In the 1920s rising prosperity turned Americans from a nation of producers to a nation of consumers. This simple shift has convinced all Americans to this day that they are middle-class.
“All we know of Roman immorality teaches us that absolute power is a poison, and that the Romans, being fundamentally an inartistic people, had a taste for pornography which they often gratified in the description of individuals and families on which that poison had worked.”
Rebecca West | Black Lamb and Grey Falcon