Perverse, decadent homosexuality brought down the Western Roman Empire...

[Bicoastal]

...if you ignore the fact that, by the year it was conquered by barbarians, Rome had officially been a Christian nation for 100 years and homosexual acts were punishable by death.



Please, PLEASE use this useful factoid on anyone who comes at you with the "gay marriage ruins society" thing. In 480 AD, Roman society resembled Alabama more than it did Fire Island.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. So...

it was Christianity that brought down the Roman Empire! Perhaps they shoulda stuck with the Fire Island theme.

[Scootaloo]

5. Actually it's possible

Peter heather's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" comes at this in a roundabout way, noting the power struggles between secular rule and the Bishop of Rome, the brain-drain of learned men and competent nobility entering the church rather than governance, and the effect the reign of a nominally pacifist religion had on a militaristic empire - including when the religion wasn't so pacifistic and fractured what unity there was in hte empire by denouncing and destroying "heathens."

[Cirque du So-What]

6. Oh, I agree

That 'brain drain' persisted, culminating in a little period we like to call the 'Dark Ages' - a period when the Islamic world was light years ahead of Europe, having kept alive the science and philosophy of ancient times. Meanwhile, European clerics were clamping down HARD on anything approaching real knowledge in favor of church dogma. The fact that Europe ever emerged from the dark ages - despite the best efforts of official Christendom - is more of a miracle than any act attributed to a so-called 'saint.'

[PDJane]

2. What really brought down the roman empire was finance........

And the fact that the elites evaded paying taxes.

[starroute]

8. This...

Last edited Sun Jun 30, 2013, 12:52 PM - Edit history (1)

Sounds like you've been reading David Graeber. The general patterns is that as elites acquire wealth and power, they lose interest in supporting the larger society or even doing the hard work of governing.

I suspect we have Gibbon to blame for much of the "decadence" theme. He was writing for the elites of his day, and he reflected their incompetence and salaciousness quite accurately.

[PDJane]

10. I've read both Gibbon and David Graeber.

And a few more. Frankly, I've been watching what has been unfolding stateside and here, and it scares me.

[closeupready]

3. I thought it was lead plumbing...?

[SQUEE]

11. I always bring this up.

Descriptions of Nero, and Heliogabilus are consistent with lead exposure, also one of the analogies I draw when faced with the tired old argument of how we are the New Rome, always begun with our societies "rampant homosexuality" and bread and circuses pop culture.

[closeupready]

4. Another point: "perverse" means "unnatural" thus, for those whose nature

drives them to love their own gender, no perversion.

Yes, if you were completely heterosexual and strove to love only same gender people, then you could make an argument that you had perverted your own natural sexuality.

But nobody in a free society does that - not unless you are mentally ill.

[hollysmom]

7. I thought it was the lead linings in the aquaducts that brought down the roman empire.

[eallen]

9. Famously, Gibbon blamed Christianity

While I think that is simplistic, it has the advantage that the timing is right.