If I am not the Emperor and not part of his coterie, then the decline is distressing*. Seeing things decay because nobody invests the effort and slight cost in maintenance grates on me. The hardships get harder -- and what do we get in return for the hardships? I as a farmer face ruinous taxes. I as a tradesman find that the best-paid work for me is indulging the architectural tastes of the elites. I as a teacher find that I am compelled to teach kids that a dissolute tyrant is a god. I as an owner of a small business find that my taxes keep rising and my revenue shrinks.
The Founding Fathers of America admired the Roman Republic and its heroes, like Cincinnatus, and not the dissolute Emperors. As Christians they could not stomach the idea of religious pariahs being cast into an enclosure with bears or big cats. Many knew their antiquity.
*But as an Insider within such a sick order, maybe I would be blinded to the nastiness outside the Court -- the wine is excellent, the ice cream (the Romans actually had that!) is incredibly tasty, the food is rich and tasty... and getting a massage from a nubile young slave girl (and the usual indulgences associated with some massage parlors of our time). It's "Toga party" every day... never mind that people outside the Court are hungry, exhausted, and ill-clad...
The people who would make genuine change in the order of a dying Empire could never get a chance to effect change. The System wastes them, kills them, or co-opts them.
The Founding Fathers of America admired the Roman Republic and its heroes, like Cincinnatus, and not the dissolute Emperors. As Christians they could not stomach the idea of religious pariahs being cast into an enclosure with bears or big cats. Many knew their antiquity.
*But as an Insider within such a sick order, maybe I would be blinded to the nastiness outside the Court -- the wine is excellent, the ice cream (the Romans actually had that!) is incredibly tasty, the food is rich and tasty... and getting a massage from a nubile young slave girl (and the usual indulgences associated with some massage parlors of our time). It's "Toga party" every day... never mind that people outside the Court are hungry, exhausted, and ill-clad...
The people who would make genuine change in the order of a dying Empire could never get a chance to effect change. The System wastes them, kills them, or co-opts them.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.