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How can really good chocolate cake be "decadent"?
Ok, Webster's online definition #3 says: "characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence"
But according to definition #1 "marked by decay or decline", it seems that the self-indulgence would have to lead to a bad situation. Now, my being lactose-intolerant (sorry if TMI), it would actually be indulgence in the tall, cool glass of milk that goes with the cake that would, well, you know, be decadent.
Am I wrong or am I wrong?
No. Something that is decadent doesn't have to lead to a bad situation. More often than not, it is the evidence of decay or decline that has already occurred, as in a decadent art form, or culture. The decadent does not lead to the fall, but is the result or demonstration of it.
And I'm certainly not one to badmouth a good, warm, chocolate filled chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting coated with chocolate ganache and drizzled with chocolate sauce served with a small quenelle of double-chocolate ice cream. Who would dare to call that decadent!
And I surely would not decline. Would you?
Nor would I decline, Glenn. Your description of that chocolate confection actually made me hungry.
Based on the standard definition of "decadent," I've always thought it's use to describe various pleasures was a kind of word play. Maybe even hyperbole? Kinda like saying "it's so good it must be bad."
I think Heimhenge has it: "So good it must be bad". A decadent society—one that is decaying—is also a society that tries to get its pleasures without responsibility, accountability, or even reference to morality (which would be "prudish"). Naturally those are the very societies that teach that the stolen watermelon tastes the sweetest, that married sex is boring and adultery all the better for being forbidden, and so forth. So something that is really, really good must be sinfully good. That's how "decadent" came to mean "especially pleasurable"...or "hedonistic" and "self-indulgent", except that both those terms, perhaps fortunately, yet retain a little of their older flavor, except in advertising copy.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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