The rest of the world is our playground: to conquer and loot at our whim and pleasure. Science and technology gives us the weapons, organizational ability gives us the methods to accomplish this. In this, we are ‘superior’ to the rest of the world and we never let them forget it. A cruise missile here and there and the occasional ‘punishing war’ will serve as a reminder. And our trump-card: our nuclear arsenal, that can destroy all life on Earth, is our final argument. That is why we go to any length to make sure that the ‘savages’ don’t get their own. We certainly would not like it used against us, even as a threat.

However, just like in Nero’s time, we are so decadent, so out of touch with reality, that we seem to be helpless against the hatred and determination of the ‘savages’. We bumble from one attempt at conquest or reprisal to another, bleeding our blood and money on the battlefields, losing way more than what we gain.

In the meantime, the Planet is steadily being destroyed under our feet and we face self-destruction when we run out of victims to feed on.

Yes, we are actually eating the rest of humanity alive. Yesterday’s headlines on CBC website: “25 million people starve to death each year”, “14,000 new HIV patients every day”. Aids is spreading from Africa to Eastern Europe, Russia, India and China. The planet is fast running out of resources and pollution (especially outside ‘Rome’) reach catastrophic levels. This is the price the rest of the world has to pay for our ‘affluence’.

We pretend that globalization is helping those poor people ‘over there’. We are giving them jobs in the factories we set up on their land to spread civilization. First we had to destroy their way of life, foist the most ruthless among them to do our slave-trading for us and prop them up with weapons and loans so they can suppress their own people for us.

Then, since they are so deep in debt for the unpaid weapons, we make them pay for it by growing exotic fruit and coffee beans for us; make our shoes, clothes and play-things for us; let us extract and cart away all their natural resources, shipping it to the west in a never-ending convoy of transport ships. In exchange we let them live in the shanty towns surrounding our modern factories, and not quite starve on the wages we pay them. The lack of minimum safety standards and pollution preventing safeguards is just an unfortunate side effect they have to live with.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is true, we, in the ‘Western Democracies’, are still the Empire of Rome, in aims, methods, values, ruthlessness and appetite.

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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We bumble from one attempt at conquest or reprisal to another, bleeding our blood and money on the battlefields, losing way more than what we gain.

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The patricians managed to maintain the loyalty and service of the plebians with promises of a share in the loot. Promises mostly unfulfilled.

But like good suckers, the plebians continued to serve on the basis that one day the promises would be kept.

Much like today.

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: WingNut ]

Plebians were guaranteed one of two consuls and elected 10 tribunes who could veto legislation.

Of course the elections were rigged so that the rich people's votes were worth more than the poor people but that still goes on.

Another interesting feature of Roman life during the republic was that they had a volunteer army made up from wealthy and middle class Romans. To be in the army you had to be able to buy your own weapons and armour. As the middle class gradually got squeezed out, there became fewer and fewer available soldiers which combined with huge losses in the first wave of German invasions caused a problem.

and intellectually, the western world is really a continuation of greek thought. Roman philosophers were not as influential as their greek counterparts vis a vis western thoughts.

Although I take the general point that Francis is making and Wingy agreed with, I don't believe in "continuous lines" in history. Bad people and human folly we have always with us, but both the devil and the angels are in the details, and we learn more if we look closely at specific cases, or at least I think we do.

Gibbon's point in talking about the decline and fall of the Roman empire was precisely that the empire was not the republic. Gibbon believed that the empire began to decline and fall at the very moment the republic flipped into the empire -- and in that image alone are some useful political lessons.

But Voltaire was no democrat, which Ralston Saul appears not to know, or much care about. (I looked through that book for a close reading of Voltaire and I couldn't find one. Could anyone else?)

If every time that imperial snake-oil salesmen claim that they are making the world safe for democracy or spreading democracy we are bastardizing any modern thought, we would more properly be called Rousseau's bastards, or more generally bastardizers of the Enlightenment.

quote:

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The idea that "we" in "the West" are the heirs of Rome, Greece, Biblical Israel etc is an invention.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
John Ralston Saul is wrong. By "Voltaire's bastards," he meant to say that we have got democracy all wrong, which of course we have.

