Concept

Decadence

Overview

Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, technology, and work ethics, or (very loosely) to self-indulgent behavior.

Usage of the term sometimes implies moral censure, or an acceptance of the idea, met with throughout the world since ancient times, that such declines are objectively observable and that they inevitably precede the destruction of the society in question; for this reason, modern historians use it with caution. The word originated in Medieval Latin (dēcadentia), appeared in 16th-century French, and entered English soon afterwards. It bore the neutral meaning of decay, decrease, or decline until the late 19th century, when the influence of new theories of social degeneration contributed to its modern meaning. The idea that a society or institution is declining is called declinism.

In literature, the Decadent movement began in France's fin de siècle intermingling with Symbolism and the Aesthetic movement while spreading throughout Europe and the United States. The Decadent title was originally used as a criticism but it was soon triumphantly adopted by some of the writers themselves. The Decadents praised artifice over nature and sophistication over simplicity, defying contemporary discourses of decline by embracing subjects and styles that their critics considered morbid and over-refined. Some of these writers were influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel and by the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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In the concepts "disinterestedness" and "self-denial," the actual signs of decadence are to be found. The allurement of that which is detrimental, the inability to discover one's own advantage and self-destruction, are made into absolute qualities, into the "duty," the "holiness," and the "divinity" of man.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen
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_The artist of decadence._ That is the word. And here I begin to be serious. I could not think of looking on approvingly while this _décadent_ spoils our health--and music into the bargain. Is Wagner a man at all? Is he not rather a disease?
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner Complete Works, Volume 8
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There is another side to this picture of the possibilities of decadence. At the present moment a discussion is raging as to the future of civilisation in the novel circumstances of rapid scientific and technological advance.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
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Philosophers who discussed Decadence

György Lukács

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

University of California, Los Angeles

Place in the tradition

Part of Fascism.

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