Chapter Five - Craze for Pleasure
We live in a society where "anything goes." The consequences are manifested in a society of escapists, gripped in history's greatest pleasure binge, in excessive cravings for luxury and ease, in materialistic lust and money-worship!
"Anything goes" shows itself in entertainment obsessed with sexploitation, violence and the depths of human perversion. It is found in a drug-inundated culture that is ill at ease outside a continual state of drug-induced euphoria or "kicks."
We have our "anything-to-make-a-buck" business ethic, our "New Morality" (or rather immorality), our loose-living hippie subculture, our white-collar thief and the shoplifting housewife.
We see the "anything goes" philosophy in the furtive support of a multibillion-dollar organized vice and pornography industry, in the topless and bottomless nightclubs and restaurants, in the subtle message that preaches, "Crime pays - just don't get caught."

"Live It Up - Now"!
Our commercial society shouts and screams its materialistic goals and values at every corner, on our billboards, with nearly every flip of a magazine page, with many a TV broadcast. The tempting message says, "Live this way"; "live a little more"; "it's the `in' thing"; "don't worry; everybody does it" or as Madison Avenue says, "Happiness is...."

What is happiness supposed to be?
"Happiness is," continues the unrelenting bombardment, "buying our car ... purchasing this style of clothing ... eating 'this food ... buying this beer ... seeing this movie ... taking this trip ... indulging in this sporting activity." Or it is "joining our gang ... popping this pill . . . freaking out ... pot ... speed ... free love ... the Pill."
"Indulge yourself"... "You owe it to yourself"... "Buy now, pay later live it up - now!" goes the swan song of an indulgent society. And millions ignorantly throw caution to the wind. Few seriously question whether all this rapid consumption of indulgences is really good for them, what it is doing to them, where it will all lead!
Only the strong can resist the temptation to immediately overindulge themselves; only the wise with a strong sense of values can see through the superficiality, sham, deceit and emptiness of much of it.
Only those with an eye on the lessons of history understand the subtle dangers of careless, excessive self indulgence, self-seeking and hedonism, while the nation faces the greatest problems in its history, demanding the greatest effort and sacrifice. However, millions would rather play, escape and indulge themselves in temporary, selfish goals.
What does history teach us about such trends? Again, let Rome tell her story.

The Roman Pleasure Binge
As mentioned earlier, with the conquering of many nations, wealth, trade and fortunes were to be made. But with wealth came a crucial problem. A Roman historian explains: "The `Pax Romana' brought many blessings; it made possible the greatest luxury, the most active commercial life the world ever saw ... though a few savage tribes might ravage the frontiers, the quiet interior provinces were destined to perpetual peace and prosperity [so the Roman citizens thought] ....
"And so in this dream of the absolute fixity of the Roman system, men went on getting, studying, enjoying, dissipating - doing everything except to prepare for fighting until Alaric sacked the Eternal City.... And so the barbarians at length destroyed a society that was more slowly destroying itself" (William Steams Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 314, 317, 330).
What were the Roman's highest social values and goals?
"The excessive desire for wealth without regard to methods or to duty toward posterity, the downright sensuality were accomplishing their perfect work.
The economic evil was at the bottom. First Italy, then a vast Empire, devoted itself for centuries to a feverish effort for getting money by any means, and to spending that money on selfish enjoyments. Other things went for little.
"Their fall was great ... while the lesson of their fall lies patent to the twentieth century" (ibid., pp. 334, 335).

Mad Craze for Pleasure
The noted Roman historian Edward Gibbon commented on the pleasure-crazed ruin of the Roman character in his famous treatise, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He wrote: "From the morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spectators, who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand [the giant Circus Maximus in Rome seated this many], remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of the colours which they espoused; and the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event o f a race" (Vol. II, p. 148, Modern Library edition).
Games lasting one day soon became games lasting seven, nine or fifteen days. But the Roman people could never have too much. They were not much different from the crowds who sleep overnight in front of the ticket offices waiting to buy World Series or Super Bowl tickets in the United States.

A Remarkable Parallel
Few people realize just how closely contemporary American and British life parallels that of Imperial Rome before its collapse. Here, from the gripping book,
Those about to Die, by Daniel Mannix, are some startling revelations about Roman life. Notice, the interplay between Mannix's observations of ancient Roman life and conditions today.
"In a sense, the people were trapped. Rome had over-extended herself. She had become, as much by accident as design, the dominant nation of the world."
Exactly the position the U. S. found herself in at the conclusion of World War II.
"The cost of maintaining the 'Pax Romana' - the Peace of Rome - over most of the known world was proving too great even for the enormous resources of the mighty empire."
Just as today the U. S. is asking its allies to help foot the military and foreign-aid bill. The U. S. is finding it difficult to maintain "Pax Americana" and maintain its position as international policeman and fire extinguisher.
"The cost of its gigantic military program was only one of Rome's headaches. To encourage industry in her various satellite nations, Rome attempted a policy of unrestricted trade, but the Roman workingman was unable to compete with the cheap foreign labor and demanded high tariffs. The government was finally forced to subsidize the Roman working class to make up the difference between their `real wages' [the actual value of what they were producing] and the wages required to keep up their relatively high standard of living."
Just as in America and Britain today! Spiraling wage increases are helping to cause inflation and are pricing American goods right out of the world market.
And lower-cost imports are threatening our own DOMESTIC market.
"As a result, thousands of workmen lived on this subsidy and did nothing whatever, sacrificing their standard of living for a life of ease."

