Why do civilizations decline?  Is wealth bad for us?  Does prosperity destroy the work ethic and nurture decadence and entitlement?  Could it be that freedom is ultimately toxic to us?  If civil and economic success breeds generations of slothful reprobates, is the decline and fall of great civilizations inevitable?  Listen in as Alexandra Berauer and John Snyder discuss the challenge of affluence and freedom and the tragic effect of plenty in the decline and degeneration of culture.  Is it possible to overcome the influences and momentum of vulgarity, ennui and self-indulgence?  Listen as the ITPS crew explore creativity and nobleness as inherent to us as men and women, and remind those of us who despair in our modern culture atrophy, that all men bear the image of God, that we are inherently spiritual beings,  creators, thinkers, and problem solvers.  It is only when we indulge the appetites and forsake character and the higher aspirations of the spirit do we become effete, little and ugly.  Even so, when we reject the noble and good, for the perverse and stupid, the barbarian comes and in his simple forthright way begins the regeneration of a civilization by asserting  simple, primary things over the complex, confused decadence and distractions of materialism and the vanity of acquisitive affluence.  Poverty therefore is not the absence of material things; rather it is the absence of spiritual rectitude.  The question is: is it possible for societies and individuals to regenerate and reform themselves?  Christians have an answer.