Sometimes it is different. Hard to say if this is one of these times. Sometimes these peculiarities fade into total obscurity, sometime they live on as some variation in a relatively small community, and sometimes they become the new norm.
Sometimes, everything is different. Repeat an experiment long enough, and you'll see every possible outcome. But what is likely? I can only go by what has happened before, which (for reasons I'll elaborate upon a little further down) I certainly don't consider to be "fitting the observations to the model".
I see that in China, the Hundred Schools of Thought (including some with remarkable similarities to fascism and socialism) proliferated during the Warring States Period. The brief rule of Qin marked the supremacy of the quasi-fascist ideology, and the ruthless suppression of the competition. Stuff like Mohism? Dustbin of history. What survived? The Old Ways™. Taoism and Confucianism. Qin rule didn't survive the empire's founder by very long at all, and the Han dynasty was established. Stability and tradition prevailed, whereas a mere fifty years before, they had been utterly absent. (To the point that many people literally believed the world was ending and all was doomed) And, as I pointed out in the thread I linked to earlier, the Han dynasty fused the traditional sources of morality and piety into an newly-minted amalgam that was expertly given the legitimising veneer of great age and venerability. Cultism certainly continued, although with new cults being successful than the ones that had enjoyed success in the preceding era. Ultimately, though, these cults were outcompeted. When Buddhism arrived, the dynasty embraced that into the mix as well, setting up the basis for the official religion/ideology that would survive the fall of the Han dynasty. The religious reform was later blamed for weakening the empire, but the fact that the religion survived while the state collapsed suggests otherwise.
I see that in Egypt, the foreign ideologies and cultism of the barbarians proliferated during the Second Intermediate Period, and then got kicked out ruthlessly when the Eighteenth Dynasty got its groove on. The rule of Queen Hatshepsut marked the pinnacle of persecution and intolerance. Those nasty foreign ways? Dustbin of history. What survived? The Old Ways™. But Hatshepsut was
really keen on that... before she was removed in a palace coup and Thutmose III took over. Stability and tradition prevailed, where they had been utterly absent. Guess what? He was way more practical than stepmommy had been, and deliberately fused the traditional sources of morality and piety into an newly-minted amalgam that was expertly given the legitimising veneer of great age and venerability. Cultism certainly continued, although with new cults being successful than the ones that had enjoyed success in the preceding era. Ultimately, though, these cults were outcompeted. Particularly after the embarrassing Amarna period (where one Pharaoh embraced a weird cult that nobody else liked), traditional religion was reformed to include elements
counter to those of said cult. In this way, Amun became increasingly more important to the cosmology of Egypt. This was the basis for the religious tradition that survived the end of the New Kingdom. The religious reform was later blamed for weakening the empire, but the fact that the religion survived while the state collapsed suggests otherwise.
I see that in Rome, a wide variety of cults (mostly foreign mystery cults) proliferated during the last three centuries of the Republic, which was (again) tied to escalating troubles and violence and eroding trust in the existing order of things. Caesar ruled too briefly to really make a mark (which is why the Qin Emperor is known as one of the worst tyrants in history, while Caesar is remembered as a hero). But the ascent of Augustus returned Rome to stability and tradition. Adherence to that cultism? Eh, out of fashion. Dustbin of history. What survived? The Old Ways™. Augustus, too, was a practical man, and deliberately fused the traditional sources of morality and piety into an newly-minted amalgam that was expertly given the legitimising veneer of great age and venerability. Cultism certainly continued, although with new cults being successful than the ones that had enjoyed success in the preceding era. Ultimately, though, these cults were outcompeted. Just as foreign Buddhism made a mark on China, foreign Christianity spread through Rome. The Caesars ultimately embraced it, setting up the official religion/ideology that would survive the fall of the Dominate. This religious reform was later blamed for weakening the empire, but the fact that the religion survived while the state collapsed suggests otherwise.
...Now I don't know about you, but these similarities strike
me as rather more than just random co-incidence, or a case of
"fitting the observations to the model". The analogies are indeed hard to miss. And they point at the same thing. The cultism of the "Time of Troubles" (if you will) does not survive the birth of the Empire. I know, I know -- you expressed strong doubts about that idea, too, but I'll get into that as well.
