Lessons From the Fall
One modern historian tallied 210 explanations for the fall of Rome. Some would say that a good number of those theories would apply to the United States today. U.S. News talked with Cullen Murphy about his new book, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Pointing out a few of the parallels between America and the ancient Mediterranean state, Murphy, the editor at large of Vanity Fair, says there are lessons that we can learn to avoid Rome's seemingly ineluctable decline.
Why do Americans compare themselves to Rome?
How did that change?
In the 19th century a different notion of Rome develops-a vague fear of what happens to the country if it becomes too powerful. You can see this in Thomas Cole's series of paintings from the 1830s called Course of Empire, which shows an idyllic state of nature, then a glorious imperial present, and finally a civilization in ruins. In the meantime, of course, we were too busy spreading across the continent and then reaching out into the world. But the same fears crop up again in the "American Century," when the nation shouldered what look very much like imperial responsibilities. And sometimes harbored what look like imperial ambitions.
Are current comparisons completely negative?
Actually, until a few years ago there were a lot of people who were making the comparison with Rome in optimistic and assertive ways. In other words, the Pax Romana lives anew as the Pax Americana, providing worldwide cultural benefits and worldwide security.
But this is not the dominant take on the Rome-America comparison right now, is it?
Right. The other camp is probably dominant-the one that worries about American decline, not just in terms of power but in terms of basic social health. On [one] level, we don't live in Jefferson's America any longer. On [another], America possesses characteristics that ought to give us pause: the hollowing out of government. The mismatch of ambitions and resources. The growing inequality.
One feature of this pessimistic comparison has to do with a dangerous reliance on the military. Can you explain?
A key issue for Rome then and America now is manpower. Rome in the end did not have enough people-or enough money, or enough will-to do all the jobs that needed doing, and at the same time to keep the Army as strong as it needed to be. The United States finds itself in a similar situation.
You say there was an almost fatal parochialism among the Romans. Are we in danger of duplicating it?
I was looking the other day at one of the new Pew Center polls about "what Americans know." Americans in general aren't that interested in, or aware of, the outside world, and increasingly even our elites don't seem to put much stock in that kind of knowledge either. We don't have [enough] Arabic speakers; the number of foreign correspondents continues to shrink. Compared with the Greeks, the Romans were not passionately interested in the outside world. And they were often taken by surprise. The great disaster suffered by Varus in Germany in A.D. 9, when three entire Roman legions were annihilated, stemmed partly from ignorance about the tribes they were up against.
How do we reverse our own tendencies toward decline?
One way is to instill in younger Americans an appreciation of the outside world. That includes encouraging people to learn at least one foreign language. Second, stop treating government as a necessary evil and start taking pride in what government can do well-and give government the means to keep doing it. Third, let's try to see immigration as a source of strength, and play to it. And then, fourth, we have to take some weight off the American military, which means we need to stop giving it so many missions.
There's one final thing, and that's remembering who we are. The Roman elites were not looking to improve life for the vast majority of the Romans. [But] Americans believe in self-betterment, in the possibility of improvement for everybody. That ethic is our saving grace: It's the empire of possibility.
Source: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070429/7qa.htm
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