A car erupts in flames on the streets of New York City. Panic. Shouts of 'everyone back up'.
The city, once the proud beacon of the American Empire, now resembles the back alleys of late Rome. We have become a people who live in constant low-grade dread, our public squares transformed into potential theatres of catastrophe. This is not an isolated incident.
It is the logical conclusion of a society that has lost its sense of order, its respect for the civic compact. We ricochet between hysterical overreaction and cynical apathy, numb to the slow decay that surrounds us. The Victorian era understood the importance of public decorum, of the unspoken rules that kept chaos at bay.
We have abandoned those rules. The explosion is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is a civilisation that has forgotten why it was great.
