The all purpose terrorism thread featuring plenty of allah akbar

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

None of what you wrote really support "It just could not hold the pressure the many foreigners put the home culture under. And so it broke." as the big reason for the fall of the Republic.
You are of course free to make that interpretation, but by doing so you ignore the various other, much larger, factors that contributed to the fall.

Rome lost its own feeling of a coherent identity, and that was what indeed led to its demise. You do not want to see that, okay, but still - that was what it all was about. Quite some hostirc witnesses whose scriptures are being read until today, poets, senators and philosophers alike, complained about the massive degeneration of manners, sexual ethics, family ties and feeling of committments to the higher cause of Rome - as well as the huge number of foreigners arriving and especially the exploding number of slaves who got freed and became Roman citizens immediately, due to the Roman laws. There were times when it was considered and I think even turne dinto shortz-lasting law that Roman men between 25 and 55 had to be married, else were (financially) punished and socially banned, and where it was almost a state order that Roman men had to found families (= make Roman babies). That was not due to a shortage in inhabitants, but the balance between Romans and non-Romans dripping dangerously in favour of the latter. The original Roman population shrunk, and it abandoned more and more it classic values and moral standards, ironcially in the name of focussing on greater individual rights and freedoms. But individualty and collective interest are mutually exlcusive - the more of the one, the less of the other you necessarily can have. We see the same happening in the EU today. The more you set the accent for individual rights and freedoms, the more you necessarily lose the sense for group membership, obligations to the community, identity that goes beyond the pleasing of your own personal demands and desires. the more you are focussed on yourself the more you lose contact to the identity of your peer group, your society you are embedded in - all this egocentrism and focus on own pleasure and fulfilling of desires which in Rome at that time all to often were focussed on circensis, sex without accepting binding to a partner and a family (= no babies made) and the subsequent obligations and duties, and thus an erosion of former family values and their worshipping.

We have all that today as well.

I should tell you something on the method the author of the quoted book works by. He took the moral and value-related categories and terms by which the EU wants to be defined in its own self-perception as they are expressed in the yearly so-called Eurobarometer by Eurostat statistics office. (A short comparison with these values asked for in relation to how important people consider them to be for themselves, their own life, showed some very revealing discrepancies between what peopole valued in their own life, and what they associated the EU with. The EU'S publicaiton had it sown interpretation and way to ignore this, of course, or to hide it, but it is woirth the time to check the implications of these differrences that are relevant and can be seen betwene the lines, so to speak.) Since Engels he worked towards a release of the book in 2012, he based on the statistics of the year 2008. The EU asks in these statistics in which sequence people would rank the wanted qualities when beign asked which of these they associate to be representative for the EU, people also get asked which of these values and qualities they identified with personally. The EU therefore does not ask people what qualities they attribute to the EU, but already defined a list of wanted qualities that peopel simply have to take as granted, which of course is form of a suggestive phrasing and imo already represents a serious methodological flaw. The author then takes one chapter for each of these categories, and splits it into half, and then put vis-a-vis a.) the known sociologial data of the present EU, its statistcally collected numbers and political realities, the events of the present and their sociological relevance, and b.) the corresponding Roman time witness reports, historical scriptures and what else historians know about Rome, gives hints and assessments of the validity and trustworthiness of these sources, and then compares both eras directly to each other. That the author is academic expert for ancient Rome, Greece, the religious systems of these eras and spheres and the rulership of the Seleukides, of course is a great help - he knows his stuff, the appendix is over 50 pages thick, just with sources and quotes from these sources. I mean I have one half of that book done now, and I got an impression: that guy is extremely smart, and extremely educated on the matter, trust me. Its one of the best history books I have ever red.

Those Eurobarometer categories and statistics can be accessed here:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/a..._values_en.pdf

Consequently, each of these categories gets its own chapter and gets analysed, put in relation and in historic context, and gets critically questioned. Most of the book is about this.

I know you do not speak German, but what about French? The German edition came second, but got reviosned and complemented, the original version however and first release, was in French. It still is available (and a best-seller, which is anything but common for s history book).

