"Once, one of my students read a book we had.
She was doing a history assignment
on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire,
and she was crying.
When I asked her why, she said because all those people died.
I said, if you start to cry for the dead,
you won't have much time for anything else.
Besides, after all the city people were killed or died off
because their culture got too high,
the barbarians kept some peasants
alive for their food value.
Some barbarian raped some peasant woman
who produced a child, who ultimately produced you and me.
So there is this family continuity.
So don't cry.
It's obvious.
Look around.
This is the reason why we Americans are a nation
of peasants and barbarians."