>"Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone" - FlaubertThe early Roman Empire, called the Principate because Augustus decided to consider himself "first" among Romans and not a cut above or a world apart on some grand imperial throne, saw sharp decline in fidelity to the Old Gods, i.e. the Graeco-Roman Pantheon. People then were materialistic and skeptical, much like people of recent Western history, like during the 20th century and early 21st century (though we seem to be entering a new age of fanaticism and dogmatic thinking, and abandoning comfortable skepticism, as something now uncomfortable). So Rome in the 00s and 100s was a comfy time and place, where men were confident in their own powers of reasoning and leadership, didn't defer much to the Old Gods anymore, and a New God had yet to emerge, since Christianity didn't become a really big force in the Roman world until the late 200s, after the Crisis of the Third Century when Rome suffered 50 years of civil war, the empire nearly fell, material living standards plummeted and poverty became widespread, and a new plague appeared, which may have been smallpox. By the end of the Third Century Crisis, most Romans were clinging to faith, either in the Old Gods, whose worship underwent a revival, or in the New God: Christ. But before this crisis, people were confident in themselves and in the power of man to create a decent world. That era, therefore, was much like the era into which we were born, but which is now fading into history as the West enters its crisis and may undergo decades of civil conflict, massive impoverishment, and perhaps even new disease outbreaks as our ecology goes all goofy. People too weak to handle such tribulations with only their native powers and some learning, like the Stoics and Epicureans who didn't convert to Christianity or return to the Old Gods in the 200s
>>526133878, or like the skeptics and cynics -- the people with weaker minds returned to religion, the old one or the new one. And today we are seeing people return to faith. It's just the beginning, but people who aren't strong enough to be comforted by the likes of existentialism and Nietzsche, and by their own natural mental resources, will either reinvigorate the Old God (Christianity) or turn to a New God, perhaps even invent a New God to worship (which Nietzsche thought highly possible). The Crisis of the Third Century ended the Principate and began the Dominate: rule of the empire not by a "first among men," but by a Master (a dominus). Thus the Rome of the late 200s onward was far more authoritarian and less free than the early Empire, which maintained most of the customs of a free society like the old Republic was. And we may witness the same: the end of the freedoms of the past couple centuries in the West, and the rise of The Dominate as opposed to The Principate: rule by a Master, a dominus, as opposed to leadership and authority vested in an ordinary man, not a demigod.Already, political partisans are apt to view their leader as godlike. Trump's followers downright worship him. Many Obama followers imputed near godlike powers to Obama. Partisan politics is creating political cults like were seen in Germany and the USSR and China in the 20th century, except it's starting to happen in the "free world" now (soon to be the formerly free world). What accounts for the transition from freedom to subjugation by a master? Human weakness. The failure of common people to be satisfied with their own native mental powers and rational worldviews. Many people then turn to supernaturalism and superstition for comfort, and start believing in spirits and demons and unnatural forces controlling people's fates and the fates of societies. From the perspective of 20th Century Man, the near future is going to suck. It'll be an era of superstition, irrationality,
>>526134272worship of political leaders by formerly free peoples who choose to get rid of their freedom in exchange for the comforts of magical thinking, and crude authoritarian governance. The Americans of the 1950s would look on Americans of the 2020s as shameful, pathetic, weak people, who let their emotions rule them, while the wise men of history always counseled that reason must be master of the emotions. Every generation since the Boomers is getting weaker, and the Boomers were the first weak generation of the modern West. They revolted against a system that worked too well because they were averse to reason and efficiency and wanted a return to feelings and primitivism. That's how we got postmodernism, New Age "spirituality," the revival of the most primitive forms of Christianity in the Evangelical Movement, an blind faith in political parties by some half of the population.People living in slavery are there because they wanted slavery, they wanted the comfortable chains over the uncertainty of freedom and the cold comfort of reason. Centuries from now, our descendants will ask why the people of our time gave up on freedom and became emotional authoritarian followers seeking demigods for consolation. When freedom rises again in the world - it took 1800 years for another great Republic to be born, in 1776, after the Roman Republic's death around 42 BC - the men of that new and brave era in the distant future will look on us as lower than dirt, like frightened children who refused to grow up and face the challenges of our day.
Tx 4 the heads up.