Today, we find America and Britain increasingly becoming welfare states; this is taxing our resources and setting in motion unhealthy attitudes toward work and productivity. "Attempts were made to abolish slave labor in the factories but the free workmen's demand for short hours and high wages had grown so great that only slaves could be used economically."
What effect did all this have on the average Roman citizen? Continues Mannix: "With the economic and military position of the empire too hopelessly complicated for the crowd to comprehend, they turned more and more toward the only thing that they could understand - the arena.
"The name of a great general or of a brilliant statesman meant no more to the Roman mob than the name of a great scientist does to us today. But the average Roman could tell you every detail o f the last games, just as today the average man can tell you all about the latest football or baseball standings, but has only the foggiest idea what the European Union is doing or what steps are being taken to fight inflation."
Life simply became too complex for the average Roman. But the continuous staging of games and spectacles - cleverly promoted by the Caesars to keep the people's minds occupied - was something he could relate to. The Caesars said one historian, "exhausted their ingenuity to provide the public with more festivals than any people, in any country, at any time, has ever seen."
Until our time, that is.

Sports Heroes Enthralled Populace
Rome endowed its professional sports heroes with great glory.
"The charioteers knew glory too - and more.
Though they were of low-born origin, mainly slaves emancipated only after recurrent success, they were lifted out of their humble estates by the fame they acquired and the fortunes they rapidly amassed from the gifts of magistrates and emperors, and the exorbitant salaries they extracted ... as the price of remaining with the colours" (Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, p. 219).
Professional athletes today are demanding - and receiving - whopping salaries. Some football and basketball "superstars" have negotiated multi-year contracts for several million dollars. Highly touted but unproved "rookies" straight out of college are virtually financially set up for life. Some of them are paid four or five times the salary of their former professors (who have doctor's degrees).

Gambling Mania
And there is the matter of gambling on sporting activities. Affluent Rome thrived on it.
"But the passionate devotion which they [the charioteers] inspired in a whole people was fed also from more tainted sources. It was related to the passion for gambling.
"The victory of one chariot enriched some, impoverished others; the hope of winning unearned money held the Roman crowd all the more tyrannically in its grip in that the larger proportion was unemployed. The rich would stake a fortune, the poor the last penny" (Carcopino, pp. 220-221).
Gambling is a major and traditional ingredient of modern Britain's way of life. No one knows for certain, but it may even be Britain's number one industry. Surely it is her number one pastime. Ever since Parliament passed the Betting and Gaming Act in 1960, establishing betting shops and permitting gaming for charity and other purposes, the gambling industry has taken off like a rocket.
In almost every own in Britain today at least one of the major cinemas has been turned into a bingo hall. In some towns all the cinemas have become bingo halls. Everywhere, one sees storefront signs reading "Turf Accountant" - referring to a bookmaker's shop.

The Modern "Orgy" Scene
But there are other trends which manifest the growing craze for unrestrained pleasures and thrills.
Recent rock festivals attended by hundreds of thousands of youths have become orgies of several days of music, drugs, and free love.
Increasingly, girls walk around in these crowds topless - unashamed and unabashed. Massive groups gather for "nude-ins" or frolic on beaches.
The moral mood of the nation is simple: "Let's have an orgy" - not unlike a Roman orgy!
For vast segments of the American and British public the "orgy" continues as television fills the need for vicarious thrills and violence.
For frankness, it is hard to top some of the shows on the "telly" in Britain. Almost unbelievable references to lewdness, perverted sex and depravity are as open and unabashed as an ordinary news report. Staff members of a large American newspaper tabulated TV violence in the prime evening hours for seven consecutive nights. The results? Eighty one murders and killings and 210 incidents or threats of violence.
One congressman quoted a study which found that the average American child between the ages of 5 and 15 watches the violent destruction of 13,400 persons on television during his childhood years.
Just like the Romans, watching the gory spectacles in the arenas, our young people are "learning nothing but contempt for human life and dignity" (Carcopino,p. 243).

