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Why is Rome important here? I can see the symmetry between Rome and what USA currently has - different rich powerful groups arguing and ignoring half the people
by pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Why is Rome important here? I can see the symmetry between Rome and what USA currently has - different rich powerful groups arguing and ignoring half the people, for example; rife corruption and nepotism - but how is Rome a model for a democracy, and one that seeks (in theory) not to divide the people into ruling and subservient classes at that?
- hvs 6y agoBecause the U.S. isn't a democracy it's one that was explicitly founded on the model of the Roman Republic, albeit one with a written constitution.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoThe rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for all (per Tho.Jefferson) seems pretty democratic? Was the founders intention to have a super-class who had political determination? Could you expand a little on your point?
- Nasrudith 6y agoI think part of the point is that aspects beyond democracy are taken for granted. The US citizenship and model of "being Roman" is pretty imperial in many ways. It has undersung virtues of tolerance. It doesn't matter if you were Greek, Gaul, Barbarian, or even Carthigian - once a citizen you are fundamentally Roman. Viewing nationality as not an immutable accident of birth is pretty damn "Roman". Many "modern" issues like Political Correctness and Multiculturalism are millenia old and can really be better described as "Imperial" Issues. They are encountered due to past and present expansionism and and broad interactions. Despite the negative connotations not everything classified as Imperialism is bad - just as it is a mistake to ignore the travesties of empires so is it a mistake to ignore its virtues. Rome had many periods and the dynamics have played out before and provided disturbingly apt precedents even with the alien trappings and values.