Hear, hear! Venerable Genseric Aurvandil has the floor

Why can't “John Michael Greer” and his band of peaksters, peakniks and peak pixies realize that their jaded pessimism is already passé and that recovery is happening all around us?

Emperor Honorius has solved the situation at Rome with Alaric to everyone's satisfaction. Together with his illustrious colleague at Constantinople, the emperor has adopted a contingency plan to deal with the Hunnish threat. The Persian ambassador has given Caesar Augustus a luscious gift of 10,000 peacocks, 500 giraffes and 5 rare octopi. To show his immense gratitude, Honorius has granted Persia trade concessions in Nubia, Ethiopia and India, showing that the territorial integrity of the Empire is robust.

Together with the noble Senate, our Caesar has confirmed the laws requiring every citizen of the Republic to take up his father's trade. The citizens of Gallia Aremorica, Rubicon Narborensis and Lugdunum Absurdis have voluntarily bestowed gifts of 10,000,000 gold solidi on the imperial treasury, showing once again that there's no inflation in the Empire and that our currency is sound. The august Caesar has also executed 10,000 Manicheans, Carpocratians and Donatists, and sent an additional 10,000 to the galleys. All gossip at Rome about the impending social and cultural break-up of the Commonwealth are therefore manifestly false.

We, the Major Domo of Vandal descent, can therefore conclude that “John Michael Greer” and his peakster minions are inveterate and unredeemable pagans, and such people the good Christian folk of the Enlightened and Progressive Era of the High Empire hereby reject with scorn and contempt. Indeed, if there is any problem in the body politic, surely it is those who insist that the “Late” Empire is in a “long descent”?

Perhaps the Imperial secret police should take a closer look at these pagans…