Here's hoping I kick the bucket before I go through that mess
It depends on your age, and on how we define "the mess". For my part, I view the rest of this century as a staggered escalation, not unlike the blood-soaked escalation of the Warring States Period in China, the embittered and anarchic inner competition of the later "Middle" period in Assyria and Babylon, the insufferable humiliations (prompting inevitable backlash) of the Egyptian Hyksos Period, and indeed the frenzied last third of the Hellenistic Period in the Classical world (with a view especially to the erosion of Rome's political order into unrelenting vendetta and a rigidly partisan division).
As I've said before: we are now at the juncture where the system that the current establishment (or "elite", if you will) has built up during this whole period has become more detrimental than beneficial to a substantial fraction of the populace. The tenets of the current system were always going to be a burden in the long term (if only because fiduciary currency has
never in history led to anything other than ruin in the long term, but there are countless other factors). This could long be ameliorated and -- quite frankly -- obfuscated through the "wizardry" of the system's operators (think of political games, such as play-acted 'conflicts' between representatives of supposed 'parties', who are actually social peers and part of the same clique; but also of the long cavalcade of tricks that central bankers have pulled...)
Now, however, the credit (in some cases, literally) has about run out. There's only so much you can conjure out of thin air, before the illusion wears off. But the
pain is real. The globalist economy was a castle in the sky, but the blue collar jobs are gone for real. Even the supposed "tech" jobs that Silicon Valley would create in great multitudes are disappearing now, but once-proud cities are now thug-infested shells of their former selves.
The desperate anger, the knowedge that you've been screwed over-- that goes somewhere.
It goes to Tiberius Gracchus, or it goes to Donald Trump. And when that kind of early outpouring of discontent, by those filthy "deplorables", is shoved aside by the people in power... the anger only burns hotter. Stamped out for a while on the surface, perhaps, but it keeps burning underground.
So, thirty years later, Rome got a Marius. And they had real bloodshed on their hands. No more pretence-- the gloves came off. The dissidents were crushed. The elite asserted itself with ruthlessness. But to make that happen, these fat cats, these spoiled and weak men, had to rely on a Sulla to do the hard work. And precedents were set, and they could not be unmade.
Thirty years later, Caesar. Still more determined to cast aside the reigning class. (In the event, they killed him, but as we see, that didn't stop his movement. Their days were
up.)
Avoiding the urge to compare things to directly (since we're discussing trends here, not pre-determined details), this history gives us a good indication of what the rest of this century looks like. Or "Gracchi" period isn't over yet. But I'm pretty sure (indeed, practically certain) that the establishment still has more than enough reserve power to ensure its own triumph. One way or another, they'll be rid of this MAGA movement. Probably using means more brutal and underhanded than most would now expect.
It'll buy them a few decades, but their reserves are running out. Which means fewer grift to go around. And they look out for themselves first, at the expense of their (perceived) "yokels". In this case, their "yokels" are black and hispanics. One avenue to keep the populists down is to actively associate them with racism, and to go full-on race-baiting to
make more of their angry opponents racist.
But as their reserves dwindle, they won't be able to buy "minority votes" with loads of hand-outs anymore. Which means the poor blacks and the poor latinos become just as angry as the poor whites. And angry at the same elite. This strikes me as the hour for a "Marian turn" in America. Just as Marius pulled the Socii into the Proto-Populares, we will see how the black and hispanic underclass joins with the white underclass. The age of dividing the masses to rule them will end.
And as in Rome, the establishment will respond with naked force. No more pretty stories. It's all about staying in power, by then. No matter how many people you have to kill for it.
That, too, buys them a few decades. But by the end of the century, they'll be depleted. No support left, and all the people against them.
Hail Caesar.
(So. When does "the mess" begin? I'd argue we're in it already. But I'd expect thigs to get increasingly bad, with things 'boiling over' first around 2060, and then again -- more extremely -- around 2090 and onward. These are of course rough estimates. But that's about the shape of things.)
