You all know how much I love pompous, idiotic celebrities, so I had to share this tidbit.
John Hawkins at RWN did an interview with my favourite historian/authour, Victor Davis Hanson. This is one of my favorite bits of the piece:
Question: There have been frequent comparisons of late between the United States and the Roman Empire. How valid do you think those comparisons are? Why so?Posted by Ith at November 12, 2002 1:30 PMHis reply: Politically they are absurd. We do not send proconsuls to demand taxes to pay for basing troops. In fact we do the opposite--pay lavishly for bases that protect others. The imperial senate was impotent, and civil war was common after AD 200 -- we have a stable Congress and little strife. For all the European venom, George Bush is not a Caracalla or even Diocletian.
The classical topos of luxus, decadence brought about by affluence and leisure -- read Petronius, Suetonius, or Juvenal -- well, that is a real concern. Self-loathing and smug cynicism from an elite are the first symptoms and we see that clearly among those pampered and secure, who nevertheless ridicule the very system under which they operate in such a privileged fashion -- most notably in the arts, on the campuses, and in the media. A Jessica Lange or Barbra Streisand is right out of a Petronian banquet or perhaps sounds like a Flavian princess spouting off at dinner before returning to Nero's Golden House. Norman Mailer is a modern day Eumolpus bellowing on spec, and a Michael Moore a court-jester brought in to stick his tongue out at his benefactors for their own sick amusement.