Reports of our death
October 13th 2009 05:14
“Mr. Burns was rushed to Springfield Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was then transferred to a better hospital, where doctors upgraded his condition to alive.”
-- Kent Brockman
“We will bury you!”
-- Nikita Khrushchev
If you’ve been around the other sections of Orble, you know that I like Magic: the Gathering, a game which has been declared dead almost as many times as the United States of America has. There’s even an article on one of those other Magic sites that aren’t as good as mine (just kidding. Or am I?) called “The Game that Wouldn’t Die.” There are things like that for America, but more often you’ll find comparisons to the author’s favorite fallen empire, usually Rome, and particularly its supposed cultural decadence. Lots of soap operas on TV? That means we’re weak and effete. Lots of contact sports on TV? That means we’re debauched and obsessed with violence. You can't lose.
(Sometimes I think these speculations and comparisons, and their gleeful and anticipatory undertone, might say more about the people making them than the actual situation. Who, I wonder, would rather be part of a dying empire than a thriving one?)
There’s an obscure piece of flavor text on an old Magic card that says “Never believe they’re dead until you see the body.” Yes, America has social problems, other countries have ambitions, and Obama’s Nobel Prize will be a punchline for many years to come. Nothing unusual about that, though; Roman legions clashed with Carthaginian and Parthian armies, and Caligula’s horse, the senator, is still a joke now after only about 2,000 years. And all that happened well before the height of Rome as defined by classicists. Will our current problems look like that in a hundred years?
-- Kent Brockman
“We will bury you!”
-- Nikita Khrushchev
If you’ve been around the other sections of Orble, you know that I like Magic: the Gathering, a game which has been declared dead almost as many times as the United States of America has. There’s even an article on one of those other Magic sites that aren’t as good as mine (just kidding. Or am I?) called “The Game that Wouldn’t Die.” There are things like that for America, but more often you’ll find comparisons to the author’s favorite fallen empire, usually Rome, and particularly its supposed cultural decadence. Lots of soap operas on TV? That means we’re weak and effete. Lots of contact sports on TV? That means we’re debauched and obsessed with violence. You can't lose.
(Sometimes I think these speculations and comparisons, and their gleeful and anticipatory undertone, might say more about the people making them than the actual situation. Who, I wonder, would rather be part of a dying empire than a thriving one?)
There’s an obscure piece of flavor text on an old Magic card that says “Never believe they’re dead until you see the body.” Yes, America has social problems, other countries have ambitions, and Obama’s Nobel Prize will be a punchline for many years to come. Nothing unusual about that, though; Roman legions clashed with Carthaginian and Parthian armies, and Caligula’s horse, the senator, is still a joke now after only about 2,000 years. And all that happened well before the height of Rome as defined by classicists. Will our current problems look like that in a hundred years?
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