I’ll be out of town, but you’ll have the amazing Professor Lovegreen sitting in.
- Watch the first and second section “Empires” and “Banks” of The Four Horseman, found here. Up until minute 50:50.
- Some things to consider from the film:
- “The trait that’s enabled us to survive, is the very trait that has suppressed us.”
- An empire lasts approximately 250 years (10 generations)
- six ages: 1) pioneers, 2) conquests, 3) commerce, 4) affluence, 5) intellect, 6) decadence (yep, that’s us!)
- Decadence: undisciplined and over extended military, conspicuous display of wealth, massive disparity between reach and poor, desire to live off a bloated state, obsession with sex, the debasement of the currency.
- “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” (Frederic Bastiat)
- “The democrats and the republicans are beholden to corporate interests and until the become unbeholden to those corporate interests, we will never have a well-governed republic” (Colonel Wilkerson).
- Further reading: “The Fate of Empires” by John Glubb
- 5-10 minutes: Discuss the film among yourselves. Don’t make Professor Lovegreen pull it out of you. Instead, show him how smart you are. 🙂
- Work on your Issue Paper project independently.
- Five minutes before class ends, write a blog post where you describe the work you got done for the day on the project.
