History Western Civilization, Rome and Cyclical History

[Skallagrim]

you have no answer to what I say other than unreasoned ranting and moronic insults.

In that very same sentence, where you accuse me of "insulting you" and not having answers, you call me:

moronic

A few seconds before that:

Very funny Mr Pot.

Gee, I wonder who's being childish and throwing insults without arguments here?

A post before that one:

your idiotic rants and delusions

openly idiotic assertions and false statements

Your so stuck in your own ego

Stop acting like a 4 year old having a temper tantum

try actually thinking about what you say.

It seems to be you who can't use arguments and can only throw around childish insults.

As for:

you have no answer to what I say

What you said was, in fact:

there's quote a wadge of a post there

not going to wad through it all.

Meaning, you're the one who can't even be bothered to read what others say, even when they respond to your own quite opinionated posts, and in significant detail. And in the cherry-picked bits you do respond to, you structurally mis-represent what others say, even after they've taken the trouble of patiently explaining their actual views. (But you didn't read, so you keep repeating your own assumptions.)

You've derailed this thread repeatedly. Nobody is "censoring" you; you're being asked to actually participate in the discussion as an adult. If you can't or won't do that, then it's best to go elsewhere, because at that point (this point), you're deliberately derailing and trolling.

 

[stevep]

In that very same sentence, where you accuse me of "insulting you" and not having answers, you call me:



A few seconds before that:



Gee, I wonder who's being childish and throwing insults without arguments here?

A post before that one:







It seems to be you who can't use arguments and can only throw around childish insults.

As for:



What you said was, in fact:




Meaning, you're the one who can't even be bothered to read what others say, even when they respond to your own quite opinionated posts, and in significant detail. And in the cherry-picked bits you do respond to, you structurally mis-represent what others say, even after they've taken the trouble of patiently explaining their actual views. (But you didn't read, so you keep repeating your own assumptions.)

You've derailed this thread repeatedly. Nobody is "censoring" you; you're being asked to actually participate in the discussion as an adult. If you can't or won't do that, then it's best to go elsewhere, because at that point (this point), you're deliberately derailing and trolling.

Lying again. I have read what your have said. Its just that most of it is at best argument by assertion or childish insults and smears so should be ignored. I have given arguments for my views and you have failed utterly to do so.

 

[Skallagrim]

I suppose some people just exist on this Earth to deliberately shit up threads and post zero-content sniping full of kindergarten-level projection. That kind of spite is truly a miracle of useless persistence.

Anyway, in the hope that this dumb derail is now over, let us return to the topic at hand, via a remark that @Zyobot posted elsewhere, about generational cycles. This prompted me to consider that the "key players" who will really set in motion the big shake-up in the late 2050s or so (think of general counterparts to such men as Marius and Sulla) are almost certainly already born.

That's a strange thing to consider, I feel. For all that it was famously (and accurately!) warned about young Caesar that there was "many a Marius in him", most people who lived in the days before the great upheavals probably never knew just how extreme it would get, or how quickly it would escalate.

Just goes to show that although things "go on as they have" for a long time... that only holds true until the moment where they suddenly don't. An almost alienating experience; to live before the storm, to see the clouds gathering, dark and full of threat-- and then to still be caught unawares by how quickly and how violently they arrive where you are.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

As I understand it, although Sulla was an optimate, he was a pretty scary man even for his own side! Is that a thing with his equivalents throughout history? He’ll defend the establishment but he’s still sick of their shit?

 

[Skallagrim]

As I understand it, although Sulla was an optimate, he was a pretty scary man even for his own side! Is that a thing with his equivalents throughout history? He’ll defend the establishment but he’s still sick of their shit?

Sulla is a very interesting figure in that he meant it. He was prominent as the great military counter-part to Marius, and so by definition his "equivalent on the other side". Both were prepared to go to extreme measures, and both were controversial in their own camp. To some extent, this is a thing in all equivalent periods in all cultures. Things really escalate, the hounds slip their chains and go for blood.

There was a similar dispute in Qin, for instance, about the way the state should properly be organised. It got very bloody. (Makes the Romans look tame, really.) And the persons involved in that dispute weren't the reasonable moderates, either.

