Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site bcsaic.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!shebs From: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Signposts (and inevitability of history) Message-ID: <280@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: Sun, 8-Sep-85 19:33:04 EDT Article-I.D.: bcsaic.280 Posted: Sun Sep 8 19:33:04 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 11:14:16 EDT References: <291@decwrl.UUCP> Reply-To: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 55 Summary: In article <291@decwrl.UUCP> black@pundit.DEC writes: > Let's suppose for a minute that we were to be enslaved by an outside/in- >side force. How would we know when the moment of enslavement actually came? >In theory, we could study previous enslavements to find the series of events >that led up to it. Perhaps we should ask an historian, and maybe a former >resident of the nation, what happened just prior to the enslavement. Or let's look at a former case of such enslavement. For instance, consider the Hellenic world in the 2nd century B.C., having survived several centuries with independence relatively intact (Alexander being a temporary situation, sort of like Napoleon), looking nervously at Rome's expansion. Rome at the time was very different from Greece; militaristic, organized, emphasizing the rule of law at the expense of democracy. The Greeks were quite the opposite, preferring individual freedom and weak government. So you can imagine how the average Greek must have viewed the latest news of Roman military and political successes; probably about the same way we usually react to Soviet successes - with fear, apprehension, and a sense of not being able to *do* anything. And as in our own time, there were plenty of Greeks who approved of the Roman ways, and those who would rather yield than fight a hopeless struggle, and a few who fought and lost. Ultimately all of Greece was absorbed into Rome, as much by treaty as by conquest. For a century afterward various learned Greeks wrote histories whose goal was to explain how the Romans had done it, with reasons ranging from superior military organization (Polybius) to the favor of the Goddess Fortune (Dionysius of Halicarnassus I think). Ultimately of course Rome became Hellenized, and Greece ended up about as free as it ever was to begin with. The Moral? Democracy + individual freedom is unstable. The best we can hope for is to maintain our way of life as much as possible, and alter the Soviet system to fit. One could probably generalize even more and suggest that the natural condition of humanity is slavery, but that's too cynical even for me :-). My prediction is that barring accidents and stupid Presidents, we won't get blown up, and will sign some sort of "unification" treaty with the Soviet Union (much later, this treaty will be characterized as the final step of conquest), but only a minority of Americans will be unhappy, the rest will be relieved at the lifting of embargoes by the entire world (which is already Communist, except for a few oddballs like Pitcairn Island and maybe Switzerland). A few libertarians will flame about how good things used to be, but it will be strictly academic; the average person isn't going to rock the boat, and eventually won't even be aware that the boat *can* be rocked. (Be sure to print all this out and save for your great-grandchildren; you heard it here first!) stan shebs BTW, the analogy of Rome isn't new with me - it's been done many times, most authoritatively by Arnold Toynbee (who however didn't have the same experience with the Soviets that we have now). Also, to put things in perspective, the same analogy has been made with nearly every strong empire that has ever arisen in Western civilization....