With that being said(I'm still catching up on all this) I kind of wonder what your thoughts would be on the possible values of the Empire to come.
You've explained that 'modernity' with all our emphasis on indulgence and individualism, is not the end of history but a brief fever dream we're going through.
Would you be surprised if we had a full walk back, sort of like the Imperium in Dune, hereditary castes and all? Or it will still bear touches of what we've developed in our world currently? IE more 'modern' attitudes towards slavery, gender roles and whatnot?
Predicting the future is always next to impossible of course. But still, I have hard time wrapping my head around such a transition.
Once the civil wars are fought, order is restored. In retrospect, "Modernity" will look like an era of wild extremes, insane partisanship, deranged cults and ideologies. And so very soaked in blood. What many now imagine as peace and wealth will in hindight look like the gilt covering the rotten truth; false wealth, based on invented money. False peace, consisting of strange interludes between hopelessly cruel bouts of carnage. From the guillotine to the gulag and the gas chamber, and on to whatever fresh horrors this century still has left to reveal.
In short: an era best left behind.
Which means that many of its core ideas will also be rejected. In the wake of government-as-oppressor, money-as-a-lie, progress-as-an-illusion and democracy-as-a-partisan-shitfight, the almost inevitable tendency is to seek out what is certain. Certainly for a time, society will be more religious, and quite traditionally religious. Whoever's in charge will actively encourage that. Government will be smaller by default (no more fake money, so they can only spend what they actually have), and the money will go back to being gold-backed (as it has been for almost all of history). Both government power and mob rule will be distrusted, which lends itself to a very traditional form and shape of government.
In some ways, I do think it'll be like
Dune, but not in the completely feudal way. It'll retain typically American attitides, certainly, so it won't be an attempt to bring back the High Middle Ages. But there'll be far more of a stratified society. Egalitarianism will be seen as a radical and
failed experiment. The comparison to
Dune might be most apt when we consider the 'faufreluches' social system of that story: "
the forms must be obeyed". -- That kind of more formal, even
ritual attitude to social interactions will be almost inevitable.
If you ever wondered what the American equivalent of a Japanese tea ceremony might be... you'll find out about a century from now. They'll
invent it. (And that's another thing: in the age of a "Principate", all sorts of honourable traditions are encouraged... most of them at least partially made up. Augustus saw the definitive origin story of Rome written down, and it was written the way he liked it. I think that a century from now, you'll get the final version of America's "mythology": the great story that will forever be told. And don't be surprised if the AD 2200 definitive edition of the history of Charlemagne's reign has him predicting the rise of "
a greater throne yet, in the uttermost West" or something of that sort.)
Regarding the degree to which certain attitudes will "revert": that can vary wildly. I once posited that since the Greeks were perfectly fine with homosexual behaviour provided that it had the right
context, there is absolutely no reason why a future, more traditionalist culture wuld want to put gays to death, for instance. Again, we may references the Faufreluches of Frank Herbert: "
everything in its place, and a place for every thing".
One of the problems of the current age is the lack of clarity. Nothing has a proper place, or a clear identity. That leads to chaos. Once there is order, and certainty, you can make things... proper. Give them the right context.
Same thing applies to women's rights, although I think that (contrary to what
@Bassoe wrote) there are several factors that may very well foster a return to a very traditional orientation in that regard. First of all, loads of people will be dead, so there will be a lot of need to have kids and to raise them. I think that "motherhood" as a concept will be greatly honoured and encouraged. Likewise, remember that feminism is at least 75% a decptive strategy. Women were told that work was their
right. In reality, life's just become so fucking expensive that a family
needs two bread-winners to survive. The feminist narrative is pushed by the establishment because it creates more worker drones.
