It isn't exactly lack of thought that is the problem, Bobert. Everyone thinks in some fashion. They think along their own accustomed and habitual lines of internal "logic", and whatever happens to push their buttons and sustain their mythology. In fact, most people are almost incapable of not thinking (becoming internally silent and calm) whenever they're awake...and that is exactly what bedevils them. They get drunk and take drugs to partially silence their unruly mind which is causing them so much stress! ;-) So it isn't lack of thought that's the problem. It's unhealthy, unproductive, immature, fearful and divisive patterns of thought that are the problem. It's negative thoughts that are the problem.

And I'm saying that a ruling elite and the mass media usually encourage a great deal of unhealthy and negative patterns of thought...specially when they are getting their public pumped up to fight a war...or to surrender some of their long enshrined civil liberties for the sake of "security".

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Don - Yes, you're essentially correct about the Romans establishing that rule of iron, and assimilating populations into the empire, and offering those populations various incentives to cooperate. For sure. But they did use typical divide and conquer tactics whenever it was to their immediate advantage, as any conquering empire does. For awhile it was Christians who served as the Empire's scapegoats for the public to focus anger on. They were viciously persecuted and often killed, it was a bit like what the Nazis did with the Jews and other groups in the brief era of the Third Reich. Later a time came when it occurred to the emperor of Rome that Christianity could serve more effectively as a force to unite the empire and coopt a large variety of other faiths, and it became the official religion of Rome after that. The Romans ran the world's most successful and longlasting empire, so they obviously were pretty good at it. But...things moved much more slowly then than they do now. Our modern technologies have greatly speeded up social change. An empire that would have lasted 500 years back then might last only 50 now. The American Empire (which consists of financial/mercantile and military control over others and estabishing client/puppet governments rather than by open colonization) really got going fullblast at the conclusion of WWII (though it had been underway in a smaller fashion ever since the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine). It's been over 65 years since WWII ended. I think time is running out for the American Empire. What comes afterward is hard to say, but we may not live long enough to find out.