Plenty of Everything, Enjoyment of Nothing: Are We Living Through Joyless Decadence?
Academics argue that AI tools and modern abundance have not made life more fun. They may have quietly killed our capacity to enjoy anything at all.
Key points
- Academics Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson argue that modern life offers more than ever yet feels emptier than ever.
- They link this to a pattern seen throughout history: decadence tends to appear during periods of sharp inequality.
- AI tools are one example of technology that removes effort from daily life, possibly eroding the satisfaction that comes from doing things yourself.
- The researchers suggest that reclaiming a more deliberate version of enjoyment could reverse the trend.
We can stream any song ever recorded. Dinner arrives in under an hour. The entire planet is one scroll away. By any reasonable measure, life in 2025 offers more comfort and choice than any generation before us could have imagined. Most of it still feels flat.
That's the question at the centre of a new essay by Michèle Mendelssohn, a professor of American literature at Oxford, and cultural critic Charlie Tyson. Their argument, aired on a recent episode of The Guardian's Stateside podcast, is blunt: we're living through an era of decadence without pleasure.
What do they mean by "decadence without pleasure"?
Decadence, historically, means excess. The twist Mendelssohn and Tyson introduce is that this time the excess isn't producing enjoyment.
They point to two technologies as examples. First, AI assistants, the software tools that draft your emails and answer questions on your behalf. Second, GLP-1s, a class of prescription weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic that chemically reduce appetite and cravings. Both remove friction, and both may be quietly removing the thing that makes an experience feel rewarding in the first place.
The argument draws on a familiar idea from psychology: pleasure and effort are linked. A meal tastes better when you cooked it. A song means more when you sought it out. When a tool does the seeking or the thinking, the satisfaction can evaporate along with the work.
Does AI specifically make this worse?
It can, if used uncritically. That's the researchers' concern.
When an AI tool writes your message or plans your holiday, the experience becomes frictionless. Frictionless sounds appealing. In practice, it can mean you were never really present in the activity at all. You consumed the outcome without living the process. Our story on an AI app marketed to plan your anniversary for a checked-out partner drew a similar response from therapists: convenience isn't connection.
Mendelssohn and Tyson also tie this to inequality. Historically, they say, decadence arrives when the gap between rich and poor is at its widest. The gap between those who build and profit from AI systems and those who simply receive their outputs is one version of that same pattern.
Should you worry?
Nothing here demands you delete your apps or refuse AI tools. The researchers' point is more specific: notice when convenience is replacing engagement rather than supporting it.
Cook something occasionally. Write the message yourself. Let the effort be part of the point.
Decadence without pleasure isn't inevitable. Mendelssohn and Tyson argue it's a choice, and choosing differently is still available. What this beat keeps showing is that the tools aren't the real problem; it's the assumption that removing effort always improves an experience.
