英国历史学家R G Collingwood曾指出,ㄧ些国家/朝代如南美Aztec是因外族侵入而灭亡,但ㄧ些如罗马帝国不是像大多数人印象是外族如日耳曼侵入而灭,而是"ㄧ些子民不再认为现有的生活方式值得保留"
Societies may die a violent death, like the Inca and Aztec societies which the Spaniards destroyed with gunpowder in the sixteenth century; and it is sometimes thought by people who have been reading historical thrillers that the Roman Empire died in the same way, at the hands of barbarian invaders.
That theory is amusing but untrue.
***It died of disease, not of violence, and the disease was a long-growing and deep-seated conviction that its own way of life was not worth preserving.***
--R G Collingwood
👆👆最后ㄧ段形容今日的香港,太贴切了。