journal entry — Tuesday, July 16th 2024
The idea of an empire is something I find very compelling, very intriguing, for sure. In AP World we learned (finally, after a number of awkward semantic choices throughout our early writing assignments) that an empire is a large governance, similar to a kingdom but with one important distinction: diversity. An empire is more vast that a kingdom; it must encompass a variety of peoples, cultures, & lands to deserve the word.
So what is it about an empire that interests me so? Am I riveted by the word’s colloquial misuse? Perhaps. Do I find it relevant in the current socio-political context? Could be.
But I think the answer with the most resonant ring of truth can be traced back to my flair for the dramatic. Because an empire is dramatic, after all, isn’t it? It demands revelry in the present and nostalgia in the future, it savors frequently of delusion, the grandeur needed to dream up a golden age and be convinced, once it’s gone, that it hasn’t left for good. It’s a form of mania, of mass hysteria, it’s a collective hallucination as millions enter a trancelike enchantment with their momentary, fleeting context, a public vow not to forget the beautiful perfect storm of conditions which led them to the same place at the same time. It’s nuance, it’s cognitive dissonance, it’s “Long Live”.
But the empire, on the individual scale, is something else entirely.
The Dilemma Of It All 