Thread: I had an obverse insight the other night

Not that empires never die, they 'morph' into new forms, but that empires, by their very nature, must die.

Empires define reality; not merely the economic, political, religious, and social structure, but in the very definitions and concepts they use to define and re-inforce their goals.

To change reality, change the concept. [c.b.]

To bring down an empire, all that is necessary is to challenge its definitions. The definitions will always be challenged, again by their nature, because definitions are static and life is mutable.

This, of course, leaves out the minor details of police action, internal bloodshed, death in the streets, and nationalization of resources. Petty details.

Rome fell because empires fall.

I'm an idiot.

This was supposed to be a comment on 'Why Did Rome Fall?'

I'm going back to the gardening fora.

Originally Posted by j

I'm an idiot.

This was supposed to be a comment on 'Why Did Rome Fall?'

I'm going back to the gardening fora.

lol. Don't worry. It's easy to click 'new topic' instead of 'post reply' since they're right next to each other.

I'm an idiot.

This was supposed to be a comment on 'Why Did Rome Fall?'

No worries. So you not only explained "why" empires fall but also demonstrated "how" they fall...

Originally Posted by j

To bring down an empire, all that is necessary is to challenge its definitions. The definitions will always be challenged, again by their nature, because definitions are static and life is mutable.

How you change the definition of an empire?

Myself, I don't see "good" things in history and "bad things." Why make history so subjective? I focus entirely on understanding what is going on and why. Empires form for good reason. They collapse in due time because all things change---including "democracy" One can as accurately say that all democracies collapse because that has happened as often as have empires. Our turn is coming also. . .

Take as an example of what I am talking about the Dark Ages. We think of feudalism as a terrible system, but we may welcome it with open arms down the line again. In the Dark Ages, the agricultural communes were constantly being over run by gangs of thugs who took their women and stole their food. Gradually, they encouraged gangs to stay put as a sort of protection racket. The farmers were happy to turn over control to the thugs to run things in exchange for their protecting them from other gangs. Gradually Europe settled down and began to progress. The thugs became the feudal aristrocracy that evolved into the monarchists and which we later overthrew with "democracy" and the march of history continues on. . .