Only God can save us now.
fitting.
Powerful article!
Only God can save us now.
fitting.
Just Damn!
If we think of any society as one entity - or as one flawed individual - then the psychoanalysis might apply.
But this modern nation; the USA is an amalgam of small communities and 50 States. That regionalism mus be preserved at all costs. Those enclaves where family and faith are still paramount.
In order to remain one Nation Under God, we must not become ONE NATION without God!!!!!
Pinging to this excellent article.
The Consummation of Empire
carrol Quigley in “The Evolution of Civilizations” describes the rise and fall of six or seven civilizations (he says there are about 24 real civilizations in history). He notes that they fall because the rise of intellectualism destroys the ideological basis (generally a religion) which produced the civilization. So with nothing to believe in people turn to the irrational substitutes which claim to have answers or to pleasure-seeking and nihilism.
As people refuse more and more to fight for their civilization when it is attacked or uses its military, it becomes incapable of preserving itself from the attackers from outside the civilization. All those examined fall to invasion from lesser developed areas on the fringe of the civilizations.
He analyzes the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the Egyptian, the Classical, and Western Civilization. And finds the same things in them all in their rise and fall. The Western Civilization has been the only one which has come to the point of collapse (three times) and managed to reform itself and continue. He did not make a prediction as to whether it could do this again and puts the crisis of the 1930s at the heart of what must be reformed.
In a story with truly bizarre parallels to today, the Byzantine Empire was split into four factions. The Blues, Greens, Reds and Whites.
The Blues were the largest faction, and had been supported by the Emperor Justinian, but had been persuaded by the more radical Greens to join with them and overthrow the emperor.
But the empress Theodora I refused her husband’s plea to flee Constantinople and abdicate the thrown to the Green leader. Instead she called a peace conference, in which the Blues and Greens flooded into a giant amphitheater. Then she sent in a trusted slave with a bag of gold to the leader of the Blues, and reminded them that the emperor had long supported them.
They took the hint, and as a group, the Blues left the amphitheater, leaving the Greens who were more than happy to rule the whole empire for themselves. But after the Blues left, the amphitheater was surrounded by the army, who then went in and killed the Greens.
Simply by eliminating the most radical group of people in the empire, Theodora I extended the life of the empire by another 200 years.
The interesting comparison with today is if you envision these factions as we do today. Blue States and Red States, with the radical Green faction threatening our nation at every turn.
It just shows what one person can do. Empress Theodora I, by the way, was eventually given Sainthood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_%28wife_of_Justinian_I%29
Possibly, depending on your definitions of these terms.
The Roman Empire was in the process of falling apart in the 2nd century, but strong emperors rescued it for a couple more centuries.
The Byzantines had multiple episodes of collapse or semi-collapse over a thousand years followed by resurgence.
The Chinese imperial system fell apart many times from warlordism and invasion over three thousand years, but always came back in recognizably the same form.
Of course, the question is whether these examples were really the "same civilization" when they bounced back, or had morphed into what was essentially a new one.
Awesome essay.
THX for the post-
good read.
yeah yeah yeah...and then the next day a new civilization springs up.
We’re not all “civilized”.
Some from the inner cities wouldn’t even be called “domesticated”.
That was bleek