Another definition of decadence: To be unable to experience anything that one describes.
It is cold, dark and raining, this morning, but the light is on, and I am warm and dry. I am not the cold, not the warmth, nor the dark, nor the light, nor the rain. I should go outside and feed the birds...
8 comments:
Rather good but perhaps understated?
To be so addicted to novelty, comfort and prosperity that one's actions cannot but undermine them.
Another definition of decadence:
To be unable to experience anything that one describes.
It is cold, dark and raining, this morning, but the light is on, and I am warm and dry. I am not the cold, not the warmth, nor the dark, nor the light, nor the rain.
I should go outside and feed the birds...
Decadence: an excess of success and prosperity and ease, softening and rottening a man's hard inner core.
Or:
Decadence: an excessive preoccupation with the subject of decadence.
?
No: I don't think the recursive one holds water. Have you any evidence that the decadent even know that they are decadent, never mind obsess about it?
That last makes me smile, Bruce.
@dearieme -
Fair point.
I was partly thinking of something like the Weimar Republic as depicted in the movie Cabaret, or the explicit decadence of the late 19th century.
In my life I have certainly been in situations in which the mood seemed to be a deliberate cultivation and enjoyment of decadence.
Decadence: an excessive preoccupation with the subject of decadence.
There is a line from Rimbaud, who knew a thing or two about modernity: the diagnosis is part of the disease.
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