Fall of the Roman Empire (in my readings today)

[Horse with no Name]

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/gibbon_decline.html

[UTUSN]

1. A Couple of Things Going on Here

GIBBON (& I wish I had the quotes) made a big point that the Greeks and Romans had tolerance and moderation at the center: Their familiarity with their own MULTIPLE gods made them TOLERATE other cultures with THOSE gods, allowed for their assimilating other cultures by letting them continue their traditions and rituals.

Then GIBBON hits Judeo-Cristianity as having introduced INtolerance by insisting on the ONE god and thereby having replaced assimilation with ANNIHILATION of other cultures. This EXTREMISM replaced the old moderation.

Next point: The Neo-Cons, one of whose gurus is Victor Davis HANSON, Classics professor, advocate a return to the pre-Christian values of the ancients----revitalizing and energizing society by permanent war--conquering others to keep the home people on edge.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. War is a racket....

[newswolf56]

3. Another relevant quote from Gibbon:

Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, embitters the factions of a declining monarchy.

And this from the '60s rock-poet Tim Buckley:

No man can find the war.

Which is all because the REAL war is not in Iraq but between the dying Yehvehistic patriarchy (whether Christian, Islamic or Jewish) and that which will follow it -- unless of course the patriarchs decide they "have to destroy the planet to save it," just as they did a little village in Vietnam 25-odd years ago.

The greatest irony of all is that, by commanding America to resist Jihadist aggression, Bush the Christofascist finds himself forced to implicitly side with a future he despises, and he hates it -- undoubtedly the reason (1) Bush abandoned the war in Afghanistan (which was indeed a clash between the innate viciousness of Jihadist patriarchy and the post-patriarchal promise of secularism); unquestionably the reason (2) Bush has set Grover Norquist desperately seeking an alliance between Christofascists and Muslims on the basis of their mutual hatreds (of women, gays, secularists, pagans, liberty itself); almost certainly the secret reason (3) Bush not only abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden but "blundered" in Iraq (the hope of mobilizing Islamic hatred of the secular Hussein and thus ultimately becoming a clandestine hero of Islamic theocrats -- the only possible explanation for how the war has been conducted); clearly the reason (4) Bush conspires with U.S. Christofascists -- the most malevolent internal threat in the history of the Republic -- to impose theocracy on America; and probably even the reason (5) Bush is ever more cruel (by malicious curtailment of veterans' benefits) toward the very soldiers he has ordered to war. What makes such an analysis difficult to grasp is the mistaken belief Bush is an idiot: in fact he is anything but. He has re-united the dread powers of run-amok capitalism and authoritarian Christianity precisely as they were united in centuries before Marx challenged their unholy alliance -- the doctrines of authoritarian Christianity now once again legitimize the plutocrats' relentless and ever-worsening oppression of their wage-slaves. Thus in my estimation Bush is the most cunningly tyrannical, methodically conspiratorial president ever to occupy the White House. Worse, he is also a fanatic: his fanaticism comes from his belief he is Yehveh's man on the imperial throne. But -- thank whatever powers one recognizes as benevolently inclined toward democracy -- circumstances are proving otherwise. A Cheyenne ghost-dance chant is particularly relevant:

The white man's god has forsaken him;
Let us go and look for our Mother
-- We shall live again.

Yes even with the sardonically suggestive prophecy from the Cheyenne this is a complex and difficult analysis, but I believe it is the only analysis that ultimately makes sense of all the factors in the equation, including the fact that Jihadist hatred of America and the West in general is NOT motivated by policy alone but rather by a bottomless rage at specifics of western culture that are anathema to traditional Islam: feminism, women's rights, gay rights, secularism, liberty itself -- the very rage upon which Bush wants Norquist to build his Christofascist/Muslim alliance. In this context note the oft-repeated statement of the (formerly Islamic, formerly Somali) Dutch parliamentarian who stared in the film for which Theo van Gogh was so viciously murdered: that Islam and liberty are ultimately incompatible. The same of course is true of Christofascism. And while I doubt that ANY Yehvehistic religions can survive long-term -- the present ecological crisis is a direct result of the Yehvehistic mandate for "man" to conquer and exploit all Nature (including the half of humanity that is female) -- at least some Christians are bold enough to confront the monster in their midst and thereby try to meet history halfway.