A Nation in Love With Its Reflection

By Augustine Wasef

Regardless of perspective, we appear to be experiencing a tipping point in the shifting concept of moral objectivity. It seems unthinkable to have self evident fact in a polarized world whose cultural boundaries are predicated on personal ideology. But the ever growing sense of moral unease comes close to being one. We are tempted to categorize this dysphoric effect as a deviation from the familiar rhythm of history. If history repeats, what are we repeating?

To find the lens to bring our modern reality into focus we can look to a two thousand year old Roman war poem. Virgil was already the most celebrated poet of his time, having explored the underlying symmetry between the harsh agrarian lifestyle and the human condition. Having scaled lesser mountains, he was drawn to his Everest, which resulted in The Aeneid. A work whose looming stature, ended with a bolt of lightning spurring from a stylus. The Romans were fearful of the poem and so they worshiped it. This narrative was representative of the Greek ancestry of Rome and challenged Roman moral dominance. 

The Romans believed that they were the rulers of the civilized world and that the outside world was full of “barbarians.” To have their entire culture as a mere derivative of the Greeks would have been an insufferable burden because it destroyed their moral superiority. Nothing is more sacred than a person’s false moral perfection. 

The Aeneid was complete, glistening with propaganda. The Romans famously used lead acetate as a sweetener, slowly poisoning themselves, and they were doing the exact same mental calculus with agitprop. The literary bridge between Greece and Rome conferred Rome's right of rule–or so they thought. Hidden within the sprawling work was a miniscule doubt, a seed that could bring down an empire.

Virgil knew Rome’s moral hubris would be its undoing. Throughout the narrative, and behind the mind numbing syncophancy, he reflected this view. For instance the character Aneas, who represents Rome and its emperor, kills a surrendering enemy (Turnus) out of rage. Augustus had been drafted to play as the lamb but was unknowingly wearing the mask that only Virgil could pull off, rendering Augustus the wolf.

No matter what Robert Frost will tell you, poetry is the most futile discipline. It can only on occasion implant itself into the national psyche at the same time when books are constantly interrogating our subconscious. Poetry can really only excel in one basic task: to state the truth that we are too hoodwinked to glimpse.

America is (knowingly) derivative from the Romans and like the Romans we are attempting to exploit our origins for political gain. We are repeating the Roman mistake. By writing ourselves as the natural successors to the great empires of history we are setting course for an iceberg. Christian patriots have an uncomfortably sympathetic relationship with the Roman Empire. Have they forgotten that Rome’s power spread infecting city after city replacing Mediterranean communities with a state of centralization that betrayed any sense of humanity? Have they forgotten that Jesus was tortured to death in Roman hands? Maybe that is exactly what they remember. America is the heir to the Greco-Roman tradition and we all know how the story ends.

Empires rise and fall like phoenixes across enormous lengths of time but our modern sense of growing moral unease coupled with a technological inflection has no precedent. No amount of historical deviance can prevent America from falling back into Rome’s old trap. For every possible type of Roman hubris there is an American counterpart. We both believe we are militarily invincible. We both believe we are morally superior. We both believe we are the crux of the developed world. We both believe our nation will live forever.

A country predicated on Jesus’ teachings is becoming a mirror to the country that mutilated him. But regardless of whatever phrases are plastered on the backs of textbooks we are not doomed to repeat history. America is an empire built on hubris. 

When a soundwave is sufficiently powerful it creates a distortion in air warping the very medium that propagates it. Our cognitive air is being warped by the unprecedented shockwave that is the twenty-first century. 

Circling history we can only continue our current trajectory, but what if we defied fate?

Thank you for choosing Inflection Magazine and human authorship.

Photo: Marcus Strfry/Unsplash