Extreme times bring extreme figures to the fore-front, I'm pretty sure. And the people whose personality lends itself to extreme positions tend to be extreme in other aspects of their personality as well. That's not automatically a bad thing (Sulla's extremism about his guiding principles is also what made him determined to resign once he was done). It just means that the people involved as often... non-baseline.

You kind of see this even now, with someone like Trump. And the extremes of our time are quite modest, compared to what may still be expected. So we'll see stranger figures yet.

 

[stevep]

Lying again. I have read what your have said. Its just that most of it is at best argument by assertion or childish insults and smears so should be ignored. I have given arguments for my views and you have failed utterly to do so.

Zyobot

Basically I've decided he's never going to be honest or responsible as his last two posts shows so I'm just ignoring the little jerk. It saves me a lot of wasted time trying to discuss with someone who openly is intent on ignoring anything he doesn't like.

Steve

 

[stevep]

As I understand it, although Sulla was an optimate, he was a pretty scary man even for his own side! Is that a thing with his equivalents throughout history? He’ll defend the establishment but he’s still sick of their shit?

As I understand it once he gained power and set himself up as dictator - which was vastly different from the previous Roman 'dictators' - he was pretty much outside anyone's control. Which presented a serious problem for anyone who might be unhappy with his actions, or who he might think was unhappy with his actions. Its one of the problems with untrammeled power, especially for any length of time.

 

[Skallagrim]

As I understand it, although Sulla was an optimate, he was a pretty scary man even for his own side! Is that a thing with his equivalents throughout history? He’ll defend the establishment but he’s still sick of their shit?

Adding to my previous comment: Sulla being pretty dangerous even to "his own side" is also tied to the fact that we discussed regarding the "small men" that form the establishment. Sulla was not a small man. He knew them for the sniveling hypocrites they were; it's just that he actually held to the ideals that they only pretended to honour.

You see shades of this (in different ways) with Cicero, Cato the Younger and Pompeius Magnus. They were all at times (and perhaps at nearly all times) allied to the cause of the Optimates, but they were also for various reasons ill-placed in the ranks of a clique that didn't live up to their standards.

Sulla was still willing to step away. He despised the "rabble", and he believed he'd stopped what he saw as the ascent of crass demagoguery and short-sighted populism that would eat at the roots of the Republic. He also felt that his reforms would force the establishment to govern honestly. And he was dead wrong. But he truly believed it.

Pompeius, later on, did not intend to step back. The only time he did was when he was allied to Caesar, and married to Caesar's daughter (thus prompting the hope that their lines would be united, and the heir of this would... well, essentially take the place of Augustus). But even though this didn't work out, and Pompeius had to side with the Senate that he despised against Caesar... if he'd won, he'd have taken power just as surely as Caesar did!

We can learn from this that the established elite was -- and is -- doomed long before the landing of the final blow. Marius was never going to save the Republic, and neither was Sulla. And after their reign, further bloodshed wasn't just likely, but inevitable.

Maybe, if the Gracchi hadn't been murdered, and had instead been allowed to carry out their full programme, the Republic could have been saved. It would have still be reformed dramatically, but the final rounds would have chiefly been legislative fights, rather than full-blown civil wars. But that path (the parth of reason) is almost never taken. The establishment looks at early populists (such as Perot and Trump in the USA, or Fortuyn and Wilders in my own country) and hates them. So they seek to crush them, and they generally succeed. They think this is "winning", but it creates the broad resentment that births far more powerful and far more radical populists later.

And then, a few decades after they disposed of the first (moderate) batch of populists, they conclude "ah, fuck, those guys weren't so bad compared to what we have now..."

But then it's too late.

 

[ATP]

Adding to my previous comment: Sulla being pretty dangerous even to "his own side" is also tied to the fact that we discussed regarding the "small men" that form the establishment. Sulla was not a small man. He knew them for the sniveling hypocrites they were; it's just that he actually held to the ideals that they only pretended to honour.

You see shades of this (in different ways) with Cicero, Cato the Younger and Pompeius Magnus. They were all at times (and perhaps at nearly all times) allied to the cause of the Optimates, but they were also for various reasons ill-placed in the ranks of a clique that didn't live up to their standards.

