In this fallen world, all societies are corrupted even though they may not be equally corrupted. This corruption, fundamentally, does not lie in the institutions but in the people, especially in the people who controls and run the institutions. The collapse of a society, any society, is inherent because this corruption is inherent. Like the accumulation of sediments in the riverbed which in the end leads to water overflowing the banks, the corruption of a society also accumulates over time and at a certain point it brings the society down.
Every kingdom, dynasty, or nation aspires to be long-lasting if not everlasting. Yet the life span of a society is no different from the life span of a mortal man in its limit. The mortality of a man is not something he catches from outside, but something living inside him. He cannot help but being mortal because he is mortal. In the same way, a society in the end cannot help but collapse because the collapse-gene is built right in, from the very beginning. This is a universal reality, valid in the ancient time and in the modern age, valid for Rome as well as for America. What makes a nation great first is exactly what brings it down later. A giant serpent swallows itself.
Christians should be the ones always conscious of the inherent corruption of societies since we are convinced of original sin. It is sin bringing death to man, so is sin bringing death to a society. No man is immune from sin, and no society is immune from corruption. Therefore, we do not put our hope in man, nor in a nation or a kingdom. Similarly, we do not glorify man, nor a nation or a kingdom, no matter it is Rome or America. But today, in facing the hysterical anger of the secular against all traditions and established institutions, some Christians do not want to see or acknowledge the inherent sin in the vein of their nation, as if that is just an inevitable byproduct of nation building or social progress.
However, when one stands out of this wishful thinking, the sober reality of this society leaves no ambiguity of its upcoming collapse, which is probably already irreversible. The sin and evil have penetrated, grown, and rigidified so deep that the only way forward is accelerated deterioration. At the brink of a social collapse, conservatives are always blinded of and distanced from reality. They are still dreaming about solving problems with previous means while ignoring that those means have been tried many times without avail and further promoting of such means can only add insults to the mystery. This is not to say liberals on the other side offer a better solution. Their piece-meal reforms are meager if not comical when compared to the depth of evil prevalent in the society. In the end, the winner is always the radicals and the fanatics, who are the heralds of revolution and destruction.
What is surprising is not a society collapses abruptly but a society survives for so long. The resilience of a society comes from its ability to live with sin and evil, or its ability to restrain sin and evil. Sin and evil are what devours man as an individual and society as a whole. A seemingly better society or a thriving civilization is built on the foundation that sin and evil are restrained by moral or legal measures. Sin and evil are by no means exterminated, but only restrained to a certain extent that the society in general has the space of stability and freedom to flourish.
On the other hand, when a society collapse, it is the result of the self-destructing nature of sin and evil within. Once the cancer cannot be contained by the body, the body dies; so is the case when sin and evil could not be effectively restrained in a society. The demise of Western Europe follows this trajectory, and America is no exception as we can see. Sin and evil always exist, and the social restraint is never about corruption-free, but to hold a basic level of stability and freedom, so that the majority of ordinary citizens could function and the majority of social institutions could operate. Sin and evil suffocate a society when this limited space is compressed more and more. An aging man often lacks the ability to make necessary changes, so does an aging society. Although many people may acknowledge something is evil and agree that something must be done, nothing can be done and nothing will be done. It does not matter the reason is political or financial or whatever. The symptom of a collapsing society is its impotence to get basic things done. Elites argue themselves to death.
