There is much current discourse about the living American Empire coming in to a transitional period of being in its height and moving toward twilight, following in the perennial footsteps of the late Roman Empire. Scholarship and intellectual discourse are laboring to display similar elements of structural design between the two world powers. If in fact the Roman Empire was the greatest empire of the known world at its time, and the American Empire is the greatest empire of the known world in this time, it may be worthwhile to study more than only the political, economic, and military parallels that are found among the two. It may also be beneficial for us to study the story of the lifestyles of the Roman citizenry, in order to find harmful patterns that we may also be either exhibiting or condoning—to our greater detriment. The particular lifestyle that will be discussed here is the lifestyle of pursuing “venereal desire” displayed among elite Roman citizens, and how that same pursuit endures and thrives among the American Empire’s elite citizenry.
“Venery” is a word with Latin roots that associates its subject with things of the Goddess Venus; that is, in this case, sexual desire and fulfillment of those desires. Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary (2002) defines “venery” as “the pursuit of or indulgence in sexual pleasure.” Notice that even in a Medical Dictionary, the definition includes the indulgence of sexual pleasure without considering its reproduction purposes. The culture of “desires for venery” is broad when considering the whole of the Roman Empire, but here I am concerning this discourse with primarily that of the elite citizens.
Although the values that we historically attribute to Roman culture honor family, order, and earned hierarchal status, many dishonorable values existed also. Such values are proved dishonorable by the damage they inherently inflict upon the elite men who exercise them, and the women who are used by those men as means of pursuing their desires for venery. By the time that the Apostle Paul wrote his first epistle to the people of Corinth (then a Greek region colonized by the Romans), it was between 53-57 AD, and distinct traditions involving desires for venery were instituted and being heartily justified. Elite men would gather for feasts; at which, they would first of all not eat at the table—they would lean on their left elbows, and be fed by the women, who were prohibited from being seated. Whether the women were the wives of the men or the men’s slaves is not always clear, so it makes the best sense to conclude that they could very well be either at different feasts. What is more important to consider is the women present for the “after-dinners,” at which the elite men of mature status would engage in venery with female prostitutes, provided by the host of the evening. It was customary that the men could engage with any of the women present, because of the sense of entitlement they felt due to their elite status. Women were still regarded as innately weak and subordinate, while elite young men were allowed to participate in the after-dinners once they were determined mature (around age 14) and permitted to don their toga. The justification for these ambitions and behaviors is vocalized in the cry, “everything is permissible for me.” This adage is born from an entitled, carefree, selfish, and powerful spirit, which in fact may also have been disenchanted, passionless, arrogant, and ill-informed. It is in response to this attitude that Paul writes to the Corinthians that “not everything is beneficial,” and “I will not be mastered by anything.” (Holy Bible, NIV, 1 Cor. 6:12) Knowing that he is speaking to first-generation religious elites of a region in which he had founded a church only two years earlier, he assumes the directive role of preaching what he feels to be gospel truths to people who may or may not know any better. He appeals to the citizens’ capacity to acknowledge their sexually immoral behavior:
Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (1 Cor. 6: 16-18)
The Greek word that Paul employs to be translated to “sexual immorality” is “porneia.” The New American Standard New Testament Greek Lexicon defines “porneia” as “illicit sexual intercourse,” which is interpreted as synonymous to the definition of “venery” included earlier in this essay. Both earlier and later in the epistle itself, Paul includes the justifying argument put forth by the elite Roman citizens engaged in this pursuit of desires for venery or porneia, draws a distinct refutation against this justification, and appeals to the idea that their bodies are unique nexus’ of both physical and Holy, and that their capacity to understand this should lead them fleeing away from this lifestyle of pursuing desires for venery. This is perhaps the best written documentation of the discourse regarding the entitlement that elite Roman men felt they could justify regarding their desires for venery. It is this sense of entitlement, if not also the specific behaviors and traditions it spawns that is common among America’s elite citizens.
