Thread by @ekverstania

With autistic pattern recognition, you often know what can be expected in world events, because you recognise the patterns. Then curiosity and confirmation bias makes you seek reinforcement. But it's all too awful, so it just remains theoretical, and when it actually happens...

You're still shocked like everyone else, even though you saw it coming.

I think I have reached the point where I am prepared to recognise that the bad things I saw coming since I was a child probably will happen in my lifetime after all -- and worse.

Because all the people who could really turn things around are not focusing on the reality that glaciers have melted, the poles are melting an entire continent is on fire and we are in the grip of a drought right here with animals dying daily, but we're talking about Boity's bum.

I was never really an optimist; if I seemed like one, it was when I was in denial. I am an existentialist. For me that means making a rebellious last-ditch effort to change enormous things, because I have hope.

I do not, however, have faith.

I will explain the difference.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

I don't have faith.

Hope is belief in probability, and a desire that a certain thing CAN happen, WILL happen.

I have that.

I am an antinatalist. For those who don't know what that means, it means I think that having babies is a terrible idea. I never encourage people to breed; nor do I congratulate people on giving birth.

That doesn't mean that I despise children or parents.

I have a godchild, and I totally admire the way that my adopted daughter (she adopted me!) is raising her son.

Once someone is born, I defend their right to life, and also their right to do many things that I do not think are a good idea myself. I defend people's right to have children EVEN THOUGH I am an antinatalist.

For years and years before most people alive today were born, the Ganges River in India became more and more polluted -- so polluted that you could swim in it and become sick.

But people believed that the Ganges was holy, so the logic around disease and dirt just flew away.

People swam in the Ganges to be cured. They swam in polluted water to be cured.

In his poem 'God's Grandeur', Gerard Manley Hopkins (d. 1889), wrote about how the world is 'seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell...'

But Hopkins was a man of faith.

He believed that in spite of it all, there would always be renewal 'Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings' (ibid).

I don't have faith.

I don't have faith that swimming in a polluted river cures disease; nor do I believe that if we mess up the earth it will automatically just fix itself up in a manner that makes it habitable.

I don't have faith that a wise and powerful leader will rise up to lead my country out of its decline.

I don't have faith that the American president will soon be replaced.

I don't have faith that world leaders will effect drastic measures needed to change the climate trend.

I was about 12 years old when my history teacher, Mr. Dominic King, began to teach us the history and mythology of ancient Greece.

This learning continued later when I studied history of art.

We learned about the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods.

We also learned how the Hellenistic period brought technical excellence, supreme artistic refinement and greater freedom of expression, but also greater decadence. Most liberals today would probably say it was the better of the three ages.

After this, we learned about the Roman Empire. (Some 50+ years later, I still remember the saying 'Capta Graecia ferum victorem cepit')

We learned about the heyday of Roman engineering, the insulae, villas and aqueducts.

The Romans (well, the wealthy ones anyway, called patricians) had indoor toilets, with water running below to wash away the sewerage. Their ideas about hygiene were... er... well, I will leave it to you to find out what they used to wipe themselves. (It's really gross.)

In the glorious height of the Roman empire, politicians were unpaid.

OK, sure, as with the Greek democracy (demos + kratos), not just ANYBODY could go into government, but still, for those who could, it was considered an honourable duty.

And patricians were patrons to ordinary constituents (plebeians -- the word from which we get the modern pejorative 'plebs').

But things changed gradually.

Rome became an empire, and the empire expanded to the north, south, east and west.

Politicians started getting paid.

With this expansion, Romans came in touch with new religions.

The cult of Mithraism (with its origins in Iran) became popular in the Roman army.

The worship of Egyptian gods was an option even in the city of Rome itself.

Some of the legends of Mithras spilled over into the practice of Christianity (originally a Jewish sect).

Sexuality in ancient Rome was a lot more about power relationships than about gender per se.

An upper class woman in ancient Rome had quite a lot of freedom compared to women in many other ancient societies. She could choose her religion, her lovers, she could own property.

Rome did not fall in a day.

The Roman Empire eventually covered a vast territory, and there were borders to be defended in countries stretching from Britain all the way into the Middle East.

Greek was the official language (the Romans had conquered Greece and were totally impressed), but Latin was the native language of many ordinary people in the area now known as Italy. (Some of the other languages spoken in the region became extinct eventually.)

Weirdly enough, Greek -- the posh official language of the day -- was not the one that remained the posh official language after the fall of Rome. It was Latin, the vernacular, that gained Grand and Fancy status in the Roman Catholic Church. Academic study was in Latin.

But I digress.

The empire covered a vast territory, natives of this territory spoke different languages, there was an agglomeration of religions, politicians did it for money, grand people in the army could afford better armament for themselves, poor soldiers were poorly equipped.

And then came the invasions.

But Rome did not fall in a day.

The invaders came from many sides.

Some actually came from within the boundaries of the Empire, frontier territories. They fought there in their own regions at first, but eventually, they began to close in on the mother city, Rome itself.

Some came from beyond the Empire. They had been moving westward for a long time.

Did you know that the languages of Finland and Hungary are distantly related to one another, but not related to the other languages of Europe, and that their origins can be traced to people who played a role in the fall of Rome?

Rome did not fall in a day.

Strangely, a colonialist fin de siècle always seems to be preceded by an increase in the production of pornography -- or perhaps it is just that pormographic artefacts survive these eras better than they survive the preceding socially rigid ages.

In late 19th century England, pornography and homosexuality could get you imprisoned, yet we still have many artefacts from the time.

I was about 12 or 13 years old when I figured out that the United States of America was the modern version of Ancient Rome.

But at the time, there were a few things I did not anticipate.

Bedtime. I'll write the rest later.