False Dawn?

What is unbearable to many of us, on the other hand, is that the thought that no one is in control of events -- that events are simply spinning beyond the power of anyone or any agency to handle them, or even to predict them. The idea that mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world is perhaps of all fears the one that civilized people find most intolerable, for it means that there is no one who has the power to stop the forces of chaos and confusion from simply overwhelming us.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=060906A

That's what it must have been like living during the fall of the Roman Empire... That's what it must be like living in Africa today...