian:
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Relateds
deteriorationism · negativity bias · shittification · declinist