On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and yes read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.
I feel most empires fell when they started to act human but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can't sustain it.
