The Misperception Of Catastrophe

 Roman School; Boy at Right Carrying Lunch Impedimentum

We use the metaphor of the Roman Empire a good deal: its decline and fall, its paganism and opposition to Christianity; we love to either contrast our pure greatness to its alloyed form of eminence, or to parallel the crimes of those we disagree with to the crimes of Rome.

Yet, even though Rome did decline and fall, at the time the typical Roman probably did not see decline nor did he see fall. He probably thought change was for the better. Tempus fugit and all that, followed by a well deserved O tempora, O mores!
And even as the noose of the Imperium tightened around their necks and the severe Tiberius gave way to the corrupt Caligula, the Romans probably sat about drinking wine in the shade and formed committees to discuss reforms: reform the Imperium back to Republic, to reform the corn distribution, to reform the army, etc.

We suffer also. Our political leadership is a nonentity of fools who excel at self-enrichment. We slide into economic chaos and suffer the inane pratings of cheer leaders on Fox News. Worst of all, we cannot see the forest of disaster for the trees of our decline.

For example, people who count in Detroit discuss ways to improve the school system. They get together and meet. They hire new School Board Presidents...frequently, it seems. It seems business as usual. The graduation rate for Detroit schools is just under 25%. That is not a bit of slippage in standards; that is a complete disaster! The graduation rate might as well be 0%.
When you consider that among the 24.9% that graduate are included those they are moving along just to get rid of them and have not gained much from education, these figures show an educational system that has been destroyed, not one that needs a new President and some remedial measures. It is an educational Dresden after the bombing. It is Hiroshima. ...and the aftermath of the destruction is spread out for all to see.

The young are not educated...and now there are no jobs even for the educated! Yet the people of Detroit and the nation cannot face up to the fact that urban education has been vaporised and has disappeared. As we continue to plod our way to a dusky future, we shall see familiar signposts all the way and we shall not divine the imminent catastrophe...because we are God's chosen, because we are America and America never loses, because our minds are too small to comprehend the evanescence of pride.

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