Its not as if he direction of David Engels is new to me, but he has much greater detailed knowledge than I have, and is able to set these details up much more consistently in one complete setting and format than i could when I put together a quick posting. I mean I do not write for academic standard. The value of lecture like this for me lies in that it helps me to add some structure to my many specific but often unconnected pieces and bits of info flying around in my head, a framework in which it can all fall into a matching place to form a better model, a better picture than what I try to explain sometimes. It helps me to get my thoughts and own info better sorted. For others this may appear as if I were just parroting some guy whom I happened to stumble over. But that it is not. Also, I can differ between intelligent authors, and manipulative or dumb ones. For example I can see in some comments by Engels that he seems to be quite critical of capitalism and free markets, for example - but I see the consistency in his thinking and line of arguments, and so I nevertheless deeply respect him even while I obviously disagree with him on such things, which are quite fundamental, important things. I do not often feel like this for somebody who opposes my views on such fundamental questions. I also realised that he forced me to look at the Rome-EU comparison with greate rprecision and clarity. Before, I usually argued that the EU is faling like Rome fell after it split and then desintegrated. Engels force dme to realsied that the far more obvious comnpariuson is between the EU'S fall and the fall of the Roman first republic. He convinced me - with superior information and better argument. - Why do I point that out? Because sometimes I got accused that I wojuld njot chnage my mind anyway, no matter what somebody posts. By examples in this forums history, that is not true. This guy changed my mind - and I have changed my mind on things discussed in the forum over the years as well. But I demand to be given good reasons to do so. I do not change my mind just to do somebody else a favour.

That you do not like the conclusions by the author, I can easily imagine. But I cannot see you being able to counter his very strong evidence and very strong arguments. Many peopole will not like the book. Still - counter it by its stated conclusions and facts, not by worldview and ideological claim.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

That feel when Skybird pushes you to be a classical liberal.

Had not seen that yet.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Rome lost its own feeling of a coherent identity...
*SNIP*

Sorry, I'm still confused how you link all that to pressure from foreign cultures?

And not to, for example, the good ol' greed and seek for personal greatness that was not unknown to Romans.

[Skybird]

Because the presence of an rapidly growing number of foreign cults, beliefs, religions, and an erosion of conviction in Roman religion, based on the Greek basis, because the Roman religion was much focussed on just formal ritual : the gos were satisfied if the rite was run correctly, no more to say, it was not so much about faith or belief felt with zeal and fervor. There was a time before the republic fell when the temples in Rome were mostly abandoned and the various Roman deities's cults did not even find enough people who were interested in wanting to become priests or servants to the cult, not to mention that people did not attend the ceremonies anymore. The religion erdoded from within, and was under pressure from exotic, foreign ones that set other accents and foci, much more on personal fervor, on conviction, and last, with christianty at the latest: the afterlife instead of a parallel universe where the deities lived, or the present, earthly life.

The answer to your question is complex, but the shifting of the balance between native Roman people and foreigners (migrants, freed slaves), and religion eroding, are two of these. There are more factors, and it all interacted. The individualization in society led to a decrease in cultural solidarity and identification with traditional values. Which led to a re-valuation of values of personal rights. The void felt by the abandoning of one's own relgious identity led to the vulnerabulity for earthly pleasures and excesses, and the circus. The materialsim growing on the othe rhand enbaled and allowed the focussing on the less pressing immediate material needs, like said individual rights and freedoms. Which changed and reduced the value the institution of the family had enjoyed before. which affected birth rates. And so forth. What we call today a - in Europe almost self-denying - respect for the foreign, the exotic other culture, at least translated into fascination for other cultures back then - at he cost of the Roman one. Several leaders and landmark figures of Roman history left us written evidence of their bitter complants and criticism of these things.

Again it must be re-iterated that the factors that weigh in here and the way they interacted and formed the demise of the former "home" order and culture, directly compare to the way things slide in Europe today as well. The parallels in active factors and the way the whole thing moves, are stunning, to me the historic quotations and material, and the data of the present given, is very convincing.


Therefore I learned that comparing the EU's modern status to the demise of the first republic makes much more sense than to compare it to the ultimate fall of Rome after it split up centuries later, a comparison that I used to follow before. Engels lays out a much better founded, more convincing case for seeing it like this.

In the end, every coin has two sides, and where there is an "up" there also is a "down". Back then and today: whatever the focus is beign put on by a society, it creates an opposite trend as well, and consequences that cannot be avoided. We lose social integrity today right because we focus so strongly on individual rights and out the individuum before the collective, and becasue we cann materialistically afford that.. We claim the right of free sexual self-expression and so should not be amazed to see the devaluing of founding and running a family and birth rates shrinking - with birth rates growing in those migrant families that come from cultures that different to us put a very strong emphasis on putting their own identity before any other. Result? Saying it without any emotion, nativ Europeans get outbred, that simple, a thing of simple math. Most Europeans today are shy to confess they feel as part of a defined, separate cultural community with an historically grown identity, and extremely progressive people even deny that it makes sense to speak of "the occident" anymore, since Europeans fear the rejection of other cultures, and that these could feel not as equal. Instead Europeans claim to support universal, cuklture-independent values that nevertheless have been made possible to think about only in Europe and its past. What we claim to be "globalization" today, in the end is just an export of materiliasm and items and goods and pruction ways invented and formed up in Europe since no other culture was capable to get wher eEurope was and is - and one could argue that in the other parts of the world this percpetion of globaization by far is not that muc shared. Our export of our model to the whole world has more infuence and shaping power in other oarts of the world than our forefathers ever unfolded in formign energy during the age of collonialism!

