What does it tell you about me, that the first thing I thought of when I read your comment was Monty Python?
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans ever done for us?
The empire worked well because, like all empires, its citizens saw their lives going well. There was order and prosperity and an unrivaled degree of advancement in engineering. Never mind that the prosperity of an empire comes at the expense of someone else, far away -- subject nations being exploited economically.
It's worth noting that European ascendancy after the "Dark Ages" occurred when Europe once again established an imperial regime.
I'm not saying I'd prefer life in the Dark Ages over life in post-Enlightenment Europe, or that I'd prefer life in ancient Judea over life in modern America. I'm a product of the imperial culture into which I was born and would likely not prosper in those environments. But the idea that a secular republic is preferable to a religious regime is rooted in the modern idea of religion as something which cannot tolerate dissent or which prevents progress.
Dissenters have always had a difficult time of it, regardless of whether they lived in a theocracy or a relatively secular nation.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 07:08 pm (UTC)The empire worked well because, like all empires, its citizens saw their lives going well. There was order and prosperity and an unrivaled degree of advancement in engineering. Never mind that the prosperity of an empire comes at the expense of someone else, far away -- subject nations being exploited economically.
It's worth noting that European ascendancy after the "Dark Ages" occurred when Europe once again established an imperial regime.
I'm not saying I'd prefer life in the Dark Ages over life in post-Enlightenment Europe, or that I'd prefer life in ancient Judea over life in modern America. I'm a product of the imperial culture into which I was born and would likely not prosper in those environments. But the idea that a secular republic is preferable to a religious regime is rooted in the modern idea of religion as something which cannot tolerate dissent or which prevents progress.
Dissenters have always had a difficult time of it, regardless of whether they lived in a theocracy or a relatively secular nation.