On the radio yesterday, I heard the soulful song That’s How Every Empire Falls, written by RB Morris sometime before 2005, and performed at various times by Morris, John Prine, and Marianne Faithfull.
Your poll plays into the what's-focal-is-presumed-causal cognitive bias. By only presenting one option for the fall of civilizations (influential citizens), you bias people to think that's actually the cause. If your poll had many alternatives (economic decline; religious factors; popular movements; systemic corruption; war; etc) you would reduce this bias and you would see less confidence that influential citizens are the main cause.
The biggest modern empire that fell was the British empire. Was there an influential citizen that caused it to fall? My perception is that it rose because of its naval dominance, and fell because it had too much territory to defend, its territories gained more economic and technological power which they used to declare independence, and other countries rose in power and challenged it (culminating in WWI).
Also, was it *bad* that the British empire fell, allowing its former territories to self-govern? I don't think that was bad. Self-governance is good. It's good for an empire to fall if the empire oppresses and harms the people in its territories.
Or the project is perhaps vanity. A lost cause if you start. What empires remain stable? I suspect you need to maintain growth and aspiration, continue ascendency and further noble goals toward the those causes. Do we need another space push? A war on senescence? Moral decays seems like a side effect of aimlessness.
You may do more good by realizing more limited, local objectives—making society work better in small ways—rather than aiming directly at a grand global objective. If you try very hard to save civilization, and fail—either it collapses or it would have done well without your efforts—you wasted your time.
Question for you, Robin: history takes to remember the sources that identified the cause of their empires decline and fall (the ones we agree with/resonate with our present concerns, anyway). But do we have any idea, for past civs for whom we have sufficient records, what quantity of the elite conversation was about the actual, effective causes of decline? I would stake an initial hypothesis that it is very little.
The core problem as I see it is how to avoid ossification; no civilization has ever solved that. Human systems have a tendency to become less flexible over time as people adapt to the status quo and the successful ones then fight to maintain it. So far the only solution humanity has devised to this, at the civilization level, is war and related upheavals. It would be nice if we invented something better.
I used to play with RB in Knoxville back in the 80s! Imagine my surprise seeing his name here!
Oh, you're looking for reactionary songs. I used to keep a playlist of these... Here's one of favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKCRHhmHvjg.
I like it.
Your poll plays into the what's-focal-is-presumed-causal cognitive bias. By only presenting one option for the fall of civilizations (influential citizens), you bias people to think that's actually the cause. If your poll had many alternatives (economic decline; religious factors; popular movements; systemic corruption; war; etc) you would reduce this bias and you would see less confidence that influential citizens are the main cause.
The biggest modern empire that fell was the British empire. Was there an influential citizen that caused it to fall? My perception is that it rose because of its naval dominance, and fell because it had too much territory to defend, its territories gained more economic and technological power which they used to declare independence, and other countries rose in power and challenged it (culminating in WWI).
Also, was it *bad* that the British empire fell, allowing its former territories to self-govern? I don't think that was bad. Self-governance is good. It's good for an empire to fall if the empire oppresses and harms the people in its territories.
I didn't make a claim about a main cause. Whatever are the causal channels, how much do we blame influential citizens for using or not using them?
There is a nice poem by Auden called The Fall of Rome:
…And am unimportant clerk
Writes “I do not like my work”
On a pink official form…
And there's In Time of War XII:
https://war-poetry.livejournal.com/382673.html
Or the project is perhaps vanity. A lost cause if you start. What empires remain stable? I suspect you need to maintain growth and aspiration, continue ascendency and further noble goals toward the those causes. Do we need another space push? A war on senescence? Moral decays seems like a side effect of aimlessness.
HOW EVERY EMPIRE FALLS FELICES Y GRACIAS
I wonder what impact reading A Canticle for Leibowitz as a child had on my perception of decline and coming ruin.
You may do more good by realizing more limited, local objectives—making society work better in small ways—rather than aiming directly at a grand global objective. If you try very hard to save civilization, and fail—either it collapses or it would have done well without your efforts—you wasted your time.
You only need a very small probability of success for it to be very much worth your time
Question for you, Robin: history takes to remember the sources that identified the cause of their empires decline and fall (the ones we agree with/resonate with our present concerns, anyway). But do we have any idea, for past civs for whom we have sufficient records, what quantity of the elite conversation was about the actual, effective causes of decline? I would stake an initial hypothesis that it is very little.
The smaller it is/was, the more % influence any one person can have to increase it.
A Canticle of Leibowitz style story would make the problems much more relatable
The core problem as I see it is how to avoid ossification; no civilization has ever solved that. Human systems have a tendency to become less flexible over time as people adapt to the status quo and the successful ones then fight to maintain it. So far the only solution humanity has devised to this, at the civilization level, is war and related upheavals. It would be nice if we invented something better.
A Canticle for Leibowitz was an eye-opener for this young adult (at the time).
"I’ve been mostly failing to get folks to feel the tragedy of our world civ falling over centuries"
It's always been this way, probably by design. The spent life force must find some kind of egress in this great civilizational act of respiration.
What design? Who designed it?