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Is It Empire Yet?
by Doc
Cuddy
On the right and the left, on newsprint and on acid-free archival paper, lots of
word people have been getting lots of inches out of the idea that what we're seeing on our
TV's today is the exciting emergence of the world's newest empire: The old
sea-to-shining-sea is expanding to become the International
Dateline-to-Shining-International Dateline. Heady times, indeed.
The case for the emergence of an American empire is pretty easy to make:
 Militarily,
nobody comes close (according to persistent Pentagon
flacks, North Korea [!!!] is our biggest competitor).
Economically,
likewise (the Japanese made a run at us and look
where it got them: Permanent Recession and a cute prime minister).
Politically,
who can match a government that out of one side of its
mouth spouts pious populist platitudes and out of the other side
confers blessings on any regime that welcomes McDonald's and
promises to buy lots of F-35's?
Those are the obvious--and, really, trivial--arguments that one expects
from media pundits and academics. With the greater depth and latitude allowed by the
limitless world of Internet publishing, we've been mulling the question, "Is
it empire yet?" and have come up with several more substantive indications
that yes indeed, it is empire yet.
In our thinking, we took as the standard of empire that model of
domination which everybody since Cecil B. de Mille has agreed is truly the greatest of the
great. We refer, of course, to that sine qua non of land-grabbing and forced geopolitical
leveling called the Roman Empire.
If the American Empire is for real, then it's gonna have to measure up
against the very high standards set by those indomitable, intrepid culture-crushers from
central Italy.
What, we asked ourselves, did the Romans give the world that has lasted?
And how well does America stack up against those Roman accomplishments?
We identified five Roman accomplishments more enduring than bronze
and provide below our comparative assessment so you can see how America's doing
empire-wise. We assume in each category that the Romans scored a solid, dead-on perfect
10. Check our ratings for American imperialism:
SPQR |
EPU* |
1. Roads. You can hardly drive anywhere in central Italy without
bump-bump-bumping over the cobbled remnants of Via This or Via That which have survived
earthquakes, wars, and endless streams of tourists and winners of the Prix de Rome.
The Roman Score: 10. |
1. Roadwise, you can only conclude we've surpassed the Romans. How far
into the future do you think the billions of cubic feet of steel-reinforced concrete
called the Interstate Highway System is going to survive?
The American score: 10! |
2. Architecture. If you've seen one Roman temple or villa, you've seen
them all. A distinctive but not very original style repeated endlessly.
The Roman Score: 10. |
2. Have you noticed that downtown Pittsburgh looks just like downtown
Atlanta which looks just like downtown Seattle?
The American score: 10! |
3. The arts. The Romans proved themselves masters at imitating their
Greek betters, which left us with a lot of mediocre sculpture, some bad poetry, and one
absolutely interminable epic.
The Roman Score: 10. |
3. Aside from the massive degeneracy of folk music that's called
"pop", American artists in all fields have likewise shown real talent for
pan-cultural mimesis.
The American score: 10! |
4. Religion. Out of a rich heritage of mystical paganism, the Romans
first resisted and then embraced and spread the odd beliefs of a tiny heretical cult which
in turn took over the old imperial city and itself made motions toward empire.
The Roman Score: 10. |
4. Cynics working on a 24-hour deadline often argue that money is
America's religion (the same argument is often heard from closet cynics in pulpits who
work on a 168-hour deadline). Thinkers with more time and access to the resources of the
Internet realize that the true religion of America is pragmatic, reductive applied
science: If it works, it is good; if it doesn't work, it's not good, where
"works" is defined as "leads to increased profits."
The American score: 10! |
5. Government. While the likes of Julius Caesar conquered a lot and left
behind writings that would be the bane of generations of school children, the true model
of governance from the Romans is its inimitable sequence of mad emperors. Nero, Caligula,
Constantine... what a bunch of wild and crazy guys to break up the old century-in,
century-out monotony of human life.
The Roman Score: 10. |
5. Who do we have to put up against such schizoid expedience? Think,
please: Nixon. Reagan. Bush the First. Clinton. And now, stretching the bounds of cosmic
probability and all reasonable human credulity, we have Bush the Second.
The American score: 10! |
The Roman total: 50. The American total: 50. Q.E.D.
*E pluribus unum.
END
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