Seems a bit early to be writing this... but the fact is the history is already written. The nails are in the coffin. Its already happened. The US is down 34 to 10 and there are only 2 minutes to go. There is no time for a come back.
If you saw the post last night or heard the show you know our friend Rycamor brought a great essay on the life cycle of nations. This essay is called The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. It is written by Sir John Glubb.
In this most excellent work the author examines the history of great nations... the Greeks... Rome.. The Byzantines... the Ottomans.. He seeks out patterns and tries to learn what lessons can be learned.
As always... a work like this should be judged by its predictive ability. Lots of models can be created to match the past. But matching the past doesn't help unless they also turn out to match the future. so why is this work important?
Well it specifically predicts the break up of the soviet union... which was something that people of the 60s and 70s simply found unthinkable.
Now... lets look at the Glubb's stages of the life cycle and see how they match up with the life cycle of the United States.
Stage I: Outburst. This stage is the pioneer stage. As Glubb states... over and over again in history we see a small native people exploding and conquering large land masses. To many this will make them think of Manifest Destiny and the western expansion but to my own eye.. the out burst was the Revolutionary War. Before the war the colonies were insignificant on the world stage. The defeat of the English. It is after all called the Shot Heard Round the World for a reason.
Stage II: Age of Conquest: This stage we see the great expansion. This is where to me, manifest destiny comes in. Old weapons are mastered and improved... new weapons are invented.. and massive lands are conquered. While conquering and settling these new lands... massive amounts of wealth are generated. Again... this should all be sounding familiar.
Stage III: Age of Commerce: Industrial Revolution anyone? All of that wealth ends up being put to use... infrastructure in this stage explodes. In this stage we see art and luxury. You see grand state buildings. The rich build themselves palaces. Now think of Mr Vanderbilt's Biltmore. Is it not a palace? It should be noted in this stage the schooling of boys is still intentionally rough. Fortitude and courage and honesty are all priorities. I would note that american football was developed during this period to drive those qualities home.
High Noon: This is the peak of the Nation. Its the point where the nation goes from growing to dying. For the US.. this was the 1940s. WWII was won... Evil was defeated... and everyone relaxed. Money was everywhere... the US was the most powerful nation in the world. And now.. we had something to lose... and we noticed we may want to protect it.
Stage IV: Age of Affluence: Money is the destroyer of nations. That is certain. Over time the desire to be rich replaces the individual desire for fame or conquest or achievement. Rather than going to school for learning or virtue... men go to school to learn how to get rich. And yes... it will disappoint those who believe history has ended to know that Arab moralists complained about this exact problem way back in 1090. What is the American dream friends? Is it climbing Everest? or is it being able to buy stuff? It changed back in the age of affluence. In America this was the post wwII period. The baby Boomers were raised to be spoiled brats... and that was the beginning of the end. The age of affluence is characterized by defensiveness. Empires are considered immoral. Conquest is immoral. War and fighting are immoral. again... bells should be going off. Think back to the counter culture of the 60s and 70s. "You're all doing it wrong!" shouted the hippies. But the message the hippies thought was new... was just the same thousand year old mistake of all rich, spoiled children of affluence.
Stage V Age of Intellect: In this stage the nation is deciding that all the world's problems can be solved not by hard work and courage and determination and struggle... but by the brain alone. after all... its CURRENT YEAR. In this stage the population imagines that everyone is a genius and everyone should go to college. This exact thing happened in the 11th century to the arabs. Rather than a few universities in the major cities... universities now sprung up in every small town. This was not a sign of life and bright future. This was the tolling of the death bell. Today in the USA we are told every day... education is the answer. This is proof positive of where we stand in the life cycle. Education is not the answer. Everyone is not a super genius. There is no shiny star trek utopia around the corner. Around the corner... is the grave.
The USA was born in 1776.
As we study the life cycle of these ancient nations... we come to a stark obvious average. 250 years.
My friends.... 2026 is a decade away.
It appears to me we are right on schedule.
48 comments:
Nate, I will give you a 97% agreement here on your connection of the dots.
Where I disagree a bit is the fact you jumped over some (to me anyway) rather obvious points.
