Decadence is a dumb and useless concept really - every damn time the society in decline considered something else irrelevant or actually helpful "decadence" whi

Decadence is a dumb and useless concept really - every damn time the society in decline considered something else irrelevant or actually helpful "decadence" while ignoring the actual cause of their downfall which they call "virtue". The infamous gladiatorial games which lead to multiple large scale insurrections were to "fight decadence" by trying to instill the military values they thought were important when really their expansionism and campaigns were a root of their downfall. Decadence as a concept makes a good polemic but it isn't a good source of judging problems let alone solving them. It really just means "I the self-proclaimed moral authority dislike this direction of society!". The closest to an "objective decadence-like concept" is an expectation of a way of life that cannot be sustained without significant damage. Cottage industry after the dawn of industrializarion would be "decadent" as factory volume beats them out and can no longer sustain the middle class lifestyle. Not exactly what comes to mix when one thinks decadence but it is a lifestyle made unsustainable. There is no "sin" to it but it just doesn't work anymore and trying to force it wouldn't work out well. Notably even that is subjective and depends upon means. Having less than 10% of the population involved in food production would be stupidly unsustainable before agricultural advances but is the first world norm today.