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“Reason is a narrow system
swollen into an ideology

With time and power it has
become a dogma, devoid of
direction and disguised as
disinterested inquiry

Like most religions, reason
presents itself as the solution
to the problem it has created”

He also writes: “Were Voltaire to reappear today, he would be outraged by the new structures, which somehow deformed the changes for which he struggled.….The central assumption of Voltaire…..had been wrong. Humanism was proving itself unable to balance reason. The two seemed, in fact, enemies”

Voltair’s ideas about reason demanded that it be accompanied by ethical consideration and common sense. Saul carries this idea a lot further in his book: “Equilibrium” where he states that our main faculties: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason must be in balance for healthy survival.

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Of course, the scriptures were written in Greek and Latin, for the most part.

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The mind-set of ‘western’ citizens, demanding unrestricted freedom, unrestricted consumption, unrestricted power and limitless self-gratification is totally alien to most of the billions living in the ROTW (rest of the world). Your average Hindu or Muslim or African tribesman or Russian peasant or Chinese villager looks upon our culture with a mix of horror, fascination and contempt. Expressions like “The Ugly American” or “foreign devils” were not coined by accident.

So, regardless of the existence (or otherwise) of a direct cause-and-effect chain (of which I am convinced) linking us to the Roman Empire, we share this uniqueness with them to such a large degree, in the eyes of the ROTW, that we might as well adopt them as our spiritual fathers.

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

But most people are jealous. Sometimes disapproving, particularly of the West's abandonment of Traditional Sexual Mores, but most generally enjoy the West. Even if they don't want to be the West, necessarily.

Voltaire had very little in common with the generations -- and I mean that plural -- of Enlighteners who followed him. "Reason" in his writing meant nothing like what it did to the next generation, and then there was another shift after them, all before the two cataclysmic Romantic revolutions (French and USian). So throwing around terms like "the Age of Reason," to refer to a period more than a century long, simply makes no sense. You are tossing together vastly different thinkers, a deep-dyed conservative like Voltaire with, eg, a radical ironist like Rousseau -- this just does not help thought.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
In my opinion, John Ralston Saul is good at two things: dropping names, and misleading the good people who read his books.

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PS. However, since JRS and his value to society is not exactly the topic of this thread (I know, I mentioned his title first) I suggest we discuss him (should we wish to do so) in a different thread.

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Francis Mont:
The point I was trying to make in this thread is closely tied with the points I made in the “Borders” thread: In human history ‘western civilization’ has played a unique and dominating role.

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True as far as it goes. But that's mostly because we got lucky, not because we were different.

quote:

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It is so different from the rest of the world and their cultures, so unique in its pursuit of wealth and power via hierarchical structures, science and technology, concepts of freedom and democracy, that it sets us aside from, and often against, the rest of the world.

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Nonsense. First, our thing for science and technology is very recent. The Romans and the medievals and the western groups of the ancient world who were not roman (e.g. germanics, celts, franks, vikings, iberians and whatnot) never gave a shit about technology. They were often deeply conservative. Meanwhile, during our imperialist phase and since the Western powers have intervened repeatedly to hinder other groups in their adoption of technology. From smashing Egypt when they tried to industrialize in the 19th century to enforcing "intellectual property" rules on the third world today, it's not so much that they don't want tech, it's that we're consistently blocking them.
Second, all non-hunter-gatherer societies the world over have been hierarchical, and they've mostly tried to accumulate wealth and power. The more wealth they accumulated, the more hierarchical they got, and the more the people at the top tried to accumulate wealth. Agricultural societies tried to conquer one another and grab territory in the Americas (from the Iroquois to the Incas and Aztecs), in China, India, Turkey, Africa--everywhere.
The basic reasons why, in the end, we did it to them rather than them doing it to us or everyone being closer to tied, are explored pretty persuasively in "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. His thesis is that basically, geography and the available plants and animals for domestication had a huge impact. There are many plants that can be cultivated for food, but relatively few that work well as staples. Most of the best--all the wheat-related cereals--originated, in fact, in the middle east. Africa didn't have much that was usable, China had rice, America had maize and beans. He also notes that once a good candidate crop is found, it's easier to spread it out east-west along similar climate severity than north-south. So Africa and the Americas had those factors against them. Meanwhile, to this day there are very few truly domesticated animals, and this is not for lack of trying. Most animals don't have the right characteristics--either they're not very social, or they can't be induced to accept humans as the apex of their social pyramid, or whatever. There have been attempts to domesticate animals such as zebras; you'd think it could be done--they look so much like horses. But it can't. They don't think like horses. Again, the Americas and Africa and Australia had very little in the line of domesticatable animals. There's reasons the Aztecs didn't use wheels.

quote:

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It is so different from the rest of the world and their cultures, so unique in its pursuit of wealth and power via hierarchical structures, science and technology, concepts of freedom and democracy, that it sets us aside from, and often against, the rest of the world.

