Ancient Rome was the world's most powerful empire for 500 years
At its height, Rome boasted of roads, public baths, and much else that was close to miraculous for the rest of the planet
Then came the Great Fall...
What happened has lessons for the world TODAY
A thread👇🏻
1/ In his book The City In History (1961), Lewis Mumford explains how Rome went from "Megalopolis to Necropolis." This great city set up its own demise in two ways: Panem et circenses. That is: "bread and circuses." Mumford: "Success underwrote a sickening parasitic failure."
2/ As Ancient Rome became prosperous, it became an unsustainable welfare state
Mumford writes that "indiscriminate public largesse" became common
A large portion of the population "took on the parasitic role for a whole lifetime"
3/ More than 200,000 citizens of Rome regularly received handouts of bread from "public storehouses"
Lewis Mumford wrote the desire to lead an industrious productive life had severely "weakened"
So what did people spend their time on?
Distractions, which meant circuses
4/ The Roman people, not working for their livelihood but living off of the prosperity of their city, became numb
Mumford: "To recover the bare sensation of being alive, the Roman populace, high and low, governors & governed, flocked to the great arenas" for games & distractions
5/ The entertainment in Rome included "chariot races, spectacular naval battles set in an artificial lake, theatrical pantomimes in which lewder sexual acts were performed"
Out of 365 days, more than 200 were public holidays and 93 were "devoted to games at the public expense"
6/ Consuming entertainment became the primary priority of Roman citizens in Rome's decadent phase
Lewis Mumford: "Not to be present at the show was to be deprived of life, liberty, and happiness"
Concrete concerns of life became "subordinate, accessory, almost meaningless"
7/ Ancient Rome could put half of its total population "in its circuses and theatres" at the same time! A new public holiday was declared to celebrate every military victory. But the number of holidays kept rising even when Rome's military prowess began to fail...
8/ Mumford writes that no empire had such an "abundance of idle time to fill with idiotic occupations"
Even the Roman emperors who privately despised the games had to pretend they enjoyed them for "fear of hostile public response"
9/ Bottom line. The very power and prosperity of Ancient Rome set the stage for its collapse. As welfare states expand around the world today, and entertainment options get ever more immersive, we are forced to ask a question: Is this Post-Industrial Civilization Rome, Part II?
What else is wrong with the modern world—beyond its obsession with endless entertainment?
There is a reason your creative juices start flowing in airplanes and long road-trips
I call it the "Kinetic Stillness Paradox" and I found this principle at play in the lives of nobodies like:
- JK Rowling
- Charles Darwin
- Albert Einstein
Let's dig in:
1/ 600 million people have read Harry Potter books—where was this iconic character born? In a train, as JK Rowling sat still for 4 hours, too shy to ask someone for a pen, mentally noting all details as the idea “simply fell" into her head
Harry Potter, inception location: train
2/ The theory of evolution rocked the foundations of religion, culture...even politics. Where was Charles Darwin when the eureka moment hit him? A horse-carriage...he remembered the "very spot in the road" 4 decades later
Theory of evolution, inception location: a horse-carriage
1/ Love precedes lovability: "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her."
1/ Love precedes lovability because a "primary devotion" to a place, thing, or person is the source of the creative energy that transforms it. Begin with love, not scorn. Commitment beautifies
2/ Modern streets are "noisy with taxicabs and motorcars," but that's the noise of "laziness and fatigue," not activity. If everyone walked, streets would be quieter but more alive. Modern thought is like a modern street - noisiness, long words, loud ideas...hiding laziness
You can do almost anything with a phone - and that's Bad, Actually
Because you can do anything, you end up doing nothing
The best tools are constrained and specific. They do you a favor by limiting you...
Thread:
1/ On a typewriter you cannot stream movies, check stock prices, or play online chess. You can only write. On a camera you cannot tweet, google trivia, or order groceries. You can only click. These older tools gave you a tunnel vision that their advanced alternatives just cannot
2/ If the only tool you have is a hammer, then all your problems look like nails. If the only tool you have is a 7 inch flat screen, then all your problems look like pixel arrangement problems. That is Objectively False. Real problems demand more than tapping, clicking, coding
1/ One line from an 1883 philosophy book gets to the heart of the matter: "Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood" (Nietzsche). Writing comes not just from your brain but from your guts, balls, sinews, feelings, blood. AI has none of that
2/ Chesterton wrote in Heretics (1905) that if you want exciting art, you have to go to the ideologues. To the men who have actual convictions. Only a "doctrinaire" - someone with a doctrine, a POV, a set of values - can tell a story worth hearing. A data server has no doctrine
1/ Einstein fell seriously sick at 5. Bed-ridden. His father brought home a toy compass to entertain him. He was transfixed by the magnetic needle. It made him wonder—what were the "deeply hidden" forces controlling the needle...and the world? He spent his life chasing the answer
2/ The Wright brothers were gifted a toy helicopter when they were 7 and 11. They played with it until it broke, and then they built their own model. Years later they credited this toy for sparking off their life-long obsession with flight