I don’t really buy it. Rome fell for reasons a professional historian of Rome has told me are still unclear, but I don’t really see a lot of parallels in our big problems, which are very new and untested.
Yeah, I realise it’s kinda weird to post this after talking about how familiar a lot of things in Rome were, but in the narrow scope of existential problems the overlap is limited.
Liberal democracies work very differently from autocracies. The weather isn’t a mystery of the gods, it’s self-inflicted. Rome kept it’s population in check through massive natural and to a lesser degree artificial mortality, while we have great medicine but ever-lower fertility rates. Roman peasants may have been vaguely aware of the distant land of Italy, we have information overload conveyed by machines even 20th century people struggle with. When we have a plague, it’s less about escaping it, and more about convincing people they should.
Some problems are timeless - or at least haven’t been dealt with yet - but I feel like putting it in terms of Rome like this is misleading and can be used to justify all kinds of things. When I’ve seen this meme posted before, it’s usually a lead-up to really chuddy comments about immigration or loss of traditional values.
I don’t really buy it. Rome fell for reasons a professional historian of Rome has told me are still unclear, but I don’t really see a lot of parallels in our big problems, which are very new and untested.
Elites hoarding wealth to the detriment of the polity and mindless obedience to utterly incompetent cretins are truly timeless contributors, though.
Yeah, I realise it’s kinda weird to post this after talking about how familiar a lot of things in Rome were, but in the narrow scope of existential problems the overlap is limited.
Liberal democracies work very differently from autocracies. The weather isn’t a mystery of the gods, it’s self-inflicted. Rome kept it’s population in check through massive natural and to a lesser degree artificial mortality, while we have great medicine but ever-lower fertility rates. Roman peasants may have been vaguely aware of the distant land of Italy, we have information overload conveyed by machines even 20th century people struggle with. When we have a plague, it’s less about escaping it, and more about convincing people they should.
Some problems are timeless - or at least haven’t been dealt with yet - but I feel like putting it in terms of Rome like this is misleading and can be used to justify all kinds of things. When I’ve seen this meme posted before, it’s usually a lead-up to really chuddy comments about immigration or loss of traditional values.