---

I'm not sure I buy that. I don't think you can build an empire without most of those traits (minus the freedom and democracy, which have hardly been a constant characteristic of the West anyway). I'm pretty sure Kublai Khan, the Aztecs, the Ottoman Turks and the Chinese imperial court knew a bit about hierarchical structures. And I could go on.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mandos:
But most people are jealous.

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The only non-western (even though rapidly westernizing) culture I am personally and intimately familiar with is that of Eastern Europe. During my years (27) there I had witnessed both fear and contempt (as well as jealousy) from a large segment of the population towards western culture. The stories going around centered on hedonism, lack of compassion, atomization and alienation, sexual perversion and many less than complimentary aspects of what they assumed was a uniquely western culture.

In addition to my experience in Hungary, during the last thirty years, I have had many discussions with members of various cultural minorities living in Canada and their experiences in their home countries suggested similarities to mine.

As far as our influence on the world is concerned, consider that the only two world wars were uniquly western projects, using all advances in our science and technology, to execute them with 'admirable efficiency', as far as the mass murder and destruction is concerned. Using superior technology to maximum advantage was a uniquely Roman trait as well. I just watched a documentary on Roman warfare technology and was impressed by how similar it was to the organization of our 'military-industrial complex'.

After all I have read and learnt about Rome, I feel I would feel right 'at home' there, should I somehow be catapulted back to that age (the declining Empire phase which is similar to where we are now), into a similar social status I am occupying now (I would despise their culture just as much as I despise my own).

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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They hate it so much that they are willing to kill themselves, as long as they can take a few thousand of us along for the ride. Sure.

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[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Francis Mont:
Using superior technology to maximum advantage was a uniquely Roman trait as well.

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No, it most certainly was not. The pre-industrial revolution Chinese were big on that (well, in many eras). In a different way, so were the Mongols. They had totally awesome horse archers and they used that fact to squash everyone, but they also grabbed people with expertise wherever they found them, so as to add things like siegecraft which they themselves didn't know how to do to their arsenal.

The fact is that the whole "The West is Unique" (whether for better or for worse) thing is just the flip side of Orientalism. It's a mystification; westerners are different--they're superhuman, or subhuman, or both; they spread their influence because the culture is inherently superior, or more violent, or more efficiency-minded, or more Protestant, than everybody else's. No, sorry, people are people and while cultures vary with conditions, there's nothing particularly bizarre about the West (or rather, the bizarre stuff is a result of dominance and technology, not the cause), and for that matter it doesn't exist. These days Japan is part of the "West". And their consumerism is just as whacked out as everyone else's, as is their technological triumphalism.

One last attempt to clarify: Yes, I know that empires have a lot in common. They share one thing: the definition of "empire" that applies to all. However, every one of them has something unique to itself, otherwise they would be all identical.

My contention is that the Roman Empire did have a lot of features that they shared with our current 'Western Democracies' Empire' which goes beyond mere 'empireness'.

One example. Did you know that the Roman Empire discovered the basic operational principle of machine-guns? It was implemented with a crossbow, firing arrows, in quick, repeating sequence, where the firing action itself loaded the next arrow into place, ready to be fired again. Pure mechanisational genius.

Or, did you know that the Romans used prefabricated fortresses they carried with them to the conquered territories, for quick assembly on the spot, in a matter of hours? Predates the conveyor-belt technology of the Industrial Revolution by quite a few centuries, it seems.

Now, it is possible that I missed something and the Chinese also invented 'Industrial Revolution' techniques and used it for conquering far away lands. I am not up on Chinese Empires, and, if I am wrong, please correct me (always willing to learn), but my impression is that the Chinese were more xenophobic than the Romans and wanted to keep foreigners out rather than walk all over them.

