Please take the few minutes it takes to watch this video because it really brings into focus of asking the question, Is America Failing Like Rome Did? What is really happening in our society and the direction this great country is taking.
Victor Davis Hanson explores the striking similarities between ancient Rome and modern America in this thought-provoking video. Including the parallels between these two great civilizations and the lessons we can learn from history.
Unfortunately, in our modern American society, our people have only a vague understanding of our past and the importance of how much influence the events of the past have had on our society. It’s so easy to tear down statues in the park and call the figures on those statues racist. It’s so much harder to put yourself into the society of their time and understand the cultural morals of that time. And the people who are protesting about who these statues represent, only have a vague understanding of all the conflicts and sacrifices that were made in the past that resulted in these protesters being able to make their wild uninformed claims.
Today, the young are using terms, like racist and racism, without so much as a minute of thought and understanding as to how many people on both sides of the issue died in the fight to change our norms. And these young have given even less thought to those that suffered within the system and all they did. Oh, they talk of wars and fighting, but it was much more than that. There were those who never lifted a hand in anger, yet refused to submit and quietly fought the system of their day and succeeded in bettering themselves and the lives of their families. The irony of this is that we aren’t the first country to have to suffer this. Ancient Rome faced many of the same problems we are suffering through today.
And what turns out to be the biggest issues facing any society is usually money and an understanding of how their government operates. Money was a very important issue facing Ancient Rome. In the BC years during which the Roman empire was being put together, it was the strength of the Roman monetary system that allow the Roman government to finance the armies needed to overwhelm their enemies. But only after a couple of hundred years AD, the Roman financial system was struggling. The current Roman society had enjoyed the fruits of the hard won victories made earlier in their history. But the comfortable lifestyle Roman society was able to live, made the society focus on expanding their comfort level by creating money artificially. This lead to high inflation. The silver and gold coins being produced were no longer solid silver or gold, but instead bronze coins coated with the valuable materials leading to the loss of confidence in the government. As money lost it’s appeal, it created many problems for the government such as attracting the best into military service.
Does any of this sound familiar? The current generations are judging the past using today’s values not those that existed at the time. Our current generations no longer have a full understanding of how our government was created and the framework that was put into place to balance the government’s powers so that radicalism is not able to take hold. Our current generations see no problem with the attempts to change our system of government so that their political agenda can be imposed on the country as a whole. This is the greatest weakness of freedom, especially in a country like current America, which is supposed to be a melting pot for all the different cultures and races of people. Once the melting stops and tribalism take root, our system is weakened.