Glubb, glub, glub ...

Let's go back to Gen. Glubb. He never once said what we should do, how we may be able to avoid the -- according to him -- inevitable catastrophe. He simply provided us with a few key indicators that the collapse is near. Picking up, in a sense, where he left off, Ross Ashcroft bundled a lot of Glubb's (and others') thinking into a video (hey, who reads anymore?) that deals with the same topic. The video is entitled "The Four Horsemen", making direct reference to the Apocalypse of St. John, or as it is better known, The Book of Revelation in the Bible, one of the "standard guides" to the end of the world ... or at least to the end of the world as we know it. (It is freely available on YouTube (what isn't these days) -- at least for my most loyal readers -- in both English and German.)

Ross interprets Glubb's decadence characteristics in a slightly different way. Most specifically, he more or less ignores, Glubb's "influx of foreigners" and replaces them "a weakening of religion" with an "obsession with sex" and a "debased currency". We have already seen that Glubb wasn't all that far off, and these two new factors, well, it would appear that these factors aren't all that far off either. Let's say, they are later additions, not corrections.

Think Internet, think pornography: it's the most widely distributed form of content available. There's something there for everyone's (so-called) "tastes": adult, child, professional, amature, hard, soft, male-female, male-male, female-female, and every imaginable combination ... you want it, you can find it. What was once tabu is now mainstream, if "Fifty Shades of Gray" is any indication of the state-of-the-art (and I use the term loosely). That's a given.

And, we all know, our money's not worth anything anymore anyhow. Wars have been fought (Gulf War II), nations have been destroyed (e.g., Iraq, Libya) because they "choose" the "wrong" reserve currency. The gold standard was abandoned a long time ago, but the "gold standard" of currency remains the US dollar, and we all know the Americans will do anything -- and I mean anything to ensure that doesn't change, regardless of how little the dollar is worth.

The point is that -- and I don't think I'm overstating the case -- things are going from bad to worse. Glubb makes a sound, and noteworthy point. Ashcroft underlines and enhances it in a very meaningful way. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. It looks like we're going down for the count, or, in swimming terms: go down a third time and you drown.

Again, the point is not so much how terrible things are, but rather that we (humanity, Western Civilization, whatever) is faced with yet another total collapse. It is clear to me, and it should be clear to anyone who has even taken a passive, fleeting look at how the world or economies or cultures work, to know that the choices we have made in all of these areas are simply not sustainable. Whether we could have avoided this crisis, or whether it would have been possible to do things to avoid all the suffering that is to come are moot points. It just doesn't matter. Things are as they are, and things are going to come as they are going to come.

We shouldn't deceive ourselves into thinking that things aren't as bad as we think or that the crash won't be as hard as we fear. It will be both, but, in the end, it doesn't matter. Whatever comes, comes. Many, many people, cultures, and civilizations have suffered and lived through similar crises in the past. The only reason that we will have to suffer is because those who came before us, our forebears, refused to learn from history. So, we've got a choice. We know what's coming. We know what's going to happen. And, most importantly, we know why. We have a huge opportunity before us. The question is whether we are going to take advantage of this opportunity or whether we are going to waste it, like all those who have preceded us have done. The choice is ours. Which one will we make?

The schizophrenic search

We may be on the eve of destruction. Things aren't getting better, that's for sure. We are living in critical times, and that is also for sure, as is the fact that change is coming whether we like it or not. This is scaring a lot of people and whenever and wherever anyone is frightened, there are tons of media types just waiting to make sure that fear is spread. As the saying goes, "if it bleeds, it leads", or as I like to say, "if it's scummy, we'll make money". OK, it's not exactly the same, but close enough."

So what's a poor, simple person to do? Well, conservatives, I have to say, make a dash for the past. They get all fired up about turning back the clock to the "good old days", when life made sense, when things were manageable. They've lost the plot for the simple reason that the good old days were bad, for anyone living in those times life made as little sense as it does today (we only think the past makes sense because we have the knowledge and experience of everything that happened in-between to color our judgement), and I can assure you, my parents were as much at a loss for what was the best things to do in their lives and for their children as I am with my own kids. We have to come to terms with what we have, not with what we would like to think we might have had if things has been somehow different.

Liberals, I have to add, are no better. They're looking at life through a rear-view mirror (thank you, Marshall McLuhan) as well. They foolishly believe there was a time when politics mattered, when debate was virulent, when the best argument won, when morals could be legislated. But, alas, that time never existed either. They think it did. They think their dreams were institutionalized, but the teeny, tiny steps of progress that were made, were just that: teeny, tiny. We really haven't come very far.

This is our modern, most common, form of schizophrenia: thinking that the past holds solutions for the future. We love to look backwards, to times that never really existed except in our own rose-colored-glasses tinted memories. Gen. Glubb's critique didn't just miraculously appear. He was analyzing at a time when we these days believe things were halfway OK. No, dear reader, the world's been going to hell in a handbasket for some time now. The only change from then to now is the rate of acceleration.

All the wailing and gnashing of teeth we're hearing these days isn't going to change a thing. What we're wailing about, for the most part, is for how things used to be. To my American friends, all I can say is, get over your holy Constitution. It is nothing all that special, it has not changed the world for the better, it's one of the most misquoted and misused, if not abused, documents ever to have been written, and, worst of all, it was formulated in a mindset and a way of viewing the world that hasn't existed for two centuries. It's time to simply let it go and look for some common sense relevant to today. To my non-American friends (i.e., everyone else), all I can say is, you've got nothing up on the Americans, you haven't managed to go right where you think they went wrong, you also don't have a now-relevant solution to the problem either.

