"When this current incarnation of the earthly city finally collapses, as pagan Rome did, it will be left once again to the City of God to preserve whatever was good in it – and to redirect it to the service of God, in whom alone our hearts, our families, and our society can at last find rest."
When and in what sense did pagan Rome collapse? I ask this question because the "Fall of Rome," as that term is generally understood, took place when Rome was Christian (whether we are looking at the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 or the fall of Constantinople in 1453). (St. Augustine was eager to refute the suggestion that Rome was collapsing precisely *because* it was now Christian.) Is the collapse of pagan Rome therefore to be understood as the "Constantinian shift" of the 4th century, culminating in the ban on pagan religious rites in 392?
Liberal democracy sees struggle as necessary to achieve the superiority of the will of the majority that holds until the next ‘elections.’ The two parties (within the same liberalism) form a conflictual dialectic through which the new ‘synthesis’ emerges, a la Hegel, except that reason removed from the conflict. With reason removed, political process becomes test of wills completely abstracted from what is Good. Plato rightfully analyzes process by which sublimated violence becomes more and more to the surface. Peter Turchin’s ‘cleodynamics’ would also support view that occurs because of overproduction of aspiring elite.
"When this current incarnation of the earthly city finally collapses, as pagan Rome did, it will be left once again to the City of God to preserve whatever was good in it – and to redirect it to the service of God, in whom alone our hearts, our families, and our society can at last find rest."
When and in what sense did pagan Rome collapse? I ask this question because the "Fall of Rome," as that term is generally understood, took place when Rome was Christian (whether we are looking at the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 or the fall of Constantinople in 1453). (St. Augustine was eager to refute the suggestion that Rome was collapsing precisely *because* it was now Christian.) Is the collapse of pagan Rome therefore to be understood as the "Constantinian shift" of the 4th century, culminating in the ban on pagan religious rites in 392?
Liberal democracy sees struggle as necessary to achieve the superiority of the will of the majority that holds until the next ‘elections.’ The two parties (within the same liberalism) form a conflictual dialectic through which the new ‘synthesis’ emerges, a la Hegel, except that reason removed from the conflict. With reason removed, political process becomes test of wills completely abstracted from what is Good. Plato rightfully analyzes process by which sublimated violence becomes more and more to the surface. Peter Turchin’s ‘cleodynamics’ would also support view that occurs because of overproduction of aspiring elite.
A wonderful article, heartening and restorative.
Thank you.