Civilizations can carry a surprising number of parasites and live. But there’s a line — Rome crossed it, the Gilded Age toed it, and for the first time in history, we can measure it.
“Societies don’t collapse because millions pick up weapons. They collapse because millions approve and normalize cruelty. “ - Yikes! This is 100% accurate and 100% sadly where we have been at for a while.
@Carlyn, I operate a tiny podcast called NoTime2Read where (with permission) I take thoughtful articles written by esteemed persons (such as yourself and Danielle Allen) and convert them to audio (my voice). I do this only to help the authors' ideas get wider exposure and nothing more. May I have your permission to put this article on the podcast? You can check it out on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wKv2XXfn4kLdtntZmqyu8?si=veD8DB1SQjW931FB75uqhA or you can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Podcasts.
I had the same idea Mitchell...but in video format. No one has time to read all of these GREAT articles.
In Riane Eislers, "The Chalice and the Blade" she speaks about the predominator and the dominator (where we are today) model.
This is why the pre-dominator model worked: Art and tools were communal, not personal.
In Neolithic and Minoan societies, creations were never signed. There were no "authors," no "rulers," and no records of individual deeds. That wasn't an oversight; it was the structural reality of a Partnership model.
No Private Property: Tools and art were "principal means of production" owned by the clan, not individuals.
No Ego-Driven Hierarchy: Status wasn't gained by hoarding credit or resources. The community's survival was the priority.
The Shift: The moment we see signatures, "heroic" records, and lavish individual burials, the system has flipped to a Dominator model. That is when individualism, private property, and hierarchy took root.
The lack of signatures proves that the culture functioned on collective value, not individual accumulation. That is the missing piece of our modern narrative.
I think we will have to find some middle way. Tools and art are now available in such abundance that the community's survival does not depend upon sharing and protecting those resources. In essence, everyone can have them to some significant degree. Perhaps the middle way is not striving for the 100% communal ideal but instead ensuring that the benefits of tools and art are equitably available (not necessarily "distributed") to all. Thinking out loud here. Not promoting some agenda.
The irony for me is I found it takes far longer to listen to someone else read aloud or discuss than it does for me to read it myself. I can read anywhere from 4-6 times as fast as I listen. What I don't have time to do is listen to podcasts and have to be doing something else simultaneously to fully optimize the time.
Yes, Kevin, I get it. As Magma says, lots of people desire to multitask and listen to thoughtful content while doing something else (driving a car, ironing clothes, taking a walk, gardening, etc). And some people I know have told me they simply hate "reading" and just prefer to listen to thoughtful content. So, that's why I do it. No shade on your preferences or reading speed. More power to ya!
The author has her own plans for potential audio versions and so my offer was politely declined. But keep liking my comment if you want to encourage her in those plans.
Civilization is collapsing because when people started abolishing tradition they forgot to preserve basic, essential traditions, and also the love of crime. People love crime.
Patriarchy and slavery were once considered “essential traditions” among other aberrations. There is nothing sacred about doing things the same way forever. Humans’ fundamental survival mechanism is to adapt and change.
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
"It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race." – Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor
Yes most great powers aren't destroyed by outside powers but from within with notably rare exceptions of the Aztecs, Incas. The Nazis did an own goal by picking fights.
I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've used bluesky for 1.5 years, and had to delete it last month or so. I also have used the newer reddit, and it's no good.
Wow. At first, I was thinking, ah, a fine wine and a soft brie with a baguette, sitting on the hillside watching the flickering glow on the horizon grow closer.... but then we get to the closing peroration. Magnifica! Thanks for the best pep talk I've gotten in a long time. Much needed.
The only flaw in this essay is that i don’t think that everyone knows the setup of prisoners dilemma. The cooperate or defect dilemma is originally set in terms of escape, as I remember it, rather than resistance. I’m not sure that it makes a big difference, but I have an inkling that it makes some difference in the outcomes. Otherwise, I really think you’re onto something here. Great essay! Obviously made me start thinking, which is always a welcome event. Thanks!
Yes, my eyes sometimes glaze over when I see the length of the scroll.
But a fascinating read such as this, illuminating the mechanics of corruption in the egregious gilded age then cataloging key strikingly similar periods across history, culminating at today’s precipice, is a reward as it helps readers understand and, hopefully, plot an intelligent path out of the quagmire one more time.
Rest easy on that score, I tend to skim when they're long, but not thoroughly engaging, and didn't on this one.
Though as far as magats go, I'll still happily strike the match, and make no apologies, the rage needs an outlet, and the revolution grows closer to hand by the day.
This said though, what they mean by "civil war", and what I mean by "revolution" are, I suspect, very different things, that is, the former is always violent, and probably somewhat spontaneous, and the latter, not necessarily so, though I won't negate its possibility, there are any number of ways it can be avoided.
It also involves lots of contingency planning, strategy, covering of bases, and peaceful appeals, as the first one did. At least, at any rate, I don't see elections fixing it either, nor social security coming out of it....