That these other cultures on their part, China, Arabia, India, are not shy at all to nevertheless claim their individuatlity and superiority and their separate identity, gets comfortably ignored by occidentla self-deniars. We have started to renegotiate conflicts again that since decades, since generations have been considered to be left behind, and we must do so because it is the arrival of foreign, other cultures not sharing our values but questioning, even resisting to them , that force us to do it all again: apostcy, equality of women, humanistic values, law and order of the state, separation of legislation, jurisdiction, executive (that is what Bannon really is about, btw, since in many US departments this separation seems to be almost on-existent anymore), secularism, non-killing of homosexuals, etc. The others coming to us now force us to negotiate it all again since we do not dare to stand up for our own cultural identity and demanding them that if they want to live here they have to coply and followm our rules, else have to ge tout. And that we call progress? I call it self-deconstruction.

It is right our extreme individualism and freedom that has turned us into what we are today: well-meaning, but weak, shy of confronting others, shocked by the demand that we should define and defend our own cultural identity, and enraged by the demand that we should set us apart from other cultures and should understand that "we" are what we are last but not least because we are not what the others are. There cannot be any identity without discriminating between "me" and "not-me".And I have seen enough of the Middle East and NortAfrica and stayed there long enough to know that there is nothing that I would count as "me".
And so we dissolve ourselves.

Many of the philosophers and politicians of Rome aruund the fall of the first republic have left us comments and writings that reveal that they saw the very same things happening in their time as well. We could even see now that this helped to rise certain schools of thinking and philosophy that before were present but were just this: present as one branch amongst many others: the Stoa, for example, with its sometimes somewhat fatalistic attitude, which on the one hand may have helped to grow the feeling of social isolation, on the other hand the social isolation caused by the above mentioned factors and events fed back on the Stoa and strengthened it in return.

----

I think this is really hijacking this thread beyond all what is understandable, and I cannot and will not translate an over-500 pages book that presents and bases on plenty of historical and academic material and data. I therefore leave it to this now. I recommend that book once again, however, it is briliant in thought, data and argument. It leaves me white with envy when seeing how intelligent and smart some people are.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I therefore leave it to this now.

Fine by me. I find it hard to formulate any sort of answer to your arguments anyway, as they are not talked about in any of the books I've checked as major problems of the Republic.

I'll try to obtain a copy of Engels' book at some point to see what exactly is his argument.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Fine by me. I find it hard to formulate any sort of answer to your arguments anyway, as they are not talked about in any of the books I've checked as major problems of the Republic.

Maybe the answers given by other authors are not necessarily always contradictive or wrong, but complementary?! There certainly are aspects which Engels do not cover in his book, or only touches briefly, to outline a greater context, for exmaple the importance (and possible power-political abuse) of the free wheat rations that were distributed in Rome and that led to various conflicts between various influential office-holders and politicians. Although that again compares to the role of promises for social wellfare and redistribution of wealth in modern times, I would say.

Engels challenges some mainstream views of historians abotu Rome, yes, but when he does so, he marks that as such. Usually he just adds to the canon of what is agreed to be established knowledge in the academic community. But yes, some of what he says is a challenge indeed - and political dynamite, if it would show that he is right.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Maybe the answers given by other authors are not necessarily always contradictive or wrong, but complementary?!

That can, and often is the case. But the issues Engels raises about decline of Religion and migrant/freedmen appears, upon further bedtime reading, to be hard to prove or even unfounded.

On the decline of religion, Mary Beard in her book 'Religions of Rome Volume I' that any decline, or lack of, is nearly impossible to prove conclusively. She argues that contemporary sources shouldn't be taken literally, as there appears to be a considerable 'nostalgia' factor to them (Cicero) or bias (Augustine writers). Further, she gives evidence of founding of new and renovation of old temples during the 1st century BC, which would show that religion was not in decline. Lastly, she argues that for example the post of Flamen Dialis was left open, not because of decline of religion, but because of the disturbances of the 1st century BC. Other priests did the job of the priest of Jupiter, so there was no disturbance of religious ceremonies in that regard. She concludes that, while it is not possible to get a 100% picture of religion in the late Republic, in her view the decline is exaggerated.

