Ik stel dat de mensheid even veel leert van politieke historici vandaag als van gisterens artifect archeologen in de Arabische zandbak van Rub' al Khali.
Citaat:
As this passage from Gibbon’s “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” shows, we have reason to look at Roman history for warnings:
“The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, [Augustus’] humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquility, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom.”
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Pax Romana, the period of relative peace at the height of Roman power lasted about 200 years. We are over 70 years into Pax Americana (from the end of WW II).
Iedereen
spreekt over het toekomstige einde, terwijl die zelfde 'iedereen' zich blijkbaar onbewust is van vandaags realiteit.
Rare mensheid met die mentale blindheid...