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I have seen a variety of opinions expressed over the years comparing
American society and culture to that of the Romans.  One of the most
pertinent questions involves whether we will repeat the "decline and
fall" part.  I certainly see ourselves in decline, but I'm not ready to
bet money that will be falling apart in the near or distant future.  

        Cullen Murphy, author of Are We Rome?  The Fall of an Empire and
the Fate of America was interviewed in the latest issue of U. S. News
and World Report (May 7th).  This exchange was especially perceptive:

You say there was an almost fatal parochialism among the Romans.  Are we
in danger of duplicating it?

"I was looking the other day at one of the new Pew Center polls about
'what Americans know.' Americans in general aren't that interested in,
or aware of, the outside world, and increasingly even our elites don't
seem to put much stock in that kind of knowledge either.  We don't have
[enough] Arabic speakers; the number of foreign correspondents continues
to shrink.  Compared with the Greeks, the Romans were not passionately
interested in the outside world.  And they were often taken by surprise.
The great disaster suffered by Varus in Germany in A. D. 9, when three
entire Roman legions were annihilated, stemmed partly from ignorance
about the tribes they were up against."

Ed Nizalowski, SMS
Newark Valley High School
Newark Valley, NY
enizalowski@nvcs.stier.org


"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning
to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness
is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not
only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of
life."

John Muir



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