7
The Barbarian Principle
"A thousand men who fear not for their lives are more to be dreaded
than ten thousand who fear for their fortunes."
Denis Diderot
A position at the top of the pecking order is not permanent. Far
from it. Animals who make it to the peak know that simple fact. They
see that yesterday's adolescents have become today's restless adults,
and watch warily as these youthful challengers size up the odds of
knocking their elders off the top of the heap.
Dominant beasts remain vigilant. But a strange thing happens to
nations at the pecking order's apogee. The dominant superorganism
sometimes goes to sleep. It falls complacently into a fatal trap,
assuming that its high position is God-given, that its fortunate lot in life
will last forever, that its lofty status is carved in stone. It forgets that
any pecking order is a temporary thing and no longer remembers just
how miserable life can be on the bottom. The results are often an
unpleasant surprise.
We all know that Rome was picked apart by peoples any re-
spectable Roman could see were beneath his contempt. The barbarians
didn't shave. They wore dirty clothes. They were almost always
drunk. Their living standard was one step above that of a mule. Their
technology was laughable. They usually couldn't read and write. And
they certainly had no "culture." What could these smelly primitives
do? They could fight.1
But Rome was not the first superpower toppled by the third
world rejects of its day. Egypt--land of the Pharaohs and home of the
Sphinx--was the most imposing superpower of its time. The other
great dominion of the day--Sumer--was still only a disunited gaggle of
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