Your weekend read: Victor
Davis Hanson points out the alarming parallels between the collapse of the
Byzantines and the collapse of America.
He begins:
When Constantinople finally fell to
the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had
survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at
Rome.
Always outnumbered in a sea of
enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of
dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant
deterrence.
Generations of self-sacrifice
ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and
improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most
complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.
Brilliant scientific advancement
and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an
ancient precursor to napalm.
The law reigned supreme for nearly
a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of
Roman jurisprudence.
Yet this millennium-old crown jewel
of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000
inhabitants left when it fell. . . .
And he concludes:
Like Byzantines, Americans have
become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they
no longer have the talent to create.
Current woke dogma, obscure word
fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past
generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the
former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.
The Byzantines never woke up in
time to understand what they had become.
So far neither have Americans.
VDH’s full column at American Greatness is here.
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