Analysis of Civilization's Fragility

What happened?

Well, it took Gibbon

nine volumes to describe the decline and fall of the Roman Empire,

and I shall not embark on that.

But thinking about this almost incredible episode does tell one something about

the nature of civilization.

It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it's actually quite fragile.

It can be destroyed.

What are its enemies? First of all, fear.

Fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague.

Fears that make it simply not worthwhile constructing

things or planting trees or even planning next year's crops.

And fear of the supernatural,

which means that you don't question anything or change anything.

The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals,

mystery religions that destroyed self confidence.

And then, boredom.

The feeling of hopelessness,

which can overtake people with a high degree of material prosperity.

There's a poem by a modern Greek called Cavafy,

a poem in which he imagines the people of some late antique city waiting every

day for the barbarians to come and sack it.

And then, finally,

the barbarians move off somewhere else, and the city is saved.

But the people are disappointed.

It would have been better than nothing.

Of course, civilization requires a modicum of material prosperity,

enough to provide a little leisure.

But far more, it requires confidence.

Confidence in the society in which one lives,

belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws,

confidence in one's own mental powers.

The way the stones

of that bridge are laid is not only a triumph of technical skill,

but it shows a vigorous belief in discipline and law.

Energy, vitality.

All the great civilizations, or civilizing epochs,

have had a weight of energy behind them.

People sometimes think that civilization consists in fine sensibilities

and good conversation and all that.

Well, these can be among the agreeable results of civilization, but they are not

what makes a civilization.

And a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.

So, if one asks why the civilization of Greece and Rome collapsed,

the real answer is that it was exhausted.