We find ourselves in the last of the three generations history chooses to repeat every now and then. The first generation needs a god, and so they invent one. The second erects temples to that god and tries to imitate him. And the third uses the marble from those temples to build brothels in which to worship their own greed, lust, and dishonesty. And that is why gods and heroes are always, inevitably, succeeded by mediocrities, cowards, and imbeciles.
The quote highlights a cyclical pattern in human history where each generation reacts to the previous one. The first generation seeks a divine figure, creating a god to guide them. In the next generation, there’s a formalization of worship, as people build temples and strive to emulate the virtues of that deity. However, the third generation departs from these ideals in a significant way.
Instead of continuing to honor the values of the past, they exploit the remnants of those traditions for personal gain, transforming sacred symbols into instruments of vice. As a result, society devolves, with gods and heroes giving way to mediocrity and moral decay. This critique suggests that each generation is shaped by the failings of the one before it, leading to a decline in virtue and wisdom.
