AMERICA AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
No animals have a sense of history.
No super rich Americans might have a sense of history, either.
But, Jesus Christ’s teaching is based on history, since he referred to Abraham and Moses, though not Egyptian Pyramids, Alexander the Great, Caesar, or Cleopatra.
Every poor American should have a holy sense of history to leave the false glory of the American Material Civilization that has made them suffer so much.
SECTION I: AN AMERICAN THINK TANK
In today’s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper (which has woefully some bad reputation nowadays in Japan for a certain reason), a Japanese expert who worked as a visiting researcher in a think tank in the U.S. last year wrote that he had been shocked as he had heard most of American researchers in the notable think tank talking that Japan had to inevitably rely so much on the U.S. because of its fear of China.
(It is however tantamount to claiming that the U.S. has to inevitably so much rely on Israel because of its fear of Cuba.)
The fact is that China is so much afraid of potential military capability of Japan, so that the Chinese Communist Party has been infusing so much money to covert operations in the U.S., targeting top politicians, notable pundits and journalists, and researchers in the influential think tanks.
In their clandestine operations covering from the White House to The New York Times, Chinese agents are disseminating an idea and notion that Japan is afraid of China.
But, the fact is that China is so much afraid of potential military capability of Japan, wishing the U.S. will continue to maintain present large-scale military bases in the Japanese territories so as to put brake on Japan’s own large-scale build-up of military capability.
Yet, why are these stupid mental behaviors of American experts in the international politics possible?
It is because they think they are cleverer and wiser than Japanese and Chinese while they are not, since they believe they can understand Japan and China while they cannot understand the Japanese language and the long history of the relationships between Japan and China.
SECTION II: FOREIGN STUDENTS IN THE U.S.
But, more critically, Americans think that they are as great as the Roman Empire and everybody envies the success of the United States, wishing to be part of it.
Their misunderstanding seems to come mostly from a fact that so many excellent students come to learn in universities, especially post-graduate schools in the United States.
According to a report of National Science Foundation, non-U.S. citizen’s shares of doctorates awarded by US universities are as follows:
In science and engineering, foreign students account for 45.2% of all the students awarded doctorates in the U.S.
Total 4,323 students from China were awarded doctorates in science and engineering by U.S. universities.
Similarly, 1,524 students from India were awarded doctorates by U.S. universities.
Similarly, 1,219 students from Korea were awarded doctorates.
But, only 222 Japanese students were awarded doctorates in science and engineering by U.S. universities.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08301/
However, more clearly stating the state of US universities is the following report:
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June 25, 2007 9:21 AM PDT
Why America needs foreign students
Posted by Michael Kanellos
Here's one more reason to give green cards to foreign graduate students.
They are the only ones in school.
U.S. citizens outnumber foreign nationals in undergraduate electrical engineering programs in U.S. universities by a wide margin, according to a report form the Engineering Workforce Commission of the American Association of Engineering Societies.
U.S. kids accounted for 89 percent of the undergrads in these programs in 2006.
But 51 percent of the students in masters programs in EE in U.S. universities were foreign nationals last year. Only 49 percent come from the states.
In PhD programs, foreign nationals made up 71 percent of the students in 2006.
On one level, you could argue that foreign nationals are taking spots that otherwise could have gone to U.S. citizens. But the drop off from undergrad indicates that 1) U.S. students aren't interested in graduate school or 2) aren't doing as well and can't get in. Either way, if the foreign nationals can get permanent residence, there's a better chance they might stay here after graduation.
Tech lobbying groups are trying to make it easier for foreign nationals to get visas.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9734099-7.html?^$
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Indeed, there are many youths in China and India who love to learn in the U.S. to be part of rich and mighty America.
But, they are not a majority among millions of students learning in their domestic higher-education facilities in Asia.
While the U.S. is losing respect in the world due to the War in Iraq and the subprime loan crisis and the oil-foods market speculations, the doctorates obtained in the U.S. will also lose respect.
SECTION III: LESSONS FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Theories as to why the Roman Empire vanished are many; it is said that they are as many as the number of experts who argue the subject.
The most decisive cause which worked at the most comprehensive level and in the largest scale of space and time must be a climate change as I once argued in EEE Reporter on May 1, 2008.
http://eereporter.blogspot.com/2008/05/eee-lecture-on-europe.html
The era of the Roman Empire was surrounded by a sub-tropical climate which covered from the Great Britain to the west of the Rhine and the regions around the Black Sea.
The coming of cold climates around the Mediterranean suppressed all the human activities in the region, since the level of material civilization of those days could not compete with the force of the nature in the era, namely around the 5th century.
As you see, the big difference between the United States and the Roman Empire is that the former is an extension of the Northern European Civilization but the latter is the sub-tropical European Civilization which started in Greece.
(In other word, America is not a direct offspring of the Roman Civilization.)
There is stark discontinuity in the passage from the Roman Empire to the Northern European Civilization; and it must indicate the great climate change in those transition periods of time.
However, the fact that there is an era called "the Renaissance" means something more than simple discontinuity in the mode of civilizations between the Roman Empire and Europe after the Renaissance.
Put simply, it is a deep influence of Christianity.
People who accepted the teaching of Christianity did not respect Rome any more. They lost the will to protect, bolster, and further develop the city Rome when the capital of the Empire fell due to invasion by Germanic tribes and other forces from the east.
Even without Rome, they must have thought, they could live with confidence. It is because they came to believe and admire Heaven respectable Christians of the era preached so enthusiastically.
It was great change in paradigm. The center of the world, namely Rome, was no more necessary, since people started to live just looking up at Heaven.
Respectable Christians of the era must have said to people who were left in ruins of the Roman Empire, "Forget about the glory of Rome, since the glory in Heaven is far more splendid than that of Rome."
Germanic tribes must have found a chance to conquer their inferior complex to the Romans in the teaching of Christianity.
Therefore Europeans living in the north of the Alps became successors of early Christians in the Roman Empire but not of citizens of the Roman Empire.
This is the meaning of the Middle Age in the European history.
On the surface there were no splendors in the medieval times of Europe which were comparable with those of the Roman Empire; but inside the minds and hearts of people living in the medieval times, there must be the far more splendid glory of Heaven acknowledged and conceived by humble Europeans.
In this context, Christianity around the 5th century made Europeans living in the former territories of the Roman Empire leave the ruins of the Roman Empire without regret while the climate was proceeding toward coldness.
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Like Germanic tribes in the later stage of the Roman Empire, now many foreign students are being engaged in the academic, high-tech, and industrial circles of the United States.
They are sustaining the national power or the glory of the United Sates so far.
However, when they come to have a new and revolutionary paradigm, philosophy, or religion, they will be freed from brainwash or blind admiration for material splendors of America.
Their possible drastic movement or departure from enchantment of material prosperity of the U.S. will also free poor American citizens from the brainwash or blind admiration for material splendors of America.
What the U.S. is now relying on to sell their glory and splendors to smart foreign students seems to be unrestricted big money and unregulated indelicate entertainment rather than spiritual value such as freedom, democracy, and individualism.
And, the subprime loan crisis and speculations in crude oil and foods seem to become factors to trigger the paradigm change among wise foreign students in the U.S.
No U.S. think tanks will be any more able to persuade foreign students to continue to hold fast to the belief that the American dollar is a sole and honorable symbol of justice, freedom, democracy, and prosperity in this globalized world.
(I may see a late-night TV news program today, after all.)
Pro 8:1 Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
Pro 8:2 She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
Pro 8:3 She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
Pro 8:4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.