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Lessons from the Roman Empire on the dangers of luxury

• The Roman writer Tacitus claimed that the Roman Empire was built by enslaving conquered people who became accustomed to fine life and luxury. 
• Technology has become so essential in our daily lives today that it seems impossible to get out of it. It’s as much a cage as a luxury. 
• Addiction gives it power over you. Needing someone or someone is good or bad self-limitation.

Philippa has decided she wants to quit social media. She’s worried about how addictive it is and thinks it won’t do her any good. But then how does he talk to his aunt in South Africa? What happens to all his pictures? And how can he organize those parties?

Trevor wants to leave the country. He doesn’t trust the government, doesn’t like people, and hates the weather. But then he gets good health care. And he likes TV. The roads are pretty good too.

Philippa and Trevor are two examples of how luxury, technology, and easy life can trap us. It is in many ways a modern and relative phenomenon, but it has its roots, at least in the Roman writer Tacitus. It is the idea that we are enslaved by the traps of civilization. How is it possible that without knowing what we thought were useful and time-saving, things became necessary?

The hidden danger of luxury

The Roman army was one of the most powerful and successful military forces the world has ever known. On the open ground, their legions were quite unbearable. But the Roman Empire was not built solely on military genius and short, stabbing swords. Legions might have hit people, but they didn’t subdue it. It was a love of luxury and easy living that made it.

The British, Tacitus pointed out, were not enslaved by chains, but by their desire for good wine and a tasty dinner party. In fact, British Governor Agricola deliberately sought to reassure this tribal warrior society through warm baths, Togol, and “gratifying distractions” in education. As Tacitus wrote, “The naive British described these things as‘ civilization ’, when in fact they were only part of their slavery.

Comfort and convenience had transformed the painted, screaming warriors into sophisticated, calmed civilians. (It should be noted that Tacitus probably exaggerated all of this. Britain has never been as compliant as France or Spain in the Roman Empire.)

Using luxury to defeat the people is a tactic that has been mirrored through the ages.

The British Empire faced a trade deficit with China and flooded their country with cheap opium they had sent from India. Luxury drugs became addictive, and the British exchanged their opium for porcelain, tea, and silk.

The Cold War was also won against the backdrop of luxury. When cheap American televisions and refrigerators inevitably made their way into the Soviet Union, the Soviets could not hope to achieve such abundance. The bloc saw such “luxury” domestic goods as essential, and only the U.S. could provide them.

But the most relative example to most of us today is our relationship with Big Tech. Companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google are slowly and surely connecting our lives to their algorithms and platforms. Social media is designed and calibrated to be consciously addictive. Services that save time or money, such as cloud-based storage, have become so universal that a return is impossible. Increasingly, we don’t even know our passwords – we let our phones or apps invent and store them for us.

You can’t Avoid Technology

A new technology or service is originally a luxury – until it becomes so normalized and ubiquitous, so necessary – that we cannot go back to the time before it appeared. What was once “want” becomes “enough.”

E.M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops” imagines a world where “the machine” offers all parts of life. There are buttons for “playing food, music, clothes, hot baths, literature and of course keeping in touch with friends”. How well known is this? Today we have Uber, Skype, Hello Fresh, and Amazon Prime. Our friends and family are also connected to the machine.

Is it possible to leave?

While we see technology as liberating, it also shuts us down. If we believe in Tacitus, we are now enslaved by things we once considered a luxury. The task of philosophy is to see these chains as they are. And when we look at our lives, we can then choose whether to use them happily or embark on a long and difficult journey to throw them away.

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