No Lord, only mammon

THE EDITOR: Two factors generally cause the destruction of a culture: (1) Over indulgence in materialism (2) Violence. During wars, the children die before their parents. Violence facilitates the rapid decline of culture.

As a result, the USA is destined to go the way of gladiatorial Rome of the second century BC: great wealth, unexpectedly put into the hands of people unaccustomed even to very moderate wealth, is a danger to its possessors, to the people who have to live with them, and sometimes to the state. An old aristocracy, rich in land, may have its drawbacks; but sudden wealth in cash, out of other people’s pockets, is very difficult to handle; and so Rome found. What would you do if you quite suddenly became a millionaire? Rome gave various answers to this question, and most of them included eating, dressing, building, and amusing oneself on a scale never heard of in Rome before. Better cooks, larger houses, immense gardens, the multiplication of slaves, luxuries, the theatre, beast-shows, gladiatorial games, consumed a great deal of the new wealth; and it was all unproductive expenditure; it did not increase productive power; the capital was wasted, and lost to mankind, despite the ranting and ravings of the ‘Major Prophets.’ The Romans, as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, all went the way of the madding crowd and Nebuchadnezzar.

Usually the tin-gods linger on but when they suffer to fate their sins fall on to their children, unto third and fourth generations. How many persons would there be to shower praises on the several tin-gods, which sprung up in Trinidad and Tobago after the country was exited by Britain, is left to be seen. And on being disentangled from the University of London we have only the university of Woodford Square to contend with. Yet no one among us can say like Moses “Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which ye shall see today, for the ‘Egyptians’ we have seen today we shall see no more forever and He, the Lord, shall hold your peace.” Indeed there is no Lord, there is only mammon!

DENNIS R JAMES
Morvant