"...The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldly bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its services by established families...the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we are still what we once were; the increasing concenteration of the populace into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system, and the desparation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of executive power at the expense of the legislature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show; the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs, while growing blind to the dilemmas of ordinary life..."
i just took this from a history book i'm reading...they are reasons for the fall of Rome.
interesting.
3 comments:
What is the history book called?
it is called "how the irish saved civilization"...i have since discovered it is widely critiqued for its take on the celtic contribution to western history, but the beginning, about the fall of rome, is quite interesting.
I knew I had already read this. It felt so familiar. I am going to be reading The Gift of the Jews soon. I think it is next on my reading list.
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