Why? Because you're all, we're all, looking in the wrong direction for a solution. Glubb, believe it or not, provides us with a reasonable starting point for thinking about all of this, but he doesn't have the "answer" or the "solution" either. We, you & I, have to figure out what needs to be done, but he, like many other reasonable authors, provides us with a starting point for maybe thinking about things in a slightly different way. What this might be, we'll look at next time.

The decline and fall of the American empire

It will thrill some readers and appall others, but America is the latest in the last string of world empires that the world has been forced to enjoy (or endure, depending on your perspective. Right up front, let's compare the state of America today, with the criteria Glubb outlines in his article, which we talked about last time:

1. Average empire lifespan of 250 years? USA: 1776 - 2015 = 239 years; we're in the 10th generation since our founding.
2. Age of Pioneers? Check. Louisiana Purchase, Westward expansion, Manifest Destiny.
3. Age of Conquests? Check. Genocide of Native Americans, Monroe Doctrine, War with Mexico, Spanish-American War.
4. Age of Commerce? Check. Gilded Age, Roaring 20s, Post-WW2 boom. American-driven globalization. IMF, WTO, etc.
5. Age of Affluence? Check. Thriving middle class in 50s and 60s; increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires, but most unequal wealth distribution in developed world.
6. Age of Intellect? Check. More than our share of Nobel-Prize winners in science, medicine and economics; everybody should be able to go to college.
7. Age of Decadence? Check. A no-brainer.

Even though it's so obvious, we do need to stop and look at the last item, The Age of Decadence if for no other reason than to see how far along we might be. So how do we size up?

• Defensiveness (or much military)? Check. Defense budget larger than next 24 countries combined. Over 1,000 military bases worldwide. Still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; thinking about Libya, and who knows where else. Militarization of police.
• Pessimism? Check. Financial crash and exoneration of guilty bankers. Fear of losing everything (bankruptcy because of medical bills, living from paycheck-to-paycheck, fear of unemployment.
• Materialism? Check. Lavish displays of wealth. Whole TV shows dedicated to the lives and lifestyles of the rich and famous.
• Frivolity? Check. Have there ever been as many sitcoms, game shows, and ludicrous reality shows as now? Consider as well how overboard we've gone on sports.
• The welfare state? Check. While some of you are thinking Food Stamps and Long-term unemployment benefits, I'm thinking corporate subsidies. The United States spends almost twice as much on corporate subsidies than on social saftety-net programs.
• An influx of foreigners? Check. Have you noticed how shrill the immigration debate has become? And, how is that fence along the Mexican border coming along?
• A weakening of religion? Check. Except for the Pope who is speaking out against the oppression of the poor, two other trends are noticeable: atheists are standing up for their "equal rights" or how about the Satanic Temple's holiday display in Florida? Furthermore, the only rise in traditionally understood religion we're seeing is in evermore literalist and fundamentalist belief systems.

Of course, we all know that it is current American policy to secure even more worldwide resources to feed its materialistic addiction, and the global financial community isn't going to stop until they have everything and the rest of us have nothing. No, it would seem to me that we're pretty much a spot-on example of Glubb's analysis. It can only be a matter of time, and not all that much time either.

There is an almost natural tendency to believe that we're somehow better or different than all the rest, and this fate will simply not befall us. I wouldn't be so sure. Glubb points out rather clearly that it is precisely this attitude that guarantees the repetition of history. As Santayana taught us, whoever fails to learn from history is condemned to repeat it.

The fate of empires

A former British general and diplomat, John Bagot Glubb, wrote a somewhat dated (because of its language and cultural framework), but certainly not outdated (due to it's conceptual content) article a while back that dovetails well with what I wrote about last time. It's entitled "The Fate of Empires". It's been long out of print, but can be found on the Internet in more than one place, just in case you're interested. As the title implies, Glubb takes a closer, but still strategic look at eleven empires the world has experienced over the past 3,000 years to see if they have anything in common, and it turns out they do, so let me summarize the most salient points of his analysis for you:

1. We do not learn from history because our approach to it is fragmented (focused on brief time periods) and parochial (these days, nation-centered).
2. The lifespan of an empire is about 250 years, or approximately 10 generations in human terms.
3. They all go through the same six "ages", as Glubb calls them: the Ages of Pioneer, Conquests, Commerce, Affluence, Intellect, and Decadence.
4. The Age of Decadence (of most particular interest to us) is marked by a number of factors, including defensiveness (actually, too much military), pessimism (the feeling that things are going to end badly anyway), materialism, frivolity and the welfare state ("bread and circuses"), an influx of foreigners, and a weakening of religion.

Glubb does use examples from the empires he analyzed to support these conclusions, and I have to admit, even though he has rather archaic notions of "race" (whereby he actually means civilization or culture, for the most part), "foreigners" (anyone who is "not us"), and "sense of duty", he takes great pains to point out that it is not any single feature or factor that brings about the fall of an empire and no one and nothing is better than anyone or anything else, only different. In all cases, the structure, the pattern, and the results are always the same.

For Glubb, and I agree with him here, the reason for the decline and fall is, in my words, simply become fat, dumb and happy and would rather be entertained than do anything about the seemingly inevitable crash. That is, Glubb believes that if we actually understood history, in the broader, strategic sense that he is trying to point out, we could counteract what only appears to be the path of inevitability. This isn't like our own lifespans or the shifting of the seasons, this is a matter of taking action to, stated in more lighthearted terms, finally break a bad habit.

Perhaps he's right, but I can't help but think that we may already be past a point of no return. Is this just another example of end-of-empire pessimism on my part. Perhaps, but it could be that some things just may be so broken that they can't be fixed anymore. While reading Glubb, I couldn't help but feel he was talking about the United States. After all, it's pretty easy to see how applicable his analysis is to our own situation.

You don't agree? You think we're somehow different? Well, let's take a closer look at it all. Next time.