Decadence  

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== See also == == See also ==
 +*[[Decadence theory in Marxism]]
*[[Degeneration]] *[[Degeneration]]
*[[Degenerate art]] *[[Degenerate art]]

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Elagabalus  was a Roman emperor known for perverse and decadent behavior. Due to these associations with Roman decadence, Elagabalus became something of a hero to the Decadent movement in the late 19th century. Characterizing him and other historical persons in antiquity as "psychopaths" — for example, the five "mad emperors" of ancient Rome: Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Commodus, and Elagabalus — is however a retroactive speculation premised on a decidedly modern view of human nature and individual psychology. This modern view did not start to develop until the Late Middle Ages, reaching full fruition in the Enlightenment and Romantic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
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Elagabalus was a Roman emperor known for perverse and decadent behavior. Due to these associations with Roman decadence, Elagabalus became something of a hero to the Decadent movement in the late 19th century. Characterizing him and other historical persons in antiquity as "psychopaths" — for example, the five "mad emperors" of ancient Rome: Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Commodus, and Elagabalus — is however a retroactive speculation premised on a decidedly modern view of human nature and individual psychology. This modern view did not start to develop until the Late Middle Ages, reaching full fruition in the Enlightenment and Romantic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
The Remorse of Nero After the Murder of His Mother (1878) by John William Waterhouse
Nazi Germany disapproved of contemporary German art movements such as Expressionism and Dada and on July 19, 1937 it opened the Degenerate art travelling exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munich, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels  deriding the art, to inflame public opinion against modernity.
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Nazi Germany disapproved of contemporary German art movements such as Expressionism and Dada and on July 19, 1937 it opened the Degenerate art travelling exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munich, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art, to inflame public opinion against modernity.
1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon
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1872 photograph of the western face of the Greek Parthenon

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See also Decadent movement

Decadence refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline. In a society, it describes corrosive decline due to a perceived erosion of necessary moral traditions. (A society that discards unnecessary and outmoded values would not be considered decadent.) Due to the subjective nature of morality, whether a society is decadent or not is a matter of debate, though certain historical societies (such as ancient Rome near its end) are generally held to have been decadent, as decadence may lead to objective decline.

Decadent societies are often prosperous but usually have severe social and economic inequality, to such a degree that the upper class becomes either complacent or greedy, while the lower classes become hopeless and apathetic. The middle class may exhibit either or both patterns, or it may vanish entirely. Poor leadership is generally held to be both a cause and a symptom of decadence, as the lifestyle of a decadent individual is usually considered to be incompatible with responsibility. Applied to the arts, decadence implies an elevation of self-indulgence and pretension over effort and talent; when applied to science and the professions, it describes an erosion of professional ethics. Individual or collective greed is generally disliked in societies with strong moral beliefs, and for this reason, societies that nurture it are sometimes accused of decadence.

Societies that persist in a state of decadence may become unable or unwilling to commit to their own upkeep and fall into decline. One historical perspective on ancient Rome is that it became decadent due to a succession of poor emperors like Nero and Caligula. While they ruled centuries before the date of Rome's fall, their leadership may have played a role in its decline. This point of view may also be biased by ex-post interpretation : beyond his eccentricity Nero was also viewed as a good ruler and very popular during his reign, and Caligula only reigned a few years. Machiavelli attributed Roman decadence to the rise of Christianity. See also: Roman decadence.

Contemporary post-industrial societies such as the United States and Western Europe are sometimes accused of decadence, the argument being that consumerism, materialism, and selfishness have eroded traditional moral values of community, democracy, and the work ethic.

In literature, the Decadent movement—late nineteenth century fin de siècle writers who were associated with Symbolism or the Aesthetic movement—was first given its name by hostile critics, and then the name was triumphantly adopted by some writers themselves. These "decadents" relished artifice over the earlier Romantics' naive view of nature (see Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Some of these writers were influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel and by the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

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