User:Jamtrousers/Decadence

Oh, that's good... Uh oh, my legs are on fire...

Decadence is a condition of social and moral decay which has been observed in peoples throughout recorded history, and is thought by many to be the inevitable endpoint of any advanced society. It is generally the result of an over-emphasis on Hedonism and is essentially defined by the inability of the populace to stop themselves from masturbating for long enough to make any valuable contribution to the community.

The most famous illustration of this is, of course, the collapse of the Roman empire, and the helpless Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.

The Process

The exact catalysts for a state of decadence are much-debated, and it is often observed that if they were knowable then few societies would ever sink into such a state. The most prominent theory though is that general decadence occurs when the average intelligence of the population is high enough that they all suddenly become terribly disillusioned with the world, and start listening to instrumental rock. When this happens, the air of ennui is so overpowering that no-one sees the point in sexual intercourse anymore, and so all and sundry busy themselves purely by continually beating off, this obviously being the most immediately gratifying way to spend one's time.

This kind of rampant self-loving is clearly unsustainable in economic terms, since there are only so many necessary jobs which can be performed using only one hand. This can lead to one of two results:

A) A total economic collapse, ending in the tragic scene of an entire nation of people secreted in their bedrooms, starving to death but, even so, still wholly unable to uncouple their hands from their genitals, or

B) The emergence of a two-tiered class system, with the rich-born able to indulge theirselves and wank all day long, whilst the less fortunate are forced to live, work, and pursue love and wholesome existences in order to support them, much to their pesonal chagrin.

Decadence In Modern Societies

“America is the only society that went from babarism to decadence without civilisation in between. Presumably this means they don't have any tissue paper.”

~ George Bernard Shaw on America

Many people have feared in recent times that America, as an economically over-developed nation, will soon lapse into a state of decadence. Some point, as proof of this, to President Clinton's famous "bathroom door" press conference:

(Breathlessly) "I think that- <grunt of exertion> -the free trade agreement... speaks for itself as a...a...a... a viable economic course of- aaaaahhhhh, yes!... Sorry, what were we talking about?"