“….the Roman government appeared everyday less formidable to
its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. The taxes
were multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected in
proportion as it became necessary…. If all the barbarian conquerors
had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction
would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still
survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of
honour.” — Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire
In New York City and Philadelphia “flashmobs” rob and vandalize
newsstands and stores. This is a national phenomenon. In Chicago,
the police department now won’t immediately respond to 911 calls if
they involve post-burglaries, petty, or non-violent crimes. They’re
too busy dealing with the daily carnage that is the nation’s
highest murder rate, one that bested the number of military
fatalities recorded in Afghanistan in 2012. When crazy people shoot
up movie theaters and elementary school classrooms, we’re told it’s
the gun’s fault. On a lighter note, the Wall Street
Journal recently informed us that the demands of hip-hop
fashion dictates that boys insist — despite the protestations of
Mom, Dad, and school administrators — on wearing shorts to school
in bitter winter weather. The girls prefer flip flops as their toes
turn blue while waiting for the school bus. “Things fall apart; The
centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (William
Butler Yeats).
The schools are an administrative and intellectual wreck, and
kids not knowing how to even dress themselves is a good metaphor
for their current state. Those students, especially those of
college age, are subject to that ironclad liberal orthodoxy of
cultural Marxism commonly called political correctness, with
resulting hate speech codes, the gist of which is that the kids are
taught to despise America’s institutions, civic traditions, and the
very constitutional sinews of free speech and opinion. Anyway, the
latter is a moot point: because they learn so little history, soon
their ignorance of the important aspects of the American experience
will be total. College campuses are hideous islands of
totalitarianism on a national landscape that is more and more
reflecting their toxic example. “The best lack all conviction,
while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity” (Yeats
again).
We’re obsessed with protecting women from “domestic violence.”
The U.S. Senate has passed the “Violence Against Women Act” and
sent it to the House of Representatives. The media bludgeons us
with related stories, and multiple government programs function to
assist such unfortunate souls. This is driven by modern feminism,
which also favors women serving on the frontlines in the boiling
cauldron of war, where, according to a feature story in Rolling
Stone magazine lately, the military suffers a raging epidemic
of sexual assault. “We have now sunk to a depth at which the
restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men”
(George Orwell).
The U.S. Post Office recently announced that it is abolishing
first class delivery on Saturdays beginning in August. The USPO
seems to be taking a cue from the newspaper and network news
business model of telling the public that it is essential to the
public good, while at the same time skipping publication days,
cutting back on home delivery, and shrinking its staffs as
circulation, ad revenues, and ratings sink. A digitally-distracted
America less and less buys the product (from both post office and
media), especially the kids (see schools exegesis above). And the
media-driven Obama cult-of-personality doesn’t sit well with half
the body politic. Of course, the emperor’s cheerleader-eunuchs in
the nation’s newsrooms don’t see it that way; marketing has never
been a journalistic forte. Well, as for the post office, it won’t
be losing our mail on Saturdays.
No matter. Cursive writing is leaving the classroom and those
kids in short pants won’t be sending handwritten love letters to
their “partners” and “significant androgynous others,” etc.,
anyway. If they do they’ll have to hire the equivalent of literate
medieval monks to do it. Orwell wrote 65 years ago that “Our
civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs
— must inevitably share in the general collapse.” What would he
think today? As usual, Rome is the primary example. It progressed
from Virgil, Horace, and Cicero to — over 300 years later — a
very minor poet named Ausonius (the Richard Blanco of Late
Antiquity), illiterate barbarian emperors and, well, darkness. Ask
Ed Gibbon.
And, of course, literary culture erodes. Most new works of
“literary fiction” aren’t worth reading because they are written by
academics for academics. Most contemporary poetry is unfathomable
or juvenile in its design. E.L. James’ wildly popular Fifty
Shades of Grey series main motif is sadomasochism. And Philip
Roth has “retired” after six decades of writing. Imagine that.
Maybe our most respected living writer — albeit one pushing 80 —
has turned his back on his work. Maybe he has nothing more to say.
He once famously said that as a novelist his imagination couldn’t
compete with the strange world he encountered on the front page of
his daily New York Times, and that was long before the
Times became the official newsletter of the Democratic
Party. Hemingway blew his brains out. Roth, lacking Papa’s
late-stage mental deterioration, is sanely content to watch the New
York Mets, read, play with his new iPhone, and entertain friends.
Good for him. Legions of readers who enjoyed his work wish him
well, and he’ll be reread. But he is among the last of American
writers who came of age and began their careers in the
mid-20th century, a simpler time full of promise, and rewards
for serious work.
H.L. Mencken said: “Democracy is the theory that the common
people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
The 2012 Election makes the Sage of Baltimore’s quip ring true. All
the bizarre political, sociological and economic theories that we
have heard from the left for years are now being put into practice
(in fact, President Obama showcased it in his Second Inaugural and
State of the Union speeches). The result is a germinating dystopia
sprouting from an executive branch contemptuous of the legislative
and judicial branches of national government. Barack Obama is the
embodiment of a country in willful decline in both domestic and
foreign affairs, and he seems to relish his role. The president is
a political Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisting our slow, national
suicide.
Maybe some future Gibbon will contemplate the wreckage.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
