Text

DESTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATION

        I often hear my friends expounding, "We are following the path of Rome and our civilization is crumbling." I am going to become extremely politically incorrect so you might not want to read this tirade.  I propose that they are not totally incorrect but have no clue as to why our government is slowly degenerating and our society is headed down the path of so many other civilizations.

        Many of those who enjoy history often discuss the failure of ancient, and not so ancient, governments to remain in power and perpetuate their societies.  Ancient Rome had the Aqueducts and public sewage and water, Greece practiced open markets, the Aztecs and Incas had modern facilities and extensive road systems.  If these were so advanced then why did they fail?

        I propose that each of these failed because they became less and less reliant upon a moral and religious foundation.  Each of these civilizations had a strong religious foundation around which the governing bodies were formed.  Whether it was the Aztec's with human sacrifice used as a part of their rituals or the multiple Gods of the Romans and Greeks, they shared a universal standard that the citizens could sense an affinity to each other. When times were good they could celebrate the graces of their deity. When times were bad they could share in their neighbors problems and despair.  The governments could take, sometimes drastic, actions to quickly address issues with the certainty that the population would relate this to their own moral compass.

        Today, we are faced with the same eroding factor that eventually destroyed each of the other major civilizations. Oh! I know, many will say that Rome, Greece, etc. fell because of external pressures or internal strife.  I propose that the internal strife would never have crumbled the establishment or allowed external dominance if the basic tenets of the population hadn't already changed.  As more and more citizens abandoned the need for religious and moral standards for the society as a whole in a search for selfish "freedom" in more and more inconsequential areas of life, these governments lost the ability to govern.  Each time the government was forced to modify to accommodate individual "desires" the door was left open to challenge over another "desire".

        The eventual result of government trying to facilitate each and every individuals moral compass is that the government becomes ineffectual.  Without a universal moral compass the individual factions begin to blur the focus of government control and cripple the ability of the government to meet the needs of the majority.

        I said this would be politically incorrect but it is a consideration that we must consider. 

GRUMPY