"Peak Decadence: The WEST & The Fate of EMPIRE"--Black Pigeon Speaks (11 min.)
This video draws on the essay "The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival" by Sir John Glubb (PDF here). Glubb does not reference Oswald Spengler in the essay, and, because of the age of the article, would not have access to r/K theory as developed by Anonymous Conservative, yet it is interesting to me watching this video and going through his paper how his ideas seem to track both.
Glubb notes (and he is not the only one) that empires typically achieve a period of greatness lasting about 250 years (after which they decline and disappear, although the decline and dissolution may vary as to the length of time). More importantly for my discussion, however, is that he observed specific stages through which they progress and decline:
- The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
- The Age of Conquests
- The Age of Commerce
- The Age of Affluence
- The Age of Intellect
- The Age of Decadence.
It is of interest to note that decadence is the disintegration of a system, not of its individual members. The habits of the members of the community have been corrupted by the enjoyment of too much money and too much power for too long a period. The result has been, in the framework of their national life, to make them selfish and idle. A community of selfish and idle people declines, internal quarrels develop in the division of its dwindling wealth, and pessimism follows, which some of them endeavour to drown in sensuality or frivolity. In their own surroundings, they are unable to redirect their thoughts and their energies into new channels.He also characterizes "decadence" as:
[A] moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving.
It is interesting to compare this against Spengler's ideas and r/K political theory.
As I wrote in an earlier post concerning Spengler's theories:
I suppose if I were to attempt to sum up Spengler's ideas in a single sentence, it would be that once a society cuts its ties with its root culture, it becomes increasingly empty, sclerotic and nihilistic. But while that is the essence of his theory, it lacks the necessary meat or body necessary for understanding. Spengler saw societies developing along the lines of an organism's life. Beginning with a vital culture as its root stock, a society matures into a civilization which, even upon reaching civilization, has in fact begun to die. Although the civilization continues to grow and appears stronger, it, in fact, loses its vitality. In Spengler's mind, this is demonstrated through the decline of art. A civilization may become more technically proficient, from a scientific or engineering standpoint, but its art has reached its apogee and declines into recycled and degenerate forms that are increasingly designed to titillate rather than inspire, appealing to only a declining minority of specialists. Along the way, the sanctity of home and hearth is abandoned. Power and government is concentration in a world city (or cities), feminism appears, birthrates decline, and the highest virtue of the civilization comes to be attacking the culture that forms the root of the civilization. The world cities have not only forgone the native culture but, as Spengler theory states, have lost even their national identities, with little or no interest in the rural population.I also quoted from another author:
First, Spengler predicted with uncanny foresight a number of Western developments of the past century, including the rise of world-cities and the money culture, the emergence of a powerful feminism focused on the yearnings of the Ibsen woman, the force of money in politics, declining birthrates and the popular embrace of avant-garde cultural sensibilities, awash in cynicism and cosmopolitanism and bent on destroying the cultural verities of old.
Second, Spengler makes a powerful point when he says these are not characteristics and developments found in ascendant civilizations. On the contrary, many are signs of cultural and societal decadence and decline. Although the hallowed Idea of Progress has shrouded this truth from Western society, the reality is clear: the Western cultural decline, as understood and predicted by Spengler, is now complete. ...r/K theory similarly predicts that a culture that is vital will be largely dominated by the K-select: those individuals following a competitive reproductive strategy and what we would today term "conservative" values toward family and community. However, as a culture becomes more successful and resources more plentiful, the r-select strategy tends to become more dominant: a strategy that is associated with a distaste for competitiveness, loose morals, low investment parenting, lack of loyalty toward its country and culture (what the left would term being "cosmopolitan") and other characteristics that we would associate with the modern left.
It is interesting to note that the West began to pass into decadence well over a century ago (France had already begun to depopulate in the late 19th Century), and it cannot be argued but that Western Europe as a whole had passed into a period of nihilism and decadence following the First World War. The United States took longer, but certainly the 1960's saw "free love" jump the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, and today the United States has reached or exceeded the worst excesses of Weimar Germany.
Related Posts:
- The Decline of Civilization - Part I
- The Decline of Civilization - Part II
- "The New Liberal Aristocracy" and an Introduction to Spengler
- America--The Heir to Germany
- We Didn't Start the Fire
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