A society that descends into pageantry, from Babylonia to Persia to Greece, albeit in philosophy, considering their ideology superior (hence having literal savagery for it, for as ego gets intertwined with pride, hence intolerance, which occurred to many other philosophical identities, be it Christianity (in the past) Islam etc.) certainly Rome and dare I say in the Obama-delusion – it is simply the ego, and to paraphrase Reb Menachem Mendel of Kotzk "when I pretend and you pretend, neither of us are ourselves!"