{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "*neoplatonist voice* actually the Roman Empire fell in 380, when Christianity supplanted Roman paganism as the state religion,...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/661002800301588480/", "html": "

argumate:

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tanadrin:

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argumate:

the-grey-tribe:

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argumate:

tanadrin:

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*neoplatonist voice* actually the Roman Empire fell in 380, when Christianity supplanted Roman paganism as the state religion, since the pagan office of Pontifex Maximus was a crucial element of the Emperor\u2019s authority

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actually the Roman Empire is still ruled from the Vatican to this day,

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Wait, what? 380 is pretty close to the correct opinion. I mean that which we talk about when we talk about Rome did not persist until 1453, but it was certainly still present in 180 AD in a way, even though in 133BC Romans had already been already complaining about Rome no longer being Rome.

When we talk about Rome today we mean the Circus Maximus and marble statues and olive oil and laurels and aquaeducts and standardised ox carts and insulae and patricians being carried around and cobblestone streets with these fancy raised crosswalks.

When we say Rome, we mean Asterix or Anthony and Cleopatra. We don\u2019t mean St. Patrick or Augustine. We don\u2019t even mean Diocletian. Maybe that thing never existed, but that\u2019s what we refer to.

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what do we mean when we talk about America, I wonder

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all words are crude symbols build on rough significant features used to slice a complex idea space in many different and mutually incompatible ways, so i\u2019d imagine we mean a lot of things depending on the situation

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let America (signifier) be America (signified) again

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