That's a bad case of fitting the observations to the model with liberal application of a hammer.
That's merely a statement, and -- with respect -- has no argumentative value. The posts I linked to contain lengthy lists of comparisons, which do not seem to me to be guilty of the charge. Nor do I believe the above comparisons to be forced in any way. I just call them as I see them. I can certainly understand that the claim itself (that cultures go through recognisable and to some extrent predictable cycles of development) may not seem automatically credible. But I do have a considerable list of arguments to back it up.
Yeah, China is "falling apart and back together" in general terms, but what stage of that cycle its on right now?
Last period of civil war and division ended in '49, after lasting 37 years. Before that, 229 years of dynastic rule. Before that, 39 years of internal strife and crisis. Before that, 276 years of dynastic rule. Before that? You guessed it, short period strife where they had to kick out the Mongols.
So... little over 60 years into a period of unification that one might expect to last until AD 2200, give or take a few decades. After that, a few decades of strife again. After that, the smart money says new dynasty.
Islamic world is in an observably different relationship with its tradition than the west is right now. Their "ideological frenzy" is not some upstart idea that hates its own civilization and wants to remake it into something completely new, instead it is ultra-traditionalism often compared to its conquests of 7th century.
The "modernity" of the West was and is also a period of competing states/regimes. (As was the Warring States Period, as was the Hellenistic era, as was the Second Intermediate Period, as is the current situation in the Islamic World.) It has not escaped my notice that the Western states, in this period, were quite aggressively imperialist. Little (and some not-so-little) nation-empires that trampled others underfoot. No judgement on my part, but neither will I judge another culture for doing the same thing.
And if not for the geopolitical and other material considerations, if their civilization had state of art armies and economic power to sustain them right now, there probably would have been conquests. But as things are, their lagging behind the West in material development has caused their armies generated by such doubling down on the 7th century, which back in the day would have been nearly unstoppable waves of fanatical warriors, to first be mowed down by the proverbial Maxim guns, and now, blown up by smart bombs dropped from far beyond the reach of rusty AK totting guerillas.
No doubt that if they had the means, they would conquer. Would we not? Of course we would. We did! Besides the appeal to inhibiting dogmatism,
that is also a factor in why the Islamic world ended up so crippled. And they know it. In fact, that's what is making the radicalism and the violent anti-Westernism so unusually attractive to them right now. In their shoes, I'd feel the same way.
Japan, carried by the effects of Meiji restoration, has by all measure succeeded in joining the great powers of the world. Third largest economy in the world, second most powerful navy, notable cultural influence regionally and recently even beyond, that's not something one can ignore. If they continue on that route and somehow dodge a major crisis related to economy and birth rates, they will effectively create a sort of split-off "alternate China" civilizational orbit around themselves including Korea, Taiwan, and parts of Southeast Asia that will continue to diverge.
As you said: we must keep in mind the distinction between what
was and what
is. But also between what
is and what
might yet become.
Let me first make absolutely clear that in the scheme of things that I outline, "being a great power" and "being a High Culture" are
not the same thing. The High Culture represents, in the tradition of Spengler, the largest scale -- beyond the national. Christendom (or, in secular terms, "the West") represents a High Culture. Within it, there are certainly nations, with national cultures of their own. But these are not High Cultures. These are parts of an encompassing High Culture. Perhaps I am saying this superfluously, and this was already crystal clear, but I can't tell from the way you worded the above -- so I'm stressing it, just to be sure. No matter how great a (national!) power Japan makes itself, it will still not be a High Culture because of that. Just as the British Empire was not a High Culture but a national empire, even when it ruled a quarter of the planet. It was still a part of Christendom.
The second part of your paragraph does point at a very real possibility. Regions can become divorced from the High Culture in whose orbit they existed, and either be absorbed by another, or contribute to the formation of a new one. It is possible that, in the face of Chinese hegemony, a coalition of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and potentially a number of South-East Asian nations will join forces. If this situation persists long enough, their union with each other and their opposition to China can indeed lead them to become a sphere unto themselves. An incipient High Culture.
