Tuesday, November 17, 2020

was the Empire better than we thought?

Given the craziness of this election year, there are some interesting political implications in the following video, which discusses (admittedly somewhat facetiously) the question of just how bad the Empire in the Star Wars universe really was.  The video comes to conclusions that will be familiar to anyone who remembers the "What Have the Romans Done for Us?" segment of Monty Python's  Life of Brian, in which the rebel Jews conclude, seemingly without realizing it, that the Romans have, in fact, done quite a lot for them.*



*The humor in the sketch comes from the fact that the Jews are fully conscious of each particular benefit that comes from Roman rule, but they can't seem to grasp the big picture, i.e., that Roman rule, taken as a whole, is a net-positive civilizing influence, which means Rome need not be overthrown.




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