We know there is a direct line of influence from Greek to Roman, to Christianity, to the Crusades, to European imperialism, to British Empire, to American Empire. Our languages have deep roots in Latin, our religion is predominantly Christian (exported by the Romans to Europe), our judicial system has many, many roots in the Roman Justice System, our concepts of democracy goes back to the Greeks who passed it on to the Romans and our military academies still teach strategies and organizational priciples employed by the Roman Empire.

Is it such a huge leap of imagination to accept that we may have more in common with the Romans than what we do with the Chinese?

[ 28 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

Just drop the whole Roman thing, there's nothing special about it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tackaberry:
Just drop the whole Roman thing, there's nothing special about it.

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One of the things I find most appalling in our western culture is that “Smug, self-righteous, condescending and aggressive arrogance” I talked about in the “Borders” thread.

Many citizens of this western empire seem unable to conceive that there may be a different culture out there, with different values, attitudes, customs, symbols and rituals than ours. We just simply assume that we are the greatest invention in the world and everyone else is just dying to be like us. They can not conceive of the fact that many cultures have values, some of which are superior to ours, in the sense that following them could make us happier human beings.

Those of us who have experienced, first hand, different cultures and value systems – with open eyes, immersed and surrounded by that world for a long enough time to absorb and understand it – will know that it is possible to be different from us and better in some respects at the same time.

If only we became aware of this dimension of our existence, we could act in a much more tolerant, open-minded, even-handed way, causing a lot less damage (often with very good intentions) to other cultures, and enrich our lives with real depth of humanity.

Right now, just as the Romans were in their time, we are much feared and hated all over the world and cursed by billions of human beings, whose lives we have effected in a disastrous way, in our ignorance and arrogance.

Looking at the Roman Empire, from the safe distance of historical perspective, we can learn a lot about ourselves (just as skdadl suggested), because the similarities act as a mirror we can look into and see ourselves for what we are. And the image we can see is often a frightening one.

As Peter O’Toole (acting a Roman general) said in “Massada”: “Give us our dues, man, we know how to kill!”

[ 29 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

Francis: What you mean "we," white man?

You are discounting so much of Western tradition -- or so many traditions that have also thrived and persist yet in most Western cultures -- in your overview, Francis. That bothers me also.

Those constant "we"s above imply as much, imply that all of us are uncritical followers of cynical political rulers, uncritical consumers of the spoils of empire, and so on.

Imperialism hasn't changed much:

But the trope "We're just like the Roman Empire"
also has its potetnial abuses. For example, there is an idea extant in our culture that the Roman Empire degenerated because it became too soft...and perhaps too tolerant.

It is best to jettison the grand overarching analogies, and deal with specifics. For example,
Cicero was taught in British public schools in the 19th century and was a mainstay of young mens' self-understanding, as evidenced in their diaries and letters.

quote:

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Cicero was taught in British public schools in the 19th century

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Quite right. At some point during the Restoration, some British (John Dryden's Astrea Redux is an early example) embraced the idea that they were the "New Rome."

At least the British were open about their Empire, although they did claim they were civilizing the savages. Until a few months ago, the Yanks refused to acknowledge their Imperial tendencies. They too now claim to be descended from the Romans.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
What you mean "we," white man?

---

PS. It is perfectly proper to use the 'we' pronoun, without implying 'every one of us'. If it covers the mainstream, then its use is logical. But, I suspect, you know that already.

[ 29 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Feel free to disagree, to your heart's content

---

Thank you, Francis: I do.

Actually, Francis, I have a serious and long-considered reason for objecting to narration in the first-person plural.

To me, that rhetorical "we" is the narrative voice of the USian revolutionary documents. Now, on the one hand, those documents are noble statements of disembodied ahistorical idealist conceptions of democratic principle -- and as such, they come in handy as summaries, or crib-sheets, for those needing the short-list of democratic principle. Sort of a Coles Notes for democrats.

On the other: since it is impossible to grasp where democratic principles come from if you are being a romantic idealist, since those principles arise from historical experience, I consider romantic idealist expressions of them to be dangerous.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Thank you, Francis: I do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
I am not one of your wees.

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I will keep your objection to my use of the 'we' pronoun in mind, and see if this knowledge lends itself to practical application in the future. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

[ 30 November 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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We, the people, ..." is a romantic idealist voice.

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I doubt that very much.

Romanticism was pretty sparse on the ground at the time the American Constitution was written.