@Bassoe suggests that as the reason it'll stay like that. I see that as the main reason why the collapse of the current elite and a return to sound money (as well as smaller government and lower taxes) will ensure that the 'single bread-winner' model will return. The new elite of the Principate has every reason to encourage that, since (as Spengler says it) the rule of money will then have been driven out by the rule of blood-- and "Augustus" cares far more about the right
values in society than he does about maximising the size of the work-force.
(As one may readily infer, this attitude is related to a longer-term conception of what is "best" for society than is currently the norm. The end of mass democracy does have its advantages, even though some right now have trouble seeing that.)
------------------------------------------------
I don’t think Caesar would have gone full “Sulla” over it. He’d have had the main perpetrators put to death but going much further than that runs counter to his character. In a strange way, I’d contend that in this regard Augustus wasn’t too different from his adoptive father.
I know that sounds daft, but I notice that whenever he felt he could show “clementia”, Augustus does it liberally. He doesn’t appear to take quite as much joy in the blood letting as Marc Antony does, and I’d hazard a guess that was because if he could avoid killing he would. A bit of Caesar rubbed off on him after all, perhaps?
And I couldn’t help but chuckle with the Thutmoses comparison. Yes, if there was any Egyptian Pharoah who fit the bill, it would be that bastard. It’s honestly painful watching Ramses II try to be Thutmoses III.
My reading of Caesar is -- at least in this aspect -- somewhat different, namely that his sense of loyalty was acute. And loyalty, once betrayed, turns to nemesis. In other words: I think Caesar would turn to bloody vengeance precisely
because he was a man so ready to forgive, and because they
betrayed him. That would hurt, and that hurt would have to go somewhere. (And once you turn to nemesis, things escalate.)
Augustus, I think, was quite different. Colder, and more inclined to do what worked because it
worked. He never forgave and he never forgot. He served his vengeance cold, and he stepped over the corpses of all his enemies without even pausing to gloat. It was
work, and he did it well. And when he was done killing, he stopped killing. The point had been made.
Consider what had Augustus bolting upright in the middle of the night, a scream of outrage on his lips: the senseless loss of legions in bumfucknowhere, Germania. That same fucking backwater that had cost him the great general Drusus already! This is a practical thing, and it infuriated him. The same Augustus had Caesarion killed. Certainly, he didn't want to-- but needs must, and rivals shouldn't be allowed to live. So he dies, and Augustus never loses a single night's sleep over it.
Then Caesar. The man who was presented with the head of his greatest rival and
wept. Their lines had been united, once. If he'd defeated and captured Pompeius, there is little doubt Caesar would have allowed the old man to retire gracefully. This was a citizen, and not just any citizen, but possibly the only worthy rival Caesar ever knew. And those barbarians had
murdered him. His grief and rage at it tell me something about him. Both about his deep humanity and about the direction a fundamental betrayal could take him.
(Augustus wouldn't have cared about the death of Pompeius. He respected Cicero immensely, and still agreed to his death, because it was
expedient.)
In short: I think the very reason why Augustus didn't do any needless killing, is the exact same reason why Caesar (if properly provoked) very well
could do that kind of thing.
As for the Mesopotamian analysis…would that make the Persians their version of the Goths/migrating Germanic peoples? I find something strangely funny about that analogy. Cyrus isn’t quite Alaric, is he?
To the Mesopotamians: yes! Very much so. I discussed with
@Zyobot and
@CastilloVerde that the religious tendencies of Nabonidus had surprising things in common with the impulses that drove Julian the Apostate. They even appear at almost the exact same time in their respective cultures' life-cycles. So, yes: the Mesoptamians ended when their "Dominate" was over-run by foreign invaders, to an extent that the Romans managed to stave off for longer. (We can hardly blame them for this: Mesopotamia is damned tricky to defend!)
From the Persian perspective, meanwhile, Cyrus is like a Charlemagne. The great founder-king. (Compare the Medes to the Merovingians, and you get the picture.) He set up something very impressive, but Alexander did distort the future course of Persian history somewhat, and much later on, Islam really screwed them over.
