Ever feel like we are in the equivalent of the last days of Rome before the dark ages? The barabarians invaded and looted Rome, toppling statues and temples.
Oh it definitely came from within in Rome's case, too. Opportunistic, backstabbing senators focused solely on short-term personal gain & the descendants of barbarians allowed to reach high up into the top ranks of Roman society killed every single remotely effective leader who tried to turn things around for Rome. Such was the fate of great men whose greatness was cut short like Stilicho (incidentally a half-barbarian himself), Flavius Aetius and Majorian.
If it weren't for the absolute worthlessness of the Roman political class and the complacency of its citizens, grown so soft and hollow-spirited that they'd rather keep their heads down & go along with the flow than try to resist their new barbarian overlords, Rome could have endured for another thousand years. As it did in the more energetic and less degenerated East, which had the good sense to purge the problems it shared with the West before it was toppled.
Many civilizations suffered the same fate for the same reasons; including the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Spanish, Ottoman, British and Russian empires. Every one of them entered a period of decadence wrought with selfishness, materialism, corruption and a loss of a sense of duty and purpose. Every one of them also had a very pervasive presence of elites and intellectuals before their downfalls.
In two hundred years people will blame outside forces for this too. Chinese psyops, russian propaganda, anything so they don't have to think about the uncomfortable truth that they're just as able to have society fall as we are.
Eh, not really. The Western Roman Empire's situation actually remained salvageable a lot longer than many people think, and even before the permanent partition of the united empire into two halves Rome had already overcome the Crisis of the 3rd Century and the Gothic invasions of the 4th. Shit only really started going downhill with the execution of Stilicho, the half-Vandal generalissimo of the WRE from 395 who had crushed multiple barbarian invasions & uprisings, in 408 on bullshit charges of treason concocted by the senator Olympius. After the Emperor Honorius (who had previously been like a second son to Stilicho) gave Olympius the reins of government, he proceeded to consistently make the worst possible decisions for two years until the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410.
Even then the WRE had a second chance. During the long & inadequate reign of Valentinian III they got Flavius Aetius, who was badass enough to fight and actually defeat Attila the Hun in 451. Of course then Valentinian rewarded Aetius by personally murdering him, motivated by rumors that the successful & popular general was going to usurp him - rumors which were spread by Petronius Maximus, another senator who was actually planning to usurp the throne himself and needed loyal, competent Aetius out of the way. After arranging Valentinian's assassination, Petronius ruled for two months before getting Rome sacked by the Vandals and himself lynched by a mob (for trying to abandon them to the Vandals) along with his son.
And still the Romans had a third chance in Majorian, their last really capable emperor who reigned from 457 to 461. Majorian was a genuine populist who reformed the laws to give the commons a fighting chance against the elites in the courts, got further than basically everyone else before him in his attempts to fix the Roman economy (which had long been fucked between chronic hyperinflation, massive tax evasion by the elite, the impoverishment of the non-elites and barbarian raids), and forced back various barbarian tribes to recover a swathe of Roman territory. Naturally he ended up being tortured to death by his Suebic general Ricimer, who was pretty much the anti-Stilicho, with the enthusiastic backing of the Senate. After this there was truly no hope, at best the WRE could've shambled along as a puppet of the Eastern Romans/Byzantines if their joint attempt to reconquer Africa from the Vandals in 472 had succeeded.
A modern approximation of this sad yet preventable decline would be if America kept voting out/assassinating every popular and competent populist president who tries to right its course between 2028 and 2076, at least one of whom should be an actual based black/Latino man to complete the Stilicho analogy, despite these candidates cropping up and trying to save the country as late as the 2060s. And then being all surprised Pikachu when the last FBI detachment is massacred and the last establishment figurehead they were protecting gets deposed by some Somali warlord in 2076, followed by that warlord declaring himself Sultan of Ameerika in the bombed-out ruins of DC and sending the presidential flag to the SACEUR, who has somehow managed to keep America more alive in Europe than on the North American continent itself.
Ever feel like we are in the equivalent of the last days of Rome before the dark ages? The barabarians invaded and looted Rome, toppling statues and temples.