Sulla was still willing to step away. He despised the "rabble", and he believed he'd stopped what he saw as the ascent of crass demagoguery and short-sighted populism that would eat at the roots of the Republic. He also felt that his reforms would force the establishment to govern honestly. And he was dead wrong. But he truly believed it.

Pompeius, later on, did not intend to step back. The only time he did was when he was allied to Caesar, and married to Caesar's daughter (thus prompting the hope that their lines would be united, and the heir of this would... well, essentially take the place of Augustus). But even though this didn't work out, and Pompeius had to side with the Senate that he despised against Caesar... if he'd won, he'd have taken power just as surely as Caesar did!

We can learn from this that the established elite was -- and is -- doomed long before the landing of the final blow. Marius was never going to save the Republic, and neither was Sulla. And after their reign, further bloodshed wasn't just likely, but inevitable.

Maybe, if the Gracchi hadn't been murdered, and had instead been allowed to carry out their full programme, the Republic could have been saved. It would have still be reformed dramatically, but the final rounds would have chiefly been legislative fights, rather than full-blown civil wars. But that path (the parth of reason) is almost never taken. The establishment looks at early populists (such as Perot and Trump in the USA, or Fortuyn and Wilders in my own country) and hates them. So they seek to crush them, and they generally succeed. They think this is "winning", but it creates the broad resentment that births far more powerful and far more radical populists later.

And then, a few decades after they disposed of the first (moderate) batch of populists, they conclude "ah, fuck, those guys weren't so bad compared to what we have now..."

But then it's too late.

Sadly,true.
If Tsars made real reforms after 1905,they would ruled now over powerfull empire which would be stronger then USA.
But,they decide to crush opponents,which worked till it not.
Althought,to be honest,if they made peace with germans in 1916 or 1917 they would save themselves,too.
Or even not butcher their own foot guard after Brusiłow offensive.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Sulla was still willing to step away. He despised the "rabble", and he believed he'd stopped what he saw as the ascent of crass demagoguery and short-sighted populism that would eat at the roots of the Republic.

Oddly based.

Maybe, if the Gracchi hadn't been murdered, and had instead been allowed to carry out their full programme, the Republic could have been saved. It would have still be reformed dramatically, but the final rounds would have chiefly been legislative fights, rather than full-blown civil wars.

This will be controversial, but I believe the Republic did have one last chance right before its end. It had someone with tremendous power at its head, making desperately needed reforms and, via land distribution/expanding the suffrage, was attending to some of the Republic's key flaws.

His reforms were lauded by all, even his enemies. And for all his trouble, the man was stabbed twenty-three times on the Senate floor itself, by the very rats he tried to drag away from oblivion.

 

[Skallagrim]

Oddly based.

A man of character, to be sure. The last one in a position of sufficient power that actually tried to save the Republic. He wanted to preserve the old system. In reality, he helped open the flood-gates of escalation and counter-escalation, but his intent was for his great purges to serve as the definitive solution to the troubles.

Didn't work, but you can see his reasoning. And it really does stand out that he did what (felt he) "had to do", and then relinquished power.

This will be controversial, but I believe the Republic did have one last chance right before its end. It had someone with tremendous power at its head, making desperately needed reforms and, via land distribution/expanding the suffrage, was attending to some of the Republic's key flaws.

His reforms were lauded by all, even his enemies. And for all his trouble, the man was stabbed twenty-three times on the Senate floor itself, by the very rats he tried to drag away from oblivion.

Controversial indeed! I don't think that anything was going to save the Republic at that point. In name, sure. Augustus did that, too. But in reality? It was already dead. The rule of money, in Spenglerian terms, had been driven out by the rule of blood. Whatever emerged from the violent transition would be a different beast; not at all the same as the republic that had existed a hundred years before.

