Quote, "The great constant of history ... "

 

The great constant of history, [Gibbon] believed, was self-delusion: the willful inability of people to recognize how much the habits, rituals and laws they took for granted had slowly changed — until it was too late to bend them back into shape. Mankind “is governed by names,” he wrote, and Romans seemed willing to “submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.”

Charles King, Professor at Georgetown 
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/opinion/edward-gibbon-empires-fall.html

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Although I agree with this quote, its sense of defeatism is wrong (so was Gibbon's).  As I've been writing on this blog, through many essays, we have the brain- and cultural-plasticity to move the collective consciousness to a place of maturity and advanced ethics technology.  We have already started on this journey, as evidenced by the invention, for instance, of Universal Suffrage.  From the perspective of advancing our ethics tech, which should be number one, this is the greatest invention in the entire history of civilization, breaking one of the ancient cardinal rules of Big Lie governance.  We have a long way to go to reach MLK Jr's mountaintop.  But it's a feasible journey.  And people need not necessarily dwell in "self-delusion."

https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2026/05/essay-sustenance-and-darkness.html

https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html

etc/