So was any idealism I recognise.

The "We the People" part of the preamble to the Constitution simply asserts that the sovereign is no longer an individual; it is everyone.

I can't imagine a more democratic sentiment.

quote:

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it is impossible to grasp where democratic principles come from if you are being a romantic idealist, since those principles arise from historical experience.

---

Sorry, but I do not understand. I presume that the intellectual consideration of historical experience is the origin of most political ideas. You watch tyranny, and decide it is bad.

I think democratic ideals come from the inherent dignity of the human person; and from the experience that autocratic or tyrannical government is not protective of that dignity.

To believe that "we" are the source of democratic
legitimacy does not make me a romantic, though maybe idealistic.

[ 29 November 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

I think it's obvious that there are many Roman influences today. For all the blather about our "Judeo-Christian" heritage, I know that Cicero or Ceasar wouldn't need much time to understand the workings of our legal system. But our old testament Hebrew lawyers would be quite lost.

Does our legal system, or our systems of government patterned after the Roman Republic, or any of our other institutions that have it's roots in Rome shape the way we screw over our brothers?

Would this be a kinder, gentler world if Hannibal had won? Or the Celts repulsed Ceasar in the Gallic War?

I kinda doubt it.

And, screwing over our brother seems to be a rather human thing that isn't particular to any system, to any continent, culture, "race" or ethnic group.

What's perhaps rare is a large and growing number of people who tend to think it's rather a bad thing, if not for purely humanitarian reasons, then because they've read enough to know that Empires are rather fleeting in nature, and it's hell on the way down when those you stepped on on the way up have their day.

As far as thread drift goes, one similarity I see in the later days of the Roman Republic and today's American political scene is the growing reliance of the courts to achieve partizan political objectives.

I think this was one of the leading reasons for the eventual death of the Roman Republic, and I think it bodes ill for the Americans.

[ 01 December 2003: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
...Does our legal system, or our systems of government patterned after the Roman Republic, or any of our other institutions that have it's roots in Rome shape the way we screw over our brothers?
...
I kinda doubt it.
...
What's perhaps rare is a large and growing number of people who tend to think it's rather a bad thing...
...
one similarity I see ... is the growing reliance of the courts to achieve partizan political objectives.
...
I think this was one of the leading reasons for the eventual death of the Roman Republic, and I think it bodes ill for the Americans.

---

- Yes, there is an obvious heritage.

- No, we are not identical.

- Yes, we are more like the Romans than like the Chinese in our methods, institutions, reliance on high-tech, etc....

- No, 'screwing over our brothers' is not unique to the Roman or Western empires.

- Yes, many of our citizens have learned from history, realizing that empire is a 'bad thing'

- No, not all of us have. Our majority (what I called 'we' without implying skdadl personally ) still fall for the cliches our leaders spout. That is why Bush had an over 80% approval in the US when he invaded Iraq.

- Yes, we can learn from historical lessons by looking at the similarities

- No, we are not fated to repeat the exact same pattern, because the significant differences may save us in the end.

- Yes, it is a good thing to look into a mirror as often as we can and identify, precisely and mercilessly, who we are and what we are doing

- No, it is not enough just to talk and do 'mea culpa' -- we have to stand up for what we believe in, follow our convictions in action, put our money where our mouths are.

- Yes, I know I have said all of it before: "endlessly", it seems.

- No, I will not stop repeating what I think is very important to acknowledge, because the world will not become a better place without our realization WHY it is so bad now and then acting on that knowledge.

[ 01 December 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Francis Mont:
When I started this thread, I could have sworn I had a point to make.

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And if you hadn't vastly overstated it I wouldn't have argued. As far as I'm concerned, talking about direct cultural connection to Rome as the key to Western imperialism is misguided. As you agree, empires all have certain points in common. Overemphasis on uniqueness of Western culture leads to neglect of structural explanations.

quote:

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One example. Did you know that the Roman Empire discovered the basic operational principle of machine-guns? It was implemented with a crossbow, firing arrows, in quick, repeating sequence, where the firing action itself loaded the next arrow into place, ready to be fired again. Pure mechanisational genius.