And Caesar, of course, tried to keep the factions together quite a bit. He was far more forgiving and far more ready to compromise than his enemies ever credited him for. And as you say: he died for that nobility. In a world where they're too cowardly to act when he's alive, they'll wait for his death and make their move before his body is cold. (See also the Qin-Han Contention, for an example of how that goes.) Alternatively, they try to kill him but fail, and his goes "full Marius" with the mass executions. That then prompts fear and animosity, creating new enemies, prompting new purges, and it spirals from there. (See the reign of Qin Shi Huangdi. Yes, China had a rough time of it!) Mounting hatred of the increasingly murderous regime then causes a new civil war once the ruler dies. (Again: Qin-Han Contention, it's literally how it played out in China.)

My conclusion is that no matter what, things were bound to end up with more trouble, and ultimately with someone like Augustus putting the Republic out of its misery.

The most peaceful transition I can imagine would be if the son of Pompeius and Julia had lived. Then Pompeius and Caesar would have remained allied, and their shared heir would have inherited Rome. But let's be realistic: both men hated the Senatorial vermin, and if they remained allied, there's no way that dispute wouldn't have been settled... permanently. So, again, it does very much mean the end of the Republic in all ways that really matter.

 

[Bassoe]

Makes you wonder what our civilization's missed tipping points were.

Maybe if Franklin Roosevelt had taken Smedley Butler's warning of the business coup seriously and properly retaliated against the conspirators? General Patton survived his car accident while being inexorably convinced, accurately or otherwise, that it'd been a deliberate assassination attempt? A much more paranoid Occupy movement actively turned against the idpol crowd as deliberate distractions funded by their enemies in big business?

 

[Cherico]

Makes you wonder what our civilization's missed tipping points were.

Maybe if Franklin Roosevelt had taken Smedley Butler's warning of the business coup seriously and properly retaliated against the conspirators? General Patton survived his car accident while being inexorably convinced, accurately or otherwise, that it'd been a deliberate assassination attempt? A much more paranoid Occupy movement actively turned against the idpol crowd as deliberate distractions funded by their enemies in big business?

Big one was a Serbian asshole who decided to change the world.

 

[Skallagrim]

Makes you wonder what our civilization's missed tipping points were.

Maybe if Franklin Roosevelt had taken Smedley Butler's warning of the business coup seriously and properly retaliated against the conspirators? General Patton survived his car accident while being inexorably convinced, accurately or otherwise, that it'd been a deliberate assassination attempt? A much more paranoid Occupy movement actively turned against the idpol crowd as deliberate distractions funded by their enemies in big business?

Big one was a Serbian asshole who decided to change the world.

I don't really see any of it as "tipping points". Rather... if we view history as a river cascading down an infinite mountain-side, then it repeately falls upon outcroppings of rock that can divert the stream this way or that. It keeps going in same direction, due to the inscapable pull of gravity, but its path can be affected-- often just slightly, but sometimes significantly.

Regarding the business plot: the very election of FDR was already the "good path" in many ways, because his election and his subsequent policies appeased a lot of angry people. In retrospect, we can argue that those policies didn't truly help, but it removed the great storm-cloud of discontent. When such a thing is not removed, and an unpopular regime stays put, you get... well, look at Italy and Germany. Spengler predicted the Great Depression (not its exact details, but the notion of an upcoming crash, given the post-WWI situation) and postulated a scenario where the USA would crash and burn, with a communist revolution in the Rust Belt, among other unpleasantries. You can also look at Huey Long, as an example of the direction things were going. The election of FDR took enough discontent away to prevent a real "explosion". (Spengler didn't see FDR coming, and in fact for a brief time hoped that Hitler would do for Germany what FDR ended up doing for America. Remember, Spengler still hoped that Germany could become the "new Rome"!)

Regarding the Great War: things were already heading for a major clash, and I think averting it would be hard. But it could have been a shorter, more limited conflict, with a more decisive "decapitation strike" victory for one side. Then it would probably remain just that one conflict, with no second round. That would most likely yield a scenario where we get a less troubled version of "Late Modernity", so overall a milder journey to the end of the era. But in general terms, the course of that journey would still be much the same.