Note that the resultant High Culture would presumably be unified by a figure such as Charlemagne or Mohammed, and will
not mean that "Japan (or whatever) has become a High Culture". On the contrary: Charlemagne's rule didn't mark the ascension of France, but of Christendom as a High Culture. So what you posit would effectively mean that Japan
melts into a (new) High Culture. For which we do not yet have a name.
We should keep in mind that, if the West has ecalating troubles ahead of it, this whole scenario may simply end up being prevented due to China swooping in and asserting control as Western security guarantees become hollow and meaningless. I'd consider that the more likely scenario. (Albeit perhaps the less interesting one.)
In comparison, Dharmic World seems like more of a has-been. India is a massive country that is however underdeveloped and disunited, with a large chunk of population wanting to be in the Islamic World instead, a story not unheard of in several other Dharmic World countries either, while on the other side it is squeezed by the expansionist ambitions of China. However, it still lacks the weird cult or self hate problems of the West, its problems are more analogous to those i've ascribed to the Islamic World, more a matter of means rather than will.
As I described previously, India has been "overrun" repeatedly. Although unified, it is still reeling from this. To succeed, it must find its footing. Its identity. That boils down to solving the Muslim issue. Either re-invent the Indian identity as something that can include Muslims... or get rid of the Muslims. (Alternative scenario: Muslims get their shit together first; subdue the region; get rid of the Hindus; India subsumed into Islamic world. But that's, again, not the most probable one in my estimation.)
I'd put them on the same "similar but not the same" periphery of western civilization as Russia and Latin America.
Russia and Latin America are both Christian. That's the core thing that binds the West together. I stress again: "The West" is shorthand. The more correct way of describing the High Culture is "Christendom". The Jews do share a part with Christianity -- that's inevitable! -- so are indeed by default similar. But in a Western context, they are a diasporic people with a presence in the West. The relation towards the West is fundamentally different than that of defined, geographic regions on the periphery.
Unlike the latter two though, they have no perspective for assimilating their neighbors to own civilization for all sorts of reasons.
This seems to refer to Israel. When I refer to the Jewish people, I don't mean Israel as such. The Jews have existed for millennia. Israel has existed for a mere 72 years. Note that the Kingdom of Jerusalem existed for two centuries, and still didn't make it in the long term. Israel may well be a fleeting thing. Again, the troubles in the West that I expect would presumable void any protection the West presently guarantees to Israel. Which one might expect to have consequences.
Meanwhile Latin America is spreading demographically into the Pacific neighboring parts of Western Civilization, while Russia was always interested in the Central and South European parts of it.
The nations that are irrefutably
within the West have likewise competed geographically for quite a bit. In any event, Putin won't live forever. Russia should be lucky to survive in one piece after he is gone. I think it's more likely for European Russia to be dragged (or, more charitably, embraced) fully into the West than the for any meaningful parts of Europe to be nabbed up by Russia. (Long-term, that is. Some bits and pieces my well change hands a few time ere we arrive at a more final state of things.)
My point is, if we count "periphery" civilizations like Russia, Japan or Latin America as separate entities, we do see that they are not in the same place as the main ones, which in turn implies that they should be counted separately, as they are obviously capable of going their own way to some degree. Yet even then, we don't see any of them in the same place either.
If we count them as what? I certainly won't count them as separate High Cultures.
Potential (parts of)
future High Cultures, certainly, but at present, they're not there.
What do you mean by "in the same place"? Do you mean to suggest that you believe Russia or Latin America to be at a fundamentally different stage in their development than "the West proper"? Because I don't agree with that reading, to be sure.
Your last sentence is unclear to me. I don't know what you mean.
Don't forget China too. That's 3 at the same time.
At the time Alexander and Chandragupta lived, China was already two centuries into its Warring States period. So while these cultures co-existed at the same time, China was not "lined up" with the other two, the way they were with each other. China was some 200 years ahead of them.
It was a a time and region which was geopolitically suitable to such feats, letting it be known as the age of warrior kings, which both of them were.
As for why? The geopolitical void left after Roman Empire was something that had to be filled, and as such, someone was bound to do it.