---

As a matter of fact, the Chinese had the exact same thing. Actually, while I was aware of the Chinese ones, this was the first I'd heard of the Romans using such things.

quote:

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Now, it is possible that I missed something and the Chinese also invented 'Industrial Revolution' techniques and used it for conquering far away lands. I am not up on Chinese Empires, and, if I am wrong, please correct me (always willing to learn), but my impression is that the Chinese were more xenophobic than the Romans and wanted to keep foreigners out rather than walk all over them.

---

quote:

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Is it such a huge leap of imagination to accept that we may have more in common with the Romans than what we do with the Chinese?

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Well, a Vietnamese person I know says that Chinese are always telling her that Vietnamese are just like Chinese.

And a Slovakian friend says that the Russians were always saying that Slovaks were just like the Russians.

There sems to be a common thread to this Imperial idea - that subjugated peoples somehow eventually become like the conquerors.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
As far as I'm concerned, talking about direct cultural connection to Rome as the key to Western imperialism is misguided.

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Rufus, I never said it was "the key". I wasn't talking about cause-and-effect, I was talking about cultural identity, heritage, patterns and similarities. The point wasn't blaming Rome that somehow they 'did it to us' -- rather, the point was the 'mirror' I have been talking about.

I said: look, they were there once, in a situation similar to what we are in now (not identical). They had an empire, we have an empire. They were declining, we are declining. They became overextended and top-heavy, we did too. They became decadent, so did we. They collapsed under their own weight, the same thing may happen to us. Let's learn from history before it repeats itself.

[ 02 December 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:There sems to be a common thread to this Imperial idea - that subjugated peoples somehow eventually become like the conquerors.

Perhaps this idea is a way for the conqueror to rationalize his conquest, by believing that nothing changes for the conquered once the new boss takes over.

---

[ 02 December 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Francis Mont:
Rufus, I never said it was "the key".

I said: look, they were there once, in a situation similar to what we are in now (not identical).

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At the beginning of the thread, what you said was:

quote:

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The “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth. Rome has never fallen – it’s still with us today.

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This seemed to me a wee bit overstated. OK, so that's not what you meant, and what you turn out, after much badgering, to say you mean is something we can all agree on. Now you're blaming people for arguing with you, but the argument got us to a more reasonable, nuanced stance.
Similarly, you also said

quote:

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In human history ‘western civilization’ has played a unique and dominating role. It is so different from the rest of the world and their cultures, so unique in its pursuit of wealth and power via hierarchical structures, science and technology, concepts of freedom and democracy, that it sets us aside from, and often against, the rest of the world.

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Francis Mont: The “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth. Rome has never fallen – it’s still with us today.

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1./ All the history books ever written since 476 AD (the empire in the West collapsed) lied. None of what’s been written ever happened. We are a province of Rome still, paying tribute to our pro-consul George W. Bush.

2./ The history books are telling the truth, but it has been a gigantic conspiracy by the Roman Emperor (masquerading as the Pope) pretending that Rome has fallen, while, in reality, they have been pulling the strings ever since.

3./ “Your father smoked and died of lung cancer. You smoke too, just like the old man – like father like son, chip off the old block. You are making the same mistake as he did, looks like nothing ever changes in this family. Unless you quit, and real soon, you may end up like he did.”

4./ We, in the West find ourselves in a mess quite reminiscent of what preceded the fall of Rome. So what can one with a “romantic idealist voice” do? He might decide to say: “Gee, it’s almost like we are still back there. Maybe it never ended after all. Is it possible that history is repeating itself?”. Now, how can one say something this outrageous?

I leave it to your judgement, which of the four I must have meant when I wrote my first post.

As far as the second quote is concerned, I will reply just as soon as you tell me what ‘"imperialism inverted" stance’ means and why it is “more important than you realize”.

[ 03 December 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]

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I think it works only if the conquerers and the conquered have something substantial in common: usually language or racial characteristic. Russians never insisted that Hungarians were just like them.

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It always amazes me how the same subject elicits so widely different responses. After all, we are all using roughly the same hardware (our brains) and our life experiences, while different in detail, are mostly products of the same culture (with exceptions, of course). This similarity would make me expect divergence in some small to medium range, yet it almost always covers the entire spectrum.

It is almost impossible to find an important topic on Babble where you wouldn't find posters representing one extreme, its exact opposite and anything in between. Maybe we should start a new thread on the question and see why we think it is so.

[ 03 December 2003: Message edited by: Francis Mont ]