You can go further back, and argue that avoiding the French Revolution would be even better. And I think that's true. That would lead to an even milder "Modernity" than the above scenario, with far less radicalism. But still, the overall shape of the era would remain as we know it. The ideas that informed Modernity were already there. Even if not taken to radical extremes in the conflagration of revolutionary fervour, they would still have an unmistable effect. (And to remove these ideas, you must nix the Enlightenment. And then you soon conclude that to do that, you'll have to avert the Reformation. And then you ask what prompted the Reformation. And so forth, all the way back. Things don't happen "just because", after all-- and that's the whole point of macro-history.)

 

[Lord Sovereign]

History is just one long cause and effect from the moment a monkey claimed down from a tree.

But it is correct to identify the Enlightenment, its misunderstandings of human nature, and its inability to stop once it started, as the root of the modern malady.

 

[Zyobot]

History is just one long cause and effect from the moment a monkey claimed down from a tree.

But it is correct to identify the Enlightenment, its misunderstandings of human nature, and its inability to stop once it started, as the root of the modern malady.

Agreed, at least on the first paragraph.

If anything, I'd say the "systematic drivers" component is something average AH hobbyists miss all too often, treating history as a series of quasi-random events that come out of the blue and fade away inexplicably — rather than a long-running, "cause-and-effect" process with many "moving parts" that mesh together. I'd hope at least professional historians are intellectually aware of this, though for the most part, they lack a more holistic "predictive" framework for comprehending the bigger picture (as Spengler, Toynbee, and other macro-historians have attempted).

Nonetheless... I think things the details will prove sufficiently wacky and unexpected to take us by surprise, as we draw closer and closer to the end. For all we know, America's "Mithridatic Wars" could be an invasion of Iran instead of Turkey (despite what @Skallagrim suggested elsewhere), seeing as Iran's been in the crossroads of the US government for a while. Admittedly, that's only a mere guess, though among other things, I wouldn't rule out our "nominees" for the figures and factions we see arising being much different candidates than we thought. (e.g.: The possibility the next "Persia" is India rather than China, which may become a "Ptolemaic Egypt" of sorts. Or, maybe the reverse, my suspicion the first is more likely notwithstanding.)

 

[Skallagrim]

If anything, I'd say the "systematic drivers" component is something average AH hobbyists miss all too often, treating history as a series of quasi-random events that come out of the blue and fade away inexplicably — rather than a long-running, "cause-and-effect" process with many "moving parts" that mesh together. I'd hope at least professional historians are intellectually aware of this, though for the most part, they lack a more holistic "predictive" framework for comprehending the bigger picture (as Spengler, Toynbee, and other macro-historians have attempted).

The state of history departments is now such that some things are simply... not spoken about. As we have seen in this very thread, even the suggestion that the base assumptions of Modernity are probably not universals will result in hysterical accusations. (Such as the claim that you support tyranny, or that you desire a bloodbath, et cetera.)

Historians who like to keep their teaching positions and/or want to sell books to a mainstream audience keep their mouths shut, even if they do notice quite a lot of worrying things. If they mention these kinds of things, they do it in very vague terms.

I think things the details will prove sufficiently wacky and unexpected to take us by surprise, as we draw closer and closer to the end. For all we know, America's "Mithridatic Wars" could be an invasion of Iran instead of Turkey (despite what @Skallagrim suggested elsewhere), seeing as Iran's been in the crossroads of the US government for a while. Admittedly, that's only a mere guess, though among other things, I wouldn't rule out our "nominees" for the figures and factions we see arising being much different candidates than we thought. (e.g.: The possibility the next "Persia" is India rather than China, which may become a "Ptolemaic Egypt" of sorts. Or, maybe the reverse, my suspicion the first is more likely notwithstanding.)

Some things are more likely than others, but yes: the twists and turns of history can and do surprise us as they happen.

 

[Zyobot]

Will reply with more "serious" insights later, but for now, thought I'd share a few macro-history memes I made the capture the essence of the thread:

Spoiler: Dank Memes

Anyway, let me know how you guys like them. Quite an untapped gold mine of meme material, if you look hard enough.

 

[Cherico]

We all know that feel, it sucks to live through the shitty parts of the story.

 

[Zyobot]

We all know that feel, it sucks to live through the shitty parts of the story.

Especially towards the end, yeah.

In any case, any thoughts on my other memes? Been dabbling in meme-making for a while, so it'd be nice to get specific feedback.