““Closing the dictionary and opening any history of civilizations, the curious reader might consider the characteristics of societies in decay. At the meeting point between their rise and their decline, societies — or rather the elites of societies — always discover that it is beneath their dignity to continue to do the concrete things which caused their rise. And so they set about organizing their lives in a manner diametrically opposed to that which created their civilization and therefore justified its existence. However, they invariably retain the original supporting vocabulary and mythology of their rise, as if these talismans will protect them.””