In his book 'The Freedman in the Roman World', Henrik Mouritsen argues that there was no crisis caused by the release of slaves, and that Augustus' laws to curb this 'crisis' were "...peculiarly half-hearted and easily circumvented, and the mismatch between their supposed aims and actual content suggests they might be better understood as official declarations which emphasised the need for proper selection and ‘quality’ control in the manumission process."

and

"Augustus’ ambition to cut the number of freedmen has become a widely established ‘fact’, but the overall impact of his laws was probably modest. The limitations imposed on owners’ rights to free their slaves were to a great extent symbolic and would have done little to reduce the scale of manumission."

and

"While there is broad consensus on the background and motives of the Augustan reforms, most attempts at explaining the actual harm caused by freedmen have remained vague. Apart from the increased cost of the grain dole – which was solved by fixing the number of recipients – it is difficult to pinpoint any specific problems arising from manumission during the late republic."

[Skybird]

One would need to hear both authors debating that. There indeed were effortds and attempts, namely by Augustus, but also others, to artifically revive the Roman deities various cults, but int he whoe era the Mediterranean area was under growing and massive influence of Hellenism and Hellenimisation, which was not only obvious in the dominant role of Greek thinking and philosphy, but also language, which was most obvious in the rivalry between Latin and Greek as formal official language of Roman adminsitration, and Augustine and other even had to relase decrees forbidding Roman official governing provinces from speaking Greek during formal events although they were fluent in it. Nevertheless it led to a time, cant recall out of the blue when that was, when for quite some time all debates in the senate of Rome were held not in Latin but exclusively in Greek.

Various foreign cults were banned from Rome, when it already was so big a city that contemporary witnesses complained massively about the city and the world (outside) "no longer beign separate entities" and the foreign wys of life and foreign cults had out Roman identity uder immense pressure and made it falling back everywhere. Yes, later rulers tried to battle that, Cato the elder, Seneca, Livius and many others weep and complained about the loss of own culture, but we know how it all ended, finally, longer time later: a foreign relgion, Christianity, was declared the Roman state religion, to finally end the desintegrating of Roman identity but attempting to unite all people - by force - under one relgion and its identity-building influence again - no matter what religion or ideology that were. The cause justified the means.

On whether the Romans living before the fall of the republic indeed felt a bitter self-isolating or not, Engels explciitly wanrs of following the habit of the modenr present to just relabel the decline of Christian religion in Europe - a negative - as a cultural revitalizati0on and enrichment by foreign cultures that get met with even more enthusiasm in compensation for the denying of own identity. He criticises explicitly this tendency with many historians today, that the terms and conditojns of today's pltical correctness in langauge get assumed to be valid and alive 2000 years ago as well. We must see it through the Roman's eyes instead, from their point of view and in the context pof their time frame they lived in. Its very possible that the author you mentioned, Mary Beard, and Engels, would collide head-to-head here. With the quotrs of Henrik Mouritsen that you gave, Engels simply strongly seem to disagree, especially in the role of the wheat distrubution issues, and the impact of the exploding numbers of freed slaves, for which he refers to quite some contemporary witnesses and the written reports of state advisers and leaders alike.

[Jimbuna]

Arguably not officially terrorism -related but probably a part of the reason. Sweden are about to introduce conscription.

The Swedish government has decided to reintroduce military conscription - a move backed by the country's MPs.
The decision means that 4,000 men and women will be called up for service from 1 January 2018, a defence ministry spokeswoman told the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39140100

[Oberon]

I think it's less Terror and more Tu-22.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Arguably not officially terrorism -related but probably a part of the reason. Sweden are about to introduce conscription.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39140100

And Finland pushes its plannings for the case of a military conflict from current personnel level of 230 to 280 thousand, and raises defence spendings. The standing army in peace times has currently around 35 thousand.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I think it's less Terror and more Tu-22.

Yes, that as well quite possibly

Originally Posted by Skybird

And Finland pushes its plannings for the case of a military conflict from current personnel level of 230 to 280 thousand, and raises defence spendings. The standing army in peace times has currently around 35 thousand.

Aye, both Sweden and Finland appear to be moving more closely toward NATO.

[Dowly]

4,000 a year? Wow.

[ikalugin]

I think it is more about trying to stop degradation of Swedish Armed Forces.

As to either joining NATO - it would decrease their security.

[mapuc]

The background is that the security situation in Sweden's immediate surroundings have deteriorated and the military have failed to recruit enough volunteers

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