Playing with words.
(For some unknown reason “depraved, decadent and damned” has the same rhythm in my mind as “bewitched, bothered and bewildered”).
Morality is entirely subjective and always relative. It varies with time and place and individual. The moral standards of a group are a composite of the individual standards of those making up the group. Yet we are obsessed in judging others about their immorality – and always by our standards. Why else would we have so many words to describe the nuances or gradations of immorality? I suspect that no age is more depraved or decadent than any other. The measuring stick is always the variable morality of the day and place.
One can always find an antonym for any of the plethora of words describing immorality, but I suspect that the words were coined first to describe the level of immorality rather than the level of morality. In English there seems to be an over-representation of words beginning with “d”. I just take a few of these though there are many, many others (corrupted, perverted, lewd, licentious, prurient, wanton, profligate, hedonistic, ……).
These ought to be put as questions but, since morality is subjective, I take the liberty to frame them as statements.
- Hollywood is more debauched than Bollywood.
- Los Angeles is more depraved today than ancient Rome ever was.
- Tallulah Bankhead was more dissolute than Harvey Weinstein is.
- JFK was more dissipated than LBJ.
- Catholicism has degenerated more than Islam.
- The West Coast of any country is always more decadent than the East (as evidenced by the US, Australia, India and Sweden).
- California has more deviants now than Babylon had in its heyday.
- China defiles the Uighurs as Genghis Khan defiled the Han.
- Europeans despoiled the pyramids as ISIS despoiled Palmyra.
The nuances are fascinating. Decadence is not for the indigent but depravity is universal and indifferent to wealth. Decadence requires both wealth and indulgence to excess. (Clearly LA is more decadent than New York, Perth more decadent than Sydney, Bombay more decadent than Madras and Gothenburg more decadent than Stockholm). Depravity is simpler and just needs to be grossly immoral. On my very subjective scale of morality, I find depravity more immoral than decadence. Dissipation and dissolution include both moral and physical decay, though I tend to ascribe greater physical rottenness to dissipation. To be degenerate requires having had a high moral position to descend from. Debauchery always has innocence as a victim and is wasted on the already depraved. However, a debaucher would nearly always be depraved. Despoiling needs some artistic merit to begin with. What is foul and rotten cannot be despoiled. It does not take much to deviate from some norm to be considered a deviant. Every minority is necessarily deviant in fact, if not always in the popular discourse. In today’s politically correct world people who are fat, or old, or not pretty are the new deviants.
We are always morally superior to them. (This is inherent in the definition of we and them).
Naturally, all those others who are decadent and depraved are utterly damned.
Depraved, decadent and damned.
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