"Will America Suffer the Same Fate as Rome?" - Victor Davis Hanson

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Transcript:

0:01
everybody looks at America and say are
0:03
we
0:04
Rome and if you're conservatives you
0:08
usually say well the inflation is
0:11
destroying our currency like it did with
0:13
Rome and tribalism is destroying us
0:16
because like Rome it lost the ability we
0:19
have lost the ability to unite people
0:21
under a Common Language common tradition
0:23
common culture and expand from the idea
0:26
that what was once largely an Saxon
0:30
population then a paneuropean population
0:34
then an Eastern European then an Asian
0:37
along with the descendants of slaves and
0:39
then a Latin American population we
0:41
could keep Reinventing America we were
0:43
losing that ability with tribal politics
0:46
wokeness uh this new idea that to cure
0:49
racism you must be racist or to stop
0:51
discrimination you must practice
0:53
discrimination that was uh a symptom of
0:57
Roman decline along with inflation
1:00
another idea was uh that we're dealing
1:02
with is very similar to Rome is that
1:05
once you have a Republican government
1:07
you forget that there were certain
1:10
conditions that created it there was a
1:12
certain familiar place there were
1:15
certain familiar boundaries there were
1:18
certain familiar affinities and when you
1:22
expand that to Gaul hispania britania
1:27
German parts of Southern Gman
1:30
Dalmatia Arabia
1:33
Judea then you have to say to yourself
1:38
the Italian Paradigm will work all over
1:40
the world for people who don't speak
1:42
Italian have never been to it Italy will
1:44
never go to Italy but the mindset will
1:47
be the same and it works if you work at
1:49
it if you teach people Latin all the
1:52
time and you make sure that all the
1:54
architecture at lepus Magna and Libya or
1:58
in Iraq looks like it doesn't Italy or
2:01
everybody's on the same page with Roman
2:04
law and but when you don't do that and
2:07
you say that that's unfair or who you to
2:10
put your values on other people then it
2:12
doesn't work and so when we look at Rome
2:15
I should say that there you know
2:17
Scholars have noticed there's only over
2:19
220 official published explanation for
2:23
why Rome fell but when we do look at
2:25
Rome I think you can see some affinities
2:27
we all agree on that the doll is worth
2:30
less and less each
2:32
year and we are printing money not on
2:35
the basis of increased population and
2:37
productivity but just to print it that's
2:39
a means of radical redistribution that
2:42
the debt that we're leaving to our
2:44
children each generation gets larger and
2:47
larger that people
2:50
increasingly do not look like each other
2:52
which is okay but
2:54
increasingly they say to themselves that
2:57
how I look is essential to who I am am
3:00
and it's not incidental and that's a
3:03
pathway to destruction as Rome learned
3:06
with its own problems with tribalism and
3:09
then finally I think this is very
3:10
important a nation has to have civic
3:12
education they have to know what the
3:14
Constitution is they have to know where
3:16
the first amendment is they have to know
3:17
what the Second Amendment is they have
3:19
to have some idea who the people were
3:21
that died at Shiloh what Okawa was about
3:25
who what who died on a B17 and
3:28
why who who you know Andrew Jackson was
3:32
who Lincoln was who Harriet Tubman was
3:34
we seem to know a lot about Harriet
3:36
Tubman but nobody knows who William
3:38
dumpy Sherman was so if you don't have
3:41
models of your past then you're not
3:44
going to have any connection with it and
3:46
you're going to forget it and you're
3:47
going to make up the past as you go
3:50
along or Orwell says he who controls the
3:53
present can reinvent the past to make a
3:57
new future and that's what we're doing
3:59
in this country country there a country
4:01
also has to have humility you can't use
4:03
the standards of the present and go back
4:05
and say look at those guys in covered
4:08
wagons they said racist things and
4:11
therefore we're not going to study them
4:12
or the organ Trail should be not
4:15
mentioned before you can do that you
4:17
have to say to yourself if I have five
4:20
children and two of them die on the
4:22
Oregon Trail because they don't have
4:23
antibiotics or they have dip theia or I
4:27
have 2600 VIs but I can't get glasses
4:31
and I can't see or I don't know what the
4:35
weather's going to be like tomorrow I
4:36
have no satellite or if I want a family
4:39
of five my wife at 15 is going to have
4:42
to be pregnant about 15 times cuz I know
4:45
five births are not going to come to
4:48
full term another three or four that
4:50
child is going to be lost during child
4:51
birth another two or three are going to
4:53
die from childhood dise diseases then
4:56
she's not going to be emancipated
4:58
because she's going to be pregnant from
4:59
15 to
5:01
40 and I'm not going to have any leisure
5:03
time because I'm going to be trying to
5:05
Homestead a farm from 6:00 in the
5:06
morning but we' forgotten all that so we
5:09
have all these leisured creatures in the
5:10
University that says I judge this person
5:14
racist this person is sexist this
5:16
luminary is no good because they don't
5:19
fit my standards of iPhones and vacuum
5:23
cleaners and Jet travel and it's it's
5:25
absolutely absurd they have no idea this
5:28
generation what the future was going to
5:29
say to us they could very well say hm
5:33
you and your scientific arrogance
5:35
allowed 1 million fetuses that were
5:38
viable children to be aborted in a
5:40
single year they may say that or they
5:42
may say wow you guys went back to
5:44
tribalism and started picking and
5:46
choosing jobs and admissions by the
5:48
colored people's skin how reactionary
5:51
was that every generation's got to be
5:58
humble

Source: Hillsdale College Online Courses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdf6VFbUrn8