Too true: how civilizations fall
September 25, 2008
:When all is said and done, Civilizations do not fall because of the barbarians at the gates. Nor does a great city fall from the death wish of bored and morally bankrupt stewards presumably sworn to its defense. Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.
Is that a Tolkein reference I do detect therein?
Lord of the Rings was a metaphor for its own time, written (as it was) across the span of time in which the Second World War happened. But like the deep Catholicism from which Tolkein drank, the messages of his epic tale do have an eternal, and then repeating, ring to them. We can see ourselves in his tales…but that is not always a comforting thought.
