[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both so very much for your excellent essay posts!!!

Some people tell me they worry that the United States will go down to its demise on the model of imperial Rome. I suggest on such occasions that the more likely model is the fall of ancient Athens. Solon put his finger on the crucial problem in the quote just above.

In his own time, Plato railed against the irrational disorder of the people. For he held that the polis (i.e., political society) is "Man writ large." And so no political society could be better than the general quality of the "human material" that constitutes it. And no amount of legislation could ever succeed in remedying the ill social effects of the profound defects of a disordered populace.

I very strongly agree with this assessment. If the people have lost their way - do not understand much less accept the Great Hierarchy of Being - they will diminish with a whimper.

[RightWhale]

no political society could be better than the general quality of the "human material" that constitutes it.

The Founding Fathers at least agreed that the Legislatures would indeed be wiser than any of their members. For the most part. On any given day.