“… who are working hard to cause the collapse of the American Empire.

They’re thinking about Rome as depicted in Marvel movies and other pop culture fluff. They think the NLF [sic] are gladiators and so are they as they watch from their couches or tailgates.

They don’t know beans about the Roman Empire because that would require reading and studying and learning to look at the world with a contextual perspective.

The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. And dumber. And dumber.”

That’s the top-rated comment — from someone named Paula — on the NYT article, “Are Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire? Yes, Say Men. Women are asking the men in their lives how often they think about ancient Rome. Their responses, posted online, can be startling in their frequency.“
This post continues a discussion begun yesterday, about a trend on TikTok of women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire and expressing amazement at the answer.
I like “They don’t know beans,” because it resonates with my recent slogan — in the blog banner — “an endless succession of beans and nuts.” Back in 1983, William Safire wrote about “don’t know beans” in his NYT “On Language” column:

How do you characterize stupidity? When a shortstop comes up with a really bonehead play or an economist with a crackbrained scheme, what is it that you say he does not know?

Beans. According to Prof. Frederic G. Cassidy, the world’s foremost dialexicographer… when his interviewers ask ”To show stupidity, you say, ‘He doesn’t know ______”’ the word most often given to fill in the blank by Americans of every region was beans.

Some variations on this emphatic use of the bean employ the preposition from, as in ”He doesn’t know split beans from coffee.” These unable-to-differentiate derisions include the alliterative beans from barley, beans from baloney, beans from buttons, beans from bats, beans from apple butter and beans from bullfrogs. In the North, he doesn’t know beans when the bag’s open, while Southerners are more inclined to say beans with the sack open….

And let me just add that I understand Paula’s derision, but having watched about L or C of those TikToks, I don’t think the men are thinking about “Marvel movies and other pop culture fluff.” They sound as though they’ve read about history and things in modern life remind the of what they’ve learned about Rome. The topic most often mentioned is aqueducts. And they are concerned about how empires fall. 

The women in the videos, by contrast, seem surprised that someone would go through life noticing the connection between life today and what happened in the distant past. They are openly laughing at someone’s interest in history. Often their man becomes quite serious and attempts to explain the importance of history to the woman… to no avail.

Here’s one clip that especially interested me:

@jmcgehee5 That took an unexpected turn. @Rick #romanempire #couplehumors ♬ original sound – Jerrica McGehee

Here’s a big compilation:

@ambarrail This trend is incredible. Some of the best ones #romanempire #romanempirecompilation ♬ original sound – ambarrai

And here’s Ben Shapiro:

@real.benshapiro #romanempire #romanempiretrend #benshapiro ♬ original sound – Ben Shapiro