It feels like the last days for sure.
The big difference between this and Rome is that it comes form inside.
Oh it definitely came from within in Rome's case, too. Opportunistic, backstabbing senators focused solely on short-term personal gain & the descendants of barbarians allowed to reach high up into the top ranks of Roman society killed every single remotely effective leader who tried to turn things around for Rome. Such was the fate of great men whose greatness was cut short like Stilicho (incidentally a half-barbarian himself), Flavius Aetius and Majorian.
If it weren't for the absolute worthlessness of the Roman political class and the complacency of its citizens, grown so soft and hollow-spirited that they'd rather keep their heads down & go along with the flow than try to resist their new barbarian overlords, Rome could have endured for another thousand years. As it did in the more energetic and less degenerated East, which had the good sense to purge the problems it shared with the West before it was toppled.
Many civilizations suffered the same fate for the same reasons; including the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Spanish, Ottoman, British and Russian empires. Every one of them entered a period of decadence wrought with selfishness, materialism, corruption and a loss of a sense of duty and purpose. Every one of them also had a very pervasive presence of elites and intellectuals before their downfalls.
In two hundred years people will blame outside forces for this too. Chinese psyops, russian propaganda, anything so they don't have to think about the uncomfortable truth that they're just as able to have society fall as we are.
Rome was basically collapsed by the time the Barbarians arrived.
Eh, not really. The Western Roman Empire's situation actually remained salvageable a lot longer than many people think, and even before the permanent partition of the united empire into two halves Rome had already overcome the Crisis of the 3rd Century and the Gothic invasions of the 4th. Shit only really started going downhill with the execution of Stilicho, the half-Vandal generalissimo of the WRE from 395 who had crushed multiple barbarian invasions & uprisings, in 408 on bullshit charges of treason concocted by the senator Olympius. After the Emperor Honorius (who had previously been like a second son to Stilicho) gave Olympius the reins of government, he proceeded to consistently make the worst possible decisions for two years until the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410.
Even then the WRE had a second chance. During the long & inadequate reign of Valentinian III they got Flavius Aetius, who was badass enough to fight and actually defeat Attila the Hun in 451. Of course then Valentinian rewarded Aetius by personally murdering him, motivated by rumors that the successful & popular general was going to usurp him - rumors which were spread by Petronius Maximus, another senator who was actually planning to usurp the throne himself and needed loyal, competent Aetius out of the way. After arranging Valentinian's assassination, Petronius ruled for two months before getting Rome sacked by the Vandals and himself lynched by a mob (for trying to abandon them to the Vandals) along with his son.
And still the Romans had a third chance in Majorian, their last really capable emperor who reigned from 457 to 461. Majorian was a genuine populist who reformed the laws to give the commons a fighting chance against the elites in the courts, got further than basically everyone else before him in his attempts to fix the Roman economy (which had long been fucked between chronic hyperinflation, massive tax evasion by the elite, the impoverishment of the non-elites and barbarian raids), and forced back various barbarian tribes to recover a swathe of Roman territory. Naturally he ended up being tortured to death by his Suebic general Ricimer, who was pretty much the anti-Stilicho, with the enthusiastic backing of the Senate. After this there was truly no hope, at best the WRE could've shambled along as a puppet of the Eastern Romans/Byzantines if their joint attempt to reconquer Africa from the Vandals in 472 had succeeded.
A modern approximation of this sad yet preventable decline would be if America kept voting out/assassinating every popular and competent populist president who tries to right its course between 2028 and 2076, at least one of whom should be an actual based black/Latino man to complete the Stilicho analogy, despite these candidates cropping up and trying to save the country as late as the 2060s. And then being all surprised Pikachu when the last FBI detachment is massacred and the last establishment figurehead they were protecting gets deposed by some Somali warlord in 2076, followed by that warlord declaring himself Sultan of Ameerika in the bombed-out ruins of DC and sending the presidential flag to the SACEUR, who has somehow managed to keep America more alive in Europe than on the North American continent itself.
Thanks for the insight, this was nice.
fantastic post.