Wealth was not the problem. LOVE of money sure. But national wealth was given as a blessing to this Country by God. I believe it is a fulfillment of his promise to Abraham about a great and powerful nation that descended from him and his wife Sarah. True, wealth can make some folks stupid. But all throughout history, God gave wealth as a blessing to people who believed in Him and trusted and obeyed Him. Solomon, Job, Abraham just for starters.
As to the Boomers, for the most part you are correct. But you ignore a huge reason for why they happened. Dr. Benjamin Spock, one of the worst medical professionals ever to come out of the system. Have you or Dr. Who ever read any of his stuff? Utter nonsense and garbage.
Well back then, people tended to trust the medical professionals with the same attitude they gave to God. After all, the doctors all went to university, right? So they have to know what they are doing.
And after the depression and WWII, is it any wonder that parents looked for a way to make sure their kids had better lives than they did? Lucky for me, my parents had a deep distrust of Spock and all his nonsense. Turns out they were right to do so. Spock even apologized back in the mid 70's for his stupidity and for ruining at least 1 generation of kids.
I believe that we are indeed on a plan/cycle, but I believe it is not a man made one, but one that is following God's plan. God gave this country a great deal of material wealth and blessings as He promised Abraham, but we did indeed stray and abandon God. So we are seeing the results of abandoning God.
I also believe that a lot can happen in world politics when the right players are in place. Reagan, Thatcher and Pope JPII were vital to the downfall of the old USSR. Now we have Trump. A man who sees what Obama did to this country, and who loves his country enough to want to try and fight for it.
I know you guys aren't fond of him, but he does hold with some interesting stands on issues, and he also has forced honesty and those issues on the table for the first time in at least 25 years. Interesting year ahead.
As the US is descending, what part of the world do you see ascending right now?
I personally don't see anything ascending, I find it interesting that the whole world seems to be in Stage V. Russia might be in Stage I, but I'm having a hard time seeing them getting to Stage II without WWIII breaking out.
I would leook at the syrian "refugees". It certainly appears they are conquering territory. You could say the same about the mexicans.
I don't know that an outburst is goin on right now. It doesn't have to be.
Susan... Dr Spock was a retard... but in other times he would've been ignored. He became so popular because he was telling people what they wanted to hear. It is always thus.
Nate, but these Syrian and Mexican refugees will never move beyond Stage II, they are utterly incapable of that.
Not saying they are mate... just saying those are places we see largely ignored populations making moves.
10-4, I'm just wondering if you see another possibility of an empire on the horizon.
a more likely scenario is a group of people from within the current US rising up and conquering it and forming a new empire from it.
You and I know that NOW. However, back in the day when Spock was practicing medicine, the entire attitude the public had towards the medical profession was vastly different than it is now. I don't want to say gullible, but they were more trusting than parents are now.
Parents literally allowed the lives of their kids to be placed in hands that should never have been allowed to practice medicine in the first place. Back then, parents had no way to research a doctor's diagnosis like we do now.
I agree he was a retard, should have been drummed from the profession. Unfortunately, too many parents bought into the wisdom of the medical profession hook, line and lead sinker.
This is one of your better posts by the way. I always come away with so much to think about.
Like I say... if Spock had tried to write that shit in 1920 they would've taken away his license.
But he didn't.
Like I say... he's a symptom.
I figured there would be no ATF as Vox was having some event on line, if i recall correctly...
yankeedom is spent as an ideological and cultural unifying force...not even the rural people that i lived with in Vermont see themselves as Yankees.
I could see the South conquering/annexing the rest of the U.S. Just dont let the Yankees and women vote.
Although one could argue that there are several cultures in the South, you seem to have enough cultural unity that you could easily hold together as a nation or confederacy of states.
You have a common culture, and share a lot of the same values as the rural northern population, including Alaska.
Does Kentucky count as part of the South? What about southern Missouri or West Virginina? Appalachian Ohio? other parts of the Scotts-Irish/English belt north of the Mason dixon line? They would at least make good buffer states.
Was this recorded?
I would lov eto listen to it.
Kentucky is definately the South. West Virginia isn't.