This is true; well said. Much the same as Alexander and Chandragupta being contemporaries because their respective cultures were founded at about the same time, due to the same event (Indo-European expansion). I do think i's quite remarkable that Rome's fall left behind a void that allowed two different "founders" to arise, and both in the peripheral regions on opposite sides of the fallen empire. That's historical poetry, right there.
Curious list... The most obvious observation is that they either got reformed or assimilated into a different one (Classical into Western, Egyptian into Classical and then conquered by Islamic), or on account of being utterly crushed on battlefields over and over again, and then forcibly assimilated by another one.
If you live long enough and grow old enough, there's a good chance that someone younger will show up and defeat you in the end.
I do wish to dispute the idea that the West is either a literal reformation of Rome, or somehow assimilated Rome. That's really stretching the continuity thesis, I feel. Rome fell, and the West arose upon the ruins. (Well, upon part of the ruins, anyway, and parially branched out into the wilds. Meanwhile, Islam came from the wilds and settled upon the other part of the Roman Empire's ruins.)
Seems like ancient equivalents of today's questions of whether Japan should be pinned into China's civilization, or Russia into Western civilization.
Naturally it comes to mind that back then, due to far less capable means of transport and communication, there was much more "room" for separate cultures to develop, sometimes over even relatively small geographic distances, than there is today, so it could be said that there were few more "high civilizations" then, and vastly more "periphery" ones.
To some extent, it is the same question. Certainly a question of the same order. But do note that Minoan culture, Sumerian culture and Harappan culture all outright preceded the later cultures in that region, and were more-or-less replaced. To what extent was this a process of assimilation? To what extent was there cultural cross-influence? It's very hard to tell, so the validity of any continuity thesis in
those cases is simply very hard to judge.
As far as the Mississippian culture and the Levantine/Phoenician/Carthaginian culture is concerned: they issue is whether they were really united. Not just politically, but culturally. Especially with the former, that's a big question mark. I think the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians were no more different (perhaps less) than people of various Western European countries right now. So I'd call that a High Culture. One that got crushed by Rome. Others feel differently, though.
That raises a question of whether we qualify "high cultures" by some kind of absolute terms, or by terms relative to their current competing claimants of such a title of either their region, or the whole world.
I'm sure it's always relative to some extent. Egypt and China do the same thing, historically, walk the same path -- but exist on vastly different scales.
For these countries, i'd say periphery parts of what you call Dharmic Civilization, but now contested, into possibly becoming the periphery of China, or in case of some small parts of them, Islamic World.
I agree. Of course, here we also have the possibility that you raised in regards to Japan et al. -- of them growing closer together in an attempt to keep the neighbours out. (But here, too, that's not the likeliest outcome.)
That brings up two major points.
Firstly, the amount of cultural goods and ideas being produced has been changed in an unprecedented way since the industrial age, as it has freed up a vastly larger part of any population to potentially do so.
And now on top of that we are barely beginning the middle of information age, which is going to have no less monumental effects on such matters.
This, I see as another example of presentism. The heavy plough, the horse collar, the gun... even paper... they have changed the world in ways that were no less fundamental and earth-shattering. It doesn't seem like that in retrospect, but it was very much the case. Yet they have not altered the basic course of human culture. Nor do I believe that the industrial age or the information age will have that effect. They will affect the particulars, but not the universals.
One reason why I believe that, besides observations from history regarding similarly important game-changes as they pertain to other ages, is that they don't change
human nature. And that, I think, is the ultimte source for any historical patterns. Individual humans react to situations in individual ways, but
most humans will react to a given situation in a
certain way. I would like to call this "average human behaviour". Devations (individual behaviours that are different) don't typically matter to the course of history at all, because of regression to the norm.
Humans gonna human. That is the iron law of culture and history. So crude, so simplistic, and yet that's it. Unless and until you change the fundamental situation or the fundamental nature of the species, the current patterns will persist. And something like the industrial revolution? Not fundamental. The neolithic revolution was fundamental. That was the
basis for all organised culture. And we are still living in that paradigm. All economic though, for instance, is concerned with the division of scarce goods. Now, if you technologically achieve post-scarcity... then you have changed the paradigm of the last ten thousand years. Then, the known patterns cease to be meaningful. Likewise, if you achieve transhumanism to such a degree that the resulting beings no longer think or act or perceive like humans... then you have hanged human nature, and the known patterns likewise cease to be meaningful.
