"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?"
About this Quote
Paglia’s question is a provocation disguised as a history lesson: she’s not really asking about Rome. She’s daring contemporary America (and, by extension, the West) to recognize itself in a famously overdetermined metaphor for decline. “Late Rome” is doing heavy cultural work here because it’s shorthand for decadence plus institutional rot, a civilization so enchanted by its own legend that it mistakes nostalgia for strength. The phrasing “infatuated with past glories” isn’t neutral; it suggests a kind of adolescent self-obsession, a culture in love with its highlight reel and bored by the unglamorous labor of renewal.
The target is twofold. First, the “complacent, greedy elite” names a managerial class that treats governance like asset management, extracting value while insisting everything is basically fine. Second, the “hopelessly powerless” public reframes political frustration as civic anesthesia: not just that people can’t act, but that they’ve been trained to experience change as something that happens to them, not something they shape. The bleakest subtext is that the problem isn’t merely bad leaders; it’s a feedback loop of spectacle, comfort, and resignation.
Paglia, long skeptical of orthodoxies across the spectrum and fascinated by cyclical theories of culture, uses the Roman analogy the way she often uses classical references: as a mirror and a weapon. The question mark is rhetorical theater. It invites agreement, but it also implicates the reader: if you recognize the pattern, what excuse do you have for staying inert?
The target is twofold. First, the “complacent, greedy elite” names a managerial class that treats governance like asset management, extracting value while insisting everything is basically fine. Second, the “hopelessly powerless” public reframes political frustration as civic anesthesia: not just that people can’t act, but that they’ve been trained to experience change as something that happens to them, not something they shape. The bleakest subtext is that the problem isn’t merely bad leaders; it’s a feedback loop of spectacle, comfort, and resignation.
Paglia, long skeptical of orthodoxies across the spectrum and fascinated by cyclical theories of culture, uses the Roman analogy the way she often uses classical references: as a mirror and a weapon. The question mark is rhetorical theater. It invites agreement, but it also implicates the reader: if you recognize the pattern, what excuse do you have for staying inert?
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
More Quotes by Camille
Add to List