Stage and Screen
An almost unbelievable avalanche of sex, perversion, pornography, "blue" films, sadism, masochism, bestiality, murder, rape and brutality has flooded into the public view through motion pictures, stage productions and lurid magazines and pulp novels.
It was much the same way in Rome before that great empire was swept into oblivion.
"Almost from the beginning the Roman stage was gross and immoral. It was one of the main agencies to which must be attributed the undermining o f the originally sound moral life of Roman society.
"So absorbed did the people become in the indecent representations of the stage that they lost all thought and care of the affairs of real life" (Myers, Rome, Its Rise and Fall, pp. 515, 516) .
Scraping the bottom of the barrel of utter depravity, recent stage productions have gone far past mere nudity to include on-stage simulation of intercourse and, in at least one case, bestiality.
Pornography alone, in the United States, is big business! And most pornographic material finds its way into the hands of youths.
Self-indulgence today has reached new lows in morality and new highs in expenditure!

Don't Misunderstand
Let's not misunderstand! Money, material gadgetry, entertainment, athletics, in themselves, are not necessarily wrong. Far from it! Used properly, they can help to maintain a well-balanced, healthy, abundant life. But when an entire nation seems to have nothing but the pursuit of money, gadgetry, pleasure, escape and thrills as its national goals - that nation is in serious trouble!
Today, millions have no higher ideal or purpose than to get out and indulge themselves in a particular personal pleasure. So wrapped up and involved are millions in these short-range pleasures that few are willing to endure any discomfort or privation to solve national problems or threats.
One young man summarized the general attitude of many: "I don't care much what happens, as long as I get my beach time." During one of the Saturn Apollo trips, regularly scheduled TV programs were interrupted. Furious citizens deluged TV stations with complaints.
Why has such crass materialism and pleasure become the overriding concern of millions? Because the nation has lost a sense of national purpose or higher ideals other than personal selfish ones.
Andrew Hacker, in his book, The End of the American Era, pointed out that thanks to our material success "a willingness to sacrifice is no longer in the American character." And "what was once a nation has become simply an agglomeration of self-concerned individuals" - "200 million egos," as he scathingly captioned one chapter.

Britain Changed, Too
No two modern nations have changed so drastically in national character and ideals in recent years as have the British and American peoples.
In his new book, Decline and Fall? - Britain's Crisis in the Sixties, author Paul Einzig clearly explains the real cause for the decline of Britain as a world power.
"Britain's most valuable asset had always been the character of her people.... They are, or were until recently, as public-spirited as any nation and more so than most nations....
"What has been the main cause of Britain's decline? The answer is, the author regrets to say, the deterioration of some of those qualities of British character which had been responsible for the achievement of British greatness.
"The [British] Empire was built up and maintained by the devotion of the British people to the cause of their country. That devotion seems to have declined to the vanishing point. Everybody, or at any rate the overwhelming majority, is now for himself and himself alone".
How true. "Do your own thing" is the hue and cry of our age.
"When the author ... reads books or sees films on the Battle of Britain period, he finds it somewhat difficult to believe that the people he encounters or reads about today can possibly belong to the same race as the people who gave such a magnificent account of themselves in 1940"

Author Einzig then asks: "What has happened to the `Spirit of Dunkirk'?"
"If it had not been for that spirit," he says, "Britain could not have survived as an independent nation. Had the men engaged in aircraft production slowed down for the sake of earning more overtime pay, or had they embarked on wildcat strikes at the slightest excuse, or had they been resisting measures aimed at increasing output or saving manpower, the R. A. F. could not possibly have been provided with the additional Spitfires that enabled them to win the Battle of Britain with a narrow margin.
"Unfortunately today the behavior that was the exception in 1940 has become the rule, while the attitude that was the rule in 1940 has now become the rare exception. "Everybody, or almost everybody, is trying to get as much as possible out of the community and to give the community as little as possible in return ... If the debasement of the British character is allowed to continue too long, the point of no return might be passed at some stage"
One even wonders if the point of no return has not already been passed.

Warning: Selfishness, Then Disaster!
In his State of the Union message in January 1960, the late President Eisenhower said: "A rich nation can for a time without noticeable damage to itself pursue a course of self-indulgence, making its single goal the material ease and comfort of its own citizens. But the enmities it will incur, the isolation into which it will descend, and the internal, moral and physical softness that will be engendered will in the long term bring it to disaster.
"America did not become great through softness and 'self-indulgence," he continued. "Her miraculous progress and achievements flow from other qualities far more worthy and substantial. And those were adherence to principles and methods constant with our religious philosophy, of satisfaction in hard work, the readiness to
sacrifice for worthwhile causes, the courage to meet every challenge to our progress, the intellectual honesty and capacity to recognize the true path of our own best interests."
Sadly, those qualities are rare today. Selfishness, pleasure-seeking, dishonesty, hatred, lying are the watchwords.
How remarkable that a certain Book - the Bible - claiming to speak of the "last days" of society as we know it, says, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers o f pleasures MORE than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away"! (II Tim. 3:1-5.)
And you have witnessed, with your own eyes, this much prophesied social revolution in the past two decades!