These people really do lose awareness of many things. But they also pretend to be unaware of even more. They actually enjoy their failings because they think being helpless proves how wealthy they are. They believe that knowing what you're doing is beneath them — something only poor, worthless people do. After seeing this, do you think playwrights have to make up stories when they mock the rich? Not at all. They actually leave out more than they invent. Our age has become so creative at producing incredible vices that playwrights can't keep up — there are too many real examples to mock.
Such people do really become unconscious of much, but they behave as though they were unconscious of much more: they delight in some failings because they consider them to be proofs of happiness: it seems the part of an utterly low and contemptible man to know what he is doing. After this, do you suppose that playwrights draw largely upon their imaginations in their burlesques upon luxury: by Hercules, they omit more than they invent; in this age, inventive in this alone, such a number of incredible vices have been produced, that already you are able to reproach the playwrights with omitting to notice them.