American Roots

Yes I know I have been slacking off. Back to work for me.

I have been studying The Roots of American Order. This was an excellent but hard read.

For a society to have order it must have common roots. In history these roots usually come from a common religion and if there are not roots then order must be enforced by law and rulers and does not come from the choice of the people.

The Hebrews were one of the first societies to have a common order due to their religious roots.

The Greeks had the concepts of order but didn't not have common roots. The city-states were very advanced in many areas such as art and philosophy but could never come together for a long period of time due to the lack of common roots.

The Romans were able to have order for a very long period of time. The Romans had a very simple but common religion which taught basic virtue. This help build a society that had virtues that allowed it to flourish. Once this basic religion faded then the society began to fail. The short study of the fall of Rome was very scary due to how similar it is to our own situation. The centralization of power, pacifying the people with stuff and entertainment, and destroying the middle class seemed to play a very big part in the fall.

I also studied many of the philosophers of the middle ages and many of the concepts of freedom that developed in ancient England. I can't remember most of it off the top of my head so I'll have to go back and review.

The main difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was the roots of the people. America was fighting to keep their way of life and protect the roots that existed while France was fighting to overthrow the roots of their country. Due to this America had a successful society while France fail into chaos.

Roots take a long time to grow and can not be forced upon a society. A society grows over hundreds of years. A society can not simply be changed from a war a leader saying it should change. I would be surprised if our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan make much difference because it is difficult to change a society that has been doing things the same way for hundreds of years.

I hope American and maintain her order as the society seems to be splitting and losing the common roots that has held us together. Laws are never enough to enforce virtue and morality, only society that has a common value system can create the order they want.