Christopher Lasch, anticipating some of Douthat’s arguments re: decadence:

Futurology, in its infatuation with a technological utopia in the offing (so different from a genuine concern for posterity), cannot see what is under its nose. Devoid of historical perspective, it has no way of recognizing the future when the future has become the here and now. Those who pride themselves on facing “future shock” without fear retreat from the scariest thought of all: that social stagnation is not just a hypothetical possibility but a reality, which already has us in its grip. Indeed the prolongevity movement (together with futurology in general) itself reflects the stagnant character of late capitalist culture. It arises not as a natural response to medical improvements that have prolonged life expectancy but from changing social relations and social attitudes, which cause people to lose interest in the young and in posterity, to cling desperately to their own youth, to seek by every possible means to prolong their own lives, and to make way only with the greatest reluctance for new generations.