Basically it works like this... if they serve sweet tea there... its the South. If they don't... It ain't.
Blogger Raggededge said...
Nate, but these Syrian and Mexican refugees will never move beyond Stage II, they are utterly incapable of that.
To say that is to misunderstand history, and you obviously haven't read the essay in question here. Often the civilized, educated elite from the dying empire are made to serve the far less educated ruffians who are in their own Outburst stage. Note this excerpt:
"When the Mongols conqu-ered Persia in the thirteenth century, they were themselves entirely uneducated and were obliged to depend wholly on native Persian of ficials to administer the country and to collect the revenue. They retained as wazeer, or Prime Minister, one Rashid al-Din, a historian of international repute. Yet the Prime Minister, when speaking to the Mongol II Khan, was obliged to remain throughout the interview on his knees. At state banquets, the Prime Minister stood behind the Khan’s seat to wait upon him. If the Khan were in a good mood, he occasionally passed his wazeer a piece of food over his shoulder. "
I think what we're seeing in the world right now is many... MANY different groups subconsciously realizing that the current Western empires are entering death spiral, and they are prepping for Outburst. Some realize this consciously. I am willing to bet that certain elements in the Muslim world are very... very familiar with Glubb's work. After all, Glubb spent most of his life in the Middle East.
Nate, I have been trying to refine my tea skills, and would like to know what is the favorite brand of tea that you folks use as a general rule in the South for your sweet tea and such?
I enjoy a good Chicken Little post as much as the next entity, but isn't it also the case that people who predict the apocalypse are never proven wrong until they are?
This isn't a call for Apocalypse. If you will look at the last four empires mentioned: The Ottomans, Spain, Russia, and Britain. All of these are around to a degree, not having the apocalypse phase. The US is on the same path, we just get to see a slow (or fast) slide down from Empire into another nation at the table. Britain is a good comparison: world power where the sun never sets to little island that has to sleep with the memories.
And cheddar, the way I have always seen it from how different folks act is there is sort of an Ohio Valley culture. Basically draw a line from Springfield, MO to Indianapolis to West Virginia for the northern side, and then sweep back around through Kentucky for the Southern part.
Good for the border you mentioned, as this whole area seems to have similar views, temperament, and social understanding. It ain't south, but it ain't northern either.
Red Diamond Tea. Headquarters: Birmingham, Alabama. "The South's Finest Since 1906"
The Russians have went thru the process twice so far. Once was under the Czars, the second under the Soviets. I think they will go thru a third evolution.
High Arka
its not a call for the apocalypse. Its a statement of where we are in the cycle. Read the essay. Tell me what attribute of the final stage are we missing?
That model implies that we're responsible for the cycle, or that it is somehow inevitable. Empires in other times and places have outlasted that cycle. See Arrows, Ants, and Rocks.
I don't know. It looks to me like Glubb is pretty darn prescient in our case. Nate hit on the intellectualism and my experience in Academia fits that to a T. It is an inbred faux-intellectualism, but the so called intelligentsia doesn't recognize the difference between that an the real thing.
Glubb's comments on the influx of foreigners and frivolity also hit home...
So...10 years, boys.
Hoosierhillbilly,
That makes a lot of sense.
@High Arka,
Glubb makes the point that he doesn't claim it is absolutely predictive for all cultures. It just works for every empire he studied. He said he didn't know as much about the Asian empires, nor did he know what sorts of patterns applied to smaller countries that aren't world powers.
Which... to me kind of argues it's worth thinking about living somewhere that is not a major world player.
...which is what the American colonists were trying to do--escape the vampiric bankers who had taken over London. Unfortunately, success draws bankers like spilled sugar draws ants. Before long, America's success had made it attractive plunder, and it began being drawn into regional, then Asian, then even European wars. After the political system had been sufficiently integrated, it--like all the other empires before which Grubb chose to discuss--had been forced to return to that noxious nexus in the Middle East to further serve Yahweh's horrible ends.
Of course the pattern "works" when it's self-selected. Any pattern can work when it's self-selected. For example, from a study of this weblog, I've determined that 100% of humans who have ever existed use English as their primary form of communication. How useful are my conclusions? They're not; they're nothing more than myopic trivia.