We aren't there yet. Not by a long shot.
Secondly, as Western civilization proves, and earlier Hellenic too, and elsewhere in the world, Japan, political unity is not a necessary condition for a civilization to be born.
The lack of it though is conductive to creation of distinct "periphery" variants.
I disagree, but this is a terminology issue. When I say "civilisation" I explicitly mean "the Unification of all, or nearly all, of a High Culture under the aegis of one polity". This is commonly called the Universal Empire. Every High culture that survives up to that point eventually collapses into one. And the West, as I have argued, is getting very close to that point.
In any event, political union is very much a necessary condition for a civilisation (as I use that term) to be born. In fact, it's a truly defining aspect of a civilisation.
Lolnope. EU is merely quarter to half of western civilization depending on how you count, and even that is not looking too good right now.
The EU? That's not what I'm talking about. That's like saying the petty leagues of Hellenistic monarchs are shaky, and that's why the Roman Empire is impossible. Or the anti-Qin alliances are loose and ever-changing, so therefore the Han dynasty can't possibly exist.
The EU will die a bloody death, as will the entire political order of modernity. The 21st century will make the 20th look
tame, by the end. And then, when the most ruthless of politicians have visited their naked ambition upon the world and torn it half to shreds in the process, a tyrant will come. And he, too, will be removed -- or his despotism will not survive him long. After
that, when all other options have exhausted and debased themselves, only the legitimacy of tradition will remain. And that's when the Empire is founded.
The EU--! Yeah, that's a "lolnope" indeed. The EU is a joke.
But the Empire is not. It's just
unthinkable for most denizens of modernity... right up until the moment where it becomes inevitable.
As things stand now, hard to say. It does create a certain amount of weakness, which in turn would be an opportunity for a capable and expansionist competition.
Islamic World is more than willing, but lacking in capabilities, still it is doing what it can, while it can.
I agree with this. There
is weakness. There is also the possibility that Islam will gain enough strength to thrive... in Europe. I outlined that as a long-shot scenario in the other thread I linked. One wherein not Christianity, but Islam provides the traditionalist legitimacy that returns order to parts of the West (the parts being, presumably, Western Europe).
Yeah, that's possible. Outcome's still the same: Euro-Islamic Caliphate as a Universal Empire inheriting strains from both. That would, hilariously, solve all of Islam's outstanding philosophical problems completely. But it's very much a long shot.
China is willing and capable, but too far away to do more than chip at West's peripheries in Russia and Pacific at most.
Again, I agree! I mentioned that I expect Russia to fracture, and I wouldn't be surprised if China asserts hegemony over the Asiatic parts. Likewise, I already expressed that I don't believe Japan, Korea, Taiwain and South-East Asia will be very safe from Chinese ambitions. (And further expansion in the Pacific is entirely conceivable.)
If anything, the West's own peripheries that have some resistance to cult of postmodernism may be best positioned to take advantage.
Whatever happens to Europe, for instance, France is going to get a harder kicking than Poland. I wouldn't be surpised if Eastern Europe becomes way more dominant in the aftermath. At the very least, the old legacy of communist exploitation will be
completely evened out.
Looking at that, Western Civilization will survive more or less, possibly with its center of mass shifted to former peripheries, but may lose some peripheral holdings and get put under more pressure from Islamic World.
There will be power shifts, to be sure. Some are inherently impossible to predict. Whether the Islamic World will be a lasting threat is another matter. Part of the reason why an "Islamic victory" model is so unlikely is that their oil-despotism is on borrowed time. If they are to win, it will have to be by repeating Christianity's big success, and overtaking a big part of Europe. Make that the new centre of the Islamic world and rule the Caliphate from Paris or something.
If that fails, or doesn't materialise... they're screwed. They'll still be a bunch of parvenu states, owning worthless sand. Punching bags for greater powers. That'll probably be the end of Islam as we know it. A defeat like that tends to break a culture utterly. (Also, in that scenario, there's a Christian Empire next door, and the early Empire is always expansionist. So they'll have a very bad time, and may find that very religious men showing up to behaad you if you don't convert is not funny when it happen to you.)