Are we like Rome before the fall?

This has been a rather captivating subject on the minds of a lot of people I’ve either read or heard or talked to over the past few years, and it’s getting more intense. The current issue of U.S. News & World Report has an interesting Q&A with Cullen Murphy, who actually studied the fall of the Roman civilization and compared it with America’s course, in “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.”

Why do Americans compare themselves to Rome?

The first moment comes before the Revolution, when the colonial elite, all of whom are steeped in Roman history, begin to see themselves as the embodiment of a Roman republican ideal. They contrast that ideal with the tyranny of the Roman monarchy before the republic-and of course they equated that tyranny with Britain’s. With the image of a virtuous Roman republic in front of them, they pursued the dream of an American republic. They had Roman governance on their minds: the idea of checks and balances, certain notions of Roman virtue, what it meant to be a citizen and an upright person.

It’s good to remind ourselves of how we started. But that was then…

Are current comparisons completely negative?

Actually, until a few years ago there were a lot of people who were making the comparison with Rome in optimistic and assertive ways. In other words, the Pax Romana lives anew as the Pax Americana, providing worldwide cultural benefits and worldwide security.

Now, there’s a lot of concern that we’re on the same path as the Romans before their fateful destruction. The warning signs are the focal point of discussions I’ve heard.

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.

That has been an American problem for an awfully long time. My family travels a great deal, and we’ve always noticed this awareness in other places of global issues, and at least some degree of proficiency in other languages, especially among ‘elites’ in these cultures.

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.

How do we reverse our own tendencies toward decline?

One way is to instill in younger Americans an appreciation of the outside world. That includes encouraging people to learn at least one foreign language. Second, stop treating government as a necessary evil and start taking pride in what government can do well-and give government the means to keep doing it. Third, let’s try to see immigration as a source of strength, and play to it. And then, fourth, we have to take some weight off the American military, which means we need to stop giving it so many missions.

There’s one final thing, and that’s remembering who we are. The Roman elites were not looking to improve life for the vast majority of the Romans. [But] Americans believe in self-betterment, in the possibility of improvement for everybody. That ethic is our saving grace: It’s the empire of possibility.

Remembering who we are is simple but powerful advice. Anything is possible here, especially if we remain ethical. And, I would add, pray for that saving grace.