What makes Grubb's analysis dangerous, rather than merely trivial, is that his Stages imply that degeneracy is a process resulting from the abundance of civilization. It's like taking a hundred drunks, giving them each a hundred dollars, watching them waste it on booze, and then concluding that it would be bad to get a hundred dollars since it forces you to drink too much alcohol.
You're probably right about the bankers. You should have stopped there.
Yahweh's horrible ends? Do we have another Mencius Moldbug here?
The rest of your "analysis" is grade-school sophism. A pattern is a pattern, not an ironclad formula. Paying attention to the possibilities they point to is what we are talking about.
And... an empire is not a civilization. Those are two different things.
"Money is the destroyer of nations. That is certain. Over time the desire to be rich replaces the individual desire for fame or conquest or achievement."
The pattern being discussed here isn't solely an objective pattern. In this quote, for example, what bears responsibility for the downfall of an empire? Money. The desire to be rich. Whose desire? The individual's desire.
Did the individuals, on their own or collectively, choose to destroy their communities, to exalt money above abstract feats or human relationships, etc.? No. As I linked in my original post, there was fierce resistance to these things. The Roman people cherished their citizenship and did not want it bestowed upon random non-Romans by a banker-purchased emperor. The Swedish people of the 21st century, the same. Analyses like these suggest that the fates of these handpicked empires are either chosen by the individuals, or the inevitable result of history, rather than the result of active, deliberate, malicious intervention by an outside force.
What Grubb is doing is like describing an AIDS patient's death as though it were a self-generated illness--he neglects the part of the patient's life cycle where, so to speak, HIV was acquired.
On BTR, the argument was made that "we're not going to forget how to make electricity" Look at the city water supply in Flint. There's more to it than just knowing how to do it. Toyota will freely distribute its quality documents, from the forms to the procedures, knowing that just possessing the knowledge to implement something is vastly different from being able to do it. When tha day passes that the commodity can't be produced, no one notices because the system inertia lets the cargo cultists appear to be succeeding as they go through the motions and are left alone as technologies are forgotten, skills lost, gauges showing red disconnected, failed test results that aren't understood buried and soon discontinued, that by the time it's apparent the system is gone, the means of rebuilding it are gone. Don't think what happened in Flint can't happen elsewhere. The cultural elements that enabled Flint to fail to produce and distribute safe water aren't limited to Flint. Also. It's a lot harder to produce and distribute electricity than water.
Nate' knowledge of WV is limited and coloured by his exposure to an immigrant infested shithole city in the state when he lived there. Parts of wv are more southern in culture than Alabama around birmingham. Other parts were infested with immigrants and Yankee locusts looking for work in the mines. Those parts resemble a urban ghetto in culture no matter how rural they m$ay be. And cities, we'll they're cities... magnets for the flotsam and jetsam of humanity and those who depend on such for their power and wealth.
HoosierHillbilly, I've lived in Evansville most of my life. You are right, not southern, but definitely not northern. Compared to Indianapolis, SW Indiana is better termed as Northern Kentucky.
Good stuff. Lots to think and pray about.
Stillicho,
I was waiting for your comments on WVA being southern or not. In my opinion, it is part of the Scotts-Irish Belt that stretches across the northern states of the Confederacy and into WVA and southern parts on Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Those people are definitely not Yankee material.
i wonder how much cultural marxism is going to be erased by a break up of the US. I cant see much cultural marxism surviving without Washington DC, NYC and Hollywood to prop it up. That is good news. People will have to face reality again and that tends to put us on our knees before the Lord. I would expect New York City, Washington D.C. and Hollywood to be seriously depopulated...hopefully like Babylon is today...wastelands.
I'm about to read American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. As you can tell by the title, the topic is on what the discussion here has moved to. Anyone read it?
The cover map is pretty interesting too.
Cheddarman, exactly. That belt streches thru Tennessee, northern Alabama and westward into Arkansas and Texas.
Cheddarman, exactly. That belt streches thru Tennessee, northern Alabama and westward into Arkansas and Texas.
