Yesterday I wrote about Sir John Glubb’s account of the decadent stage of empire. And how our present age shows all the features of decadence.
But whatabout imperial takeoff? When a small nation like Macedonia under Alexander the Great obliterates the Persian Empire. Or the Mongol tribes conquering China?
These sudden outbursts are usually characterised by an extraordinary display of energy and courage. The new conquerors are normally poor, hardy and enterprising and above all aggressive. The decaying empires which they overthrow are wealthy but defensive-minded.
In 1492 both Spain and Portugal sent ships across the ocean that inaugurated the Imperial Age of western Europe. Their conquerors went to an America that was still pretty tribal, and an India that was divided into mini-states. But the Western Europeans never conquered China, although they did a lot of bullying in the 19th century.
So I tend to think not about the Spanish Empire or the British Empire but the European Empire driven by the enterprise and aggression of the rising middle class of the Reformation and the rising educated class of the Enlightenment. And let us throw in the rising poetical class of the German Romanticism. After all, Nietzsche was “the Nazis’ favorite intellectual,” if you see what I mean.
So I would say that the last century has been characterized by the dominant imperialists of the educated class putting down challenges from the nationalist Germans and the Russkie Communists, and teaching the odd raghead a lesson just to show we could.
But obviously we are in an age of decadence as the political formula of our rulers, that they fight for the oppressed, becomes a racket where our rulers fight to th middle class on behalf of educated class gays and transgenders. And tough luck to you TERFs!
And so the maxim of Eric Hoffer plays out, that every movement for justice becomes a racket for loot and plunder.
Let’s applaud our rulers and say that World War Slavery in 1861 was a Good Thing. Let’s give our rulers the benefit of the doubt and say that World War Kaiser was a Good Thing, although my judgement is: Not Really. And yeah, after we’d riled Germany up with WWI reparations we coiuld do nothing less than deal with World War Hitler. And someone had to deal with Stalin in World War Commie.
But World War COVID? World War Climate? Not to mention World War Racism? I my view these are all excuses to put the world on a war footing, so the ruling class can get all heroic — and also ratchet up government spending on their supporters.
But is the populist nationalist movement of the ordinary middle class an “outburst… characterised by an extraordinary display of energy and courage” on the part of populist leaders like Trump and Meloni and Le Pen?
And, more important, will their followers risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as Americans did in the Olden Time?
And are the ideological wars of today indicating that rather than look for Huns or Mongols we should be looking for an outburst on the ideological front?
So that instead of decadence in the courts of emperors we should be looking for decadence in the quads of universities and the offices of the educated-class bureaucracy and the decadence of political movements turning into political rackets.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of The Autumn of the Educated Class.
(Yeah, imagine a TV series about the fictional decline of our present educated class and its homeless Mascot victims. The Horror! Why, I don’t think our liberal friends have thought up a pejorative to describe it. Yet.)