American elite citizenry, as is the case with Roman elite citizenry, will be remembered as representative of their empire, despite the fact that they were less in number than the other classes of citizens. Aside from the one percent of Americans who possess 48% of the controllable wealth in this country, there is still about 18% of the American population who make up what I call the collegiate-class; meaning, families who have one or more immediate members enrolled in a 4-year degree program, or who have earned a 4-year degree. This distinction sets this 18% in to the wealthiest of the history of the world—and most of these are motivated toward higher education through imperial (via corporate), political, or religious aims (whether or not we’d like to admit it). These American motivations are the shared ambition of Roman elites, and ambitious plebians. The American collegiate-class, from its current students to their previously-graduated parents, is fast becoming the most extensively visible class of citizens in the country, and subsequently, one of the most influential. The values and ideas of this class are infectious among that wealthiest one percent, and also those living with lesser means. The New York Times ran an article on November 25th of 2007 that shows pleasant surprise at the willingness of Washington D.C.’s wealthiest elite to shop at Costco, a store with an almost discriminately collegiate-class customer base. The absolute poorest of our empire would have to be those living under American military presence in as-yet-underdeveloped nations. They see American citizens of collegiate-class and strive for the same possessions, styles, and lifestyles that their collegiate-class neighbors do. You can see the way the collegiate-class live their lives on reality television, YouTube, and online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Most Mainstream Media (MSM) (both news & entertainment) is produced by the collegiate class, and their material is subsequently in many ways representative of their identity as that class. As strip malls and the dogma of small indulgences have saturated more of the average citizen’s physical and rhetorical landscape, collegiate-class lifestyle has become very nearly institutionalized, and also easier and easier to justify. Still we look to the class that seems to be the elite, even if that might be our peers. One of the places we take the most interest in is the commercial film and television industry.
The way American citizens have taken lifestyle cues from the commercial film industry is fascinating, especially since the industry has grown on pace with the rapid evolution of the American empire. American imperial dreams as we now know them were only begun to be realized with the advent of industrial revolution around the turn of the 20th century, which maybe in some ways also gave birth to the commercial film industry itself, as the necessary capital may have not been accessible before then. So even from the earliest days, the wealthiest of the wealthy have always dictated what films would be released to the American public. Now with the monopoly of the six major film & television studios and distribution companies, some select members of that wealthy one percent determine all commercial film & television material that reaches the collegiate and lower classes. So we allow the values held true in the films and television shows we see as the ones we will also allow to define us as an empire’s citizenry. In the most current age, citizens of collegiate-class are allowing themselves to be defined by films we call “the Frat Pack” movies, such as “Old School,” the “American Pie” series, “Superbad,” “The Girl Next Door,” and “sexually empowering” television programs including “Desperate Housewives,” “Blind Date,” “Sex & the City,” “the Real World,” “A Shot at Love,” “MTV Spring Break,” and virtually anything else airing on Viacom-controlled networks (MTV, MTV2, VH1, BET, CMT, Spike TV, Comedy Central), almost all of which portray the subjects living out “ordinary” collegiate-class lifestyles. Granted, films and television shows with similar content have been created for decades now, but in the scope of the entirety of our empire, we can observe our willingness to allow this material to define our whole collegiate-class as our cries out that Everything is Permissible for us. Our films show young people engaging in pursuit of desires for venery without conscience; so, our young citizens also engage in pursuit of desires for venery without conscience. Our television programs show adults in pursuit of desires for venery as part of their identity; so, our adults pursue desires for venery as part of their identity. As we the collegiate-class permit these messages to be displayed as our justifications for our pursuit of desires for venery, we employ the same justifications, though not necessary the same means, that those Corinthian Roman elites did, 1,950 years ago.
I have to wonder if we will reach a saturation point of these justifying declarations being circulated throughout our collegiate-class culture. If we as the American collegiate-class continue to believe that our bodies are of little value, and that pursuing desires for venery is a healthy exercise of what is Permissible to us, how will that affect the fate of our empire? Is there anything we can do from the not-as-visible sect of the collegiate-class to change or revise our course? Of course, we also must consider whether or not Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians catalyzed them in to fleeing from desires for venery. History tells us that it did not: eventually the Christians out-bred the Pagans and took over control of the empire’s government, which may be due to the children being born out of the porneia of the elite Roman men and women. And yet, despite the endurance of the justifications for pursuing desires for venery, Paul’s documentation of the discourse concerning the morality of the pursuit 1,950 years ago remains preserved also. This leaves our collegiate-class American elite citizens with a pertinent and urgent question: what will the documentation of our discourse be?
THE STONES WILL CRY OUT 