Hammer I read it. The first chapter was good but it the author is a godless liberal cultural marxist...
Damn, already bought it. Is the broad regional borders and ethnic groupings idea sound for the most part? Something a sane civilationist could do much better with?
Would the Scots-Irish belt mentioned above be in the Midlands or Greater Appalachia category of the map in your opinion?
Scotts Irish belt is appalacia
Yeah he paints in broad brush strokes...
If he went into further depth he would make distinctions between different groups from the same parts of Europe arriving in different waves. My German ancestors for example came to Ohio in the early 1800s and drained part of the great black swamp...then they had awesome farmland and were against fighting the civil war...the Germans that came after the failed revolutions in the 1850s in Europe tend to be more socialistic in mindset and settled more in iowa Wisconsin and minnbesota...then again to make those distinctions across the whole of the usa would take a really big book
Could we step back in the process and go back to expanding? Invade Mexico and stay this time? Canada is too cold and we don't have a good record that far north.
I believe that there is only one thing left out here, which is the period of time and troubles it takes to build up a people intellectually and spiritually that can dominate others. And the gradual disintegration of that fitness over time and outbreeding...That piece was in place for both America and England in 1776, and ten generations later, both are getting ready for the knackers yard.
Under Age of affluence, one major point is not made, which has been mentioned in history, spanking, specifically the lack of it.
At this point, children are raised spoiled, and are not told no or spanked to stop them from screaming louder to get what they want. This causes them to lose a vital lesson, “actions have consequences”. They instead learn that you can get anything you want if you just scream loud enough. Look at a Sixties protest, it is just a mass temper tantrum. See those protesters in funny costumes or with funny hats, looks like kindergarten because they are still in it, having never grown up. Historically, the Romans blamed their demise on the outlawing of punishment of children, the result of which was that spoiled children did what they had always done, and voted themselves money out of the treasury, free stuff, after all, can't you have anything you want if you just scream loud enough?
Furthermore, it also effects their basic thinking processes. Learning that actions have consequences is basic logic, if this, then that, so they fail to learn basic logic, and even become hostile to logic since they do not wish to know of consequences. They also lose a view of time, since they do not look ahead at consequences, they can no longer look ahead at all, and you will see them taking actions which only effect their immediate wishes, even when it inconveniences them in the very near future, even when that future is only minutes away, since they cannot look ahead even that far.
They also do not learn delayed gratification, and thus do not learn to work and save, but want free money now, scams that they fall for or do to others, including government versions of scams, like “affordable housing”. This sets them up for the next phase, Age of Intellect”, where they fall for the idea that if only they have a sheepskin, they will earn big money, and will not have to really work at all. Plus, they were told by their parents what wonderful children they were, no matter what they did, so shouldn't they be the brightest and go to college (without having to work for it, of course)? It both explains how they fall for the idea of government tuition, which they do not realize they will have to pay for (being unable to think that far ahead), and the dumbing down of college, since they have no work ethic.
The above lacking logic and a sense of the future also mean they are fundamentally different than earlier ages, lacking in common sense and likely to do or vote for any fool thing. It is no wonder that at that stage they reject their elders wisdom, because they are unable to understand any wisdom, especially historically based wisdom. Compared to earlier generations, mentally they are alien creatures. It is at this stage it is said “whom the gods will punish they first drive mad”. Compared to earlier generations, they often act mad, spouting nonsense that if looked at is obviously wrong and even harmful. Look at things like men i”self declaring” that they are women even though every cell in their body has chromosomes that say man, and modern art museums where the “art” is specifically made to lack both meaning and beauty, and crowds the wall to the exclusion of anything else, even though the mass of people would rather see anything else. Another example, a group that spent half their money on a “women's outreach program', resulting in bankruptcy, yet cannot even understand the concept of what they did wrong, to say nothing of all of Europe welcoming an invasion without apparently bothering to notice that the “migrants” are exclusively men, or bothering to acknowledge that those men have said what they are coming for, your money and your women.
In short, it is this sudden lack of spanking which results in a sudden sea change of the society, resulting in a rapid downfall.
Where would Israel be on this cycle?
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