On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the shift in America's global economic status and its implications for the nation's power and identity.
Gore Vidal's quote captures a pivotal moment in American history when the country transitioned from being a creditor to a debtor nation, symbolizing a decline in its global influence and a change in the perception of the American Empire. The statement suggests that such economic shifts not only affect the nationβs financial standing but also signal a deeper, more existential crisis regarding its role and authority in the world.
In practice
During a lecture on economic shifts, one could cite this quote to illustrate the consequences of national debt.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; and to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.
The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure--be it a daemon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. . . . In each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history. . . .
The Church is the one institution that exists for those outside it.
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