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What’s with this obsession with the Roman Empire ? This the British talk this way in the 18th century ?

personomas 2y ago
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CatWChainsaw 2y ago
IIRC some strains of alt-rightism consider the Roman Empire to be peak manliness and therefore peak civilization and we should inject modern Western society with more of its values. Naturally everyone who believes this thinks they'll be one of the few privileged patricians.
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bigstrat2003 2y ago
Rightly or wrongly, lots of people feel that the USA is in decline. The Roman empire is a dramatic historical example of a world power declining, so people draw parallels. It's pretty straightforward, imo.
vundercind 2y ago
It was a fixation of literature, history, and political science, for… oh, centuries. Not unjustifiably, either. Any entity that becomes that immensely powerful and influential is gonna tend to cast a long shadow. It’s hard to take even a shallow look at a solid millennium of European history after the fall of the Western Empire without running into at least allusions to Rome all over the place. Longer than that, probably. Like you poke at 20th century European history a little (“why was Alsace-Lorraine a point of contention for Germany and France?”) and before you know long you’re talking about Rome. “But why Rome, of all ancient empires? Why so Eurocentric?” Well, the short answer is the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain. If you mean why right-leaning groups are interested in it: I’d guess it’s the narrative of barbarians threatening from beyond the borders, the cautionary tale of how that and internal corruption brought them down (“well that’s a bit reductive…”—look, I know that), the honor-culture stuff (real or imagined), et c. The more intellectual side of the right in the US (though I think they’ve been rather left behind at this point) may be interested because of connections to the founders, like Washington’s Cincinnatus-like rejection of power after two presidential terms (we named a fairly major city after the dude, even)

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IIRC some strains of alt-rightism consider the Roman Empire to be peak manliness and therefore peak civilization and we should inject modern Western society with more of its values. Naturally everyone who believes this thinks they'll be one of the few privileged patricians.

deleted 2y ago

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bigstrat2003 2y ago

Rightly or wrongly, lots of people feel that the USA is in decline. The Roman empire is a dramatic historical example of a world power declining, so people draw parallels. It's pretty straightforward, imo.

vundercind 2y ago

It was a fixation of literature, history, and political science, for… oh, centuries. Not unjustifiably, either. Any entity that becomes that immensely powerful and influential is gonna tend to cast a long shadow. It’s hard to take even a shallow look at a solid millennium of European history after the fall of the Western Empire without running into at least allusions to Rome all over the place. Longer than that, probably. Like you poke at 20th century European history a little (“why was Alsace-Lorraine a point of contention for Germany and France?”) and before you know long you’re talking about Rome. “But why Rome, of all ancient empires? Why so Eurocentric?” Well, the short answer is the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain. If you mean why right-leaning groups are interested in it: I’d guess it’s the narrative of barbarians threatening from beyond the borders, the cautionary tale of how that and internal corruption brought them down (“well that’s a bit reductive…”—look, I know that), the honor-culture stuff (real or imagined), et c. The more intellectual side of the right in the US (though I think they’ve been rather left behind at this point) may be interested because of connections to the founders, like Washington’s Cincinnatus-like rejection of power after two presidential terms (we named a fairly major city after the dude, even)