I have always been impressed with Brad’ classical education (and the pride he takes in displaying it.) First I thought he must have had a Jesuit education. But then he identified himself as a descendant Of Plimouth Plantation Bradford, so that seems less likely. Anyway, please carry on for those of us more familiar with Groucho than Karl. Or Seutonius.
I dunno. The crazy is more institutionalized in contemporary America than Nero's Rome. (And Suetonius is not the most reliable of narrators.) I'd cast my vote for the Münster Anabaptist rebellion, where the crazy was deeply institutionalized, and ruled the town for a few years.
Suetonius would be in tears. In addition to your points, we have a regime more detached from reality than Caligula, and underneath it all a determination to hollow out the system until the grain ships no longer arrive, the aqueducts no longer flow, taxes are no longer collected, and the army remains tactically functional but strategically undirected. O tempora, O mores.
I have always been impressed with Brad’ classical education (and the pride he takes in displaying it.) First I thought he must have had a Jesuit education. But then he identified himself as a descendant Of Plimouth Plantation Bradford, so that seems less likely. Anyway, please carry on for those of us more familiar with Groucho than Karl. Or Seutonius.
I still do not reject the Jesuit theory. The Latin, the felix culpa ... :)
I was thinking a remake of the movie, The Death of Stalin as The Death of the Republican Party.
I dunno. The crazy is more institutionalized in contemporary America than Nero's Rome. (And Suetonius is not the most reliable of narrators.) I'd cast my vote for the Münster Anabaptist rebellion, where the crazy was deeply institutionalized, and ruled the town for a few years.
This seems a perfect book for these times: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18077789-dying-every-day
speaking of a post-literate world: Since when is a quote from a book of the Old Testament the "words of Jesus" ?
super-touché...
"done by right-wing Americans, to themselves and to the rest of us, for reasons that remain incomprehensible to me."
Money, Power, Ego although in what proportions I don't know. Shorter: The technology has allowed the plutocrats to have their cake and eat us too.
I had been thinking that Commodus was the better analogy, but Brad has persuaded me otherwise.
The reasons are clear enough: a feeling (partly correct) that they were not being taken seriously enough (partly correct).
Suetonius would be in tears. In addition to your points, we have a regime more detached from reality than Caligula, and underneath it all a determination to hollow out the system until the grain ships no longer arrive, the aqueducts no longer flow, taxes are no longer collected, and the army remains tactically functional but strategically undirected. O tempora, O mores.
We may need to update Cicero to "O tempora, O mores, Oh shit!"