Yes, escape is an "immediate gratification" with a very hard line whereas "resistance" is a long game with results not necessarily manifest within a person's lifetime depending on age. It makes a very big difference because few are the people willing to plant trees who's shade they will never experience.
There are far more people "resisting" in the "burn it all down" camp than there are in the "highest good of the whole" camp and unless the "purists" move a little closer to center and understand the difference between working with those who have greater than 50% in common rather than waiting for someone who ticks all their boxes, the end result will be like the last election. 30% who voted Maga won because 30% wouldn't vote (nobody ticks all the boxes) and the other 40% were divided among enough 3rd party candidates that Maga carried the day.
Great point. And while I hate to use labels, I would say the 'centrists' have to be willing to move a bit to the left and the 'progressives' need to be willing to respond in kind.
No, the ‘center’ today is the ‘far right’ of the Eisenhower era. We need real sweeping progressive change and its decades overdue. But how do we get there? I just think progressives need to pick their battles carefully. A ‘civil war’ between progressives and moderates would only help the far right.
“Yes, escape is an "immediate gratification" with a very hard line whereas "resistance" is a long game with results not necessarily manifest within a person's lifetime depending on age.” That’s an excellent way of parsing it. Thanks.
Alas, no one in the current media has the brass and the spine to commission and sustain running political editorial cartoons of the current clowns in DC. Glad we have it here as the MSM is too damn scared to be useful.
Your article does suggest an uncomfortable possibility: societies are not destroyed by their worst citizens alone, but by the growing belief among ordinary people that decency is no longer worth the effort. Good read!
I like the historical analysis, but I think focusing on MAGA Americans like myself shows a willful blindness to the street soldiers supporting the Democratic Socialists of America who are advocating the destruction of America, to burn it all down, to rebuild the Socalist Workers Paradise stop the smoking ruins. They don’t present themselves to us as assholes; they smile like Iago and shoulder slap Othello in order to place the dagger most opportunely. But remember the George Floyd riots and the more recent ICE protests “mostly peaceful” and the Leftist trolls screaming for guns in the hands of their street soldiers, weapons to be wielded to secure their positions atop the brave new world they would rule. Corruption abides, but corruption in tandem with revolution is the recipe, the secret sauce for the casserole they have compounded of envy, hate, and avarice that seek to serve Americans for dinner, a meal paid for in blood.
“Democratic Socialists of America who are advocating the destruction of America.” Yup, you’re MAGA all right.
That’s patently wrong, even absurd, and of course totally unsupported by any facts. Can you provide any quote from any Democratic Socialist anytime ever saying this? Of course you can’t.
All you’ve got—all you’ve ever got—is something you disagree with and which you assert is un-American. To call that intellectually arrogant would be to demean the use of the word “intellectual.”
MAGA-talk is full of sweeping specific assertions like yours—but they always turn out to be vague, unproven and unprovable, rooted only in gut-feel opinions, usually motivated by baser instincts like fear and hate.
It’s an abuse of language, among other things, to make statements like that.
MAGA is just a bunch of stupid chuds, but you are right....all the people who did that study had to look at was the history of Communism to get a good, hard look at what happens when decency crumbles.
I mean, they are scared of these chuds who are waiting for somebody to throw a brick, when tens of millions of people in the USSR and China marched their fellow citizens into death camps, shot them, or intentionally starved them because they couldn't be bothered to be the guy who spoke up and called for a halt to the murder.
If that doesn't directly address the situation at hand, I don't know what will.
And yet, our dear author here defaults to their ideological bias instead of acknowledging that humans gonna human and that some kind of progressive utopia is the same formula for murder as any kind of fascist strongman ever would be.
The DSA will ultimately help MAGA. I don't think I've ever heard the MAGA position on the corruption at the heart of current capitalism that's leading to society - destroying inequality. Can you enlighten me?
Libertarians will say "if you let politicians decide what can get bought and sold, the first thing to be bought and sold is politicians."
(In short, corruption comes from centralization, and removal of the "other pillars" of society in favor of government -- church, family, etc.)
True Capitalism (FREE Markets) are a thriving bunch of chaos. Not Walmart armtwisting every vendor it's got, and forming a hiring monopsony (Yes, look that word up).
This writing is why the word “erudite” was coined, to connote freeing us from (repeated) ignorance. Thank you! But also, there is now an historical distinction that imagining lessons from Rome and other empires can miss. Ours is not a unipolar world. If the US trips over the edge, there will be at least two other great power poles that stand well back from the edge and, perhaps slightly reluctantly, say “we’ll miss what you used to be”. Let’s hope the torch isn’t dropped, but if it is, let’s hope others carry it on - and lead the fallen back to the light.
Wow, this is one of the most important pieces I have read in a long time. It’s long and in this TLDR time, it won’t get the attention that it deserves. I, for one, will reread this a few times and try to spread the word. Much to think about, much to do.
Very solid analysis. I’ve been thinking this, but hoping it wasn’t true. This made it real. We will get our first test in the midterms. Not just at the national level but at local levels. Will the assholes be turned out?
Brilliant and multi-disciplinary, hard-headed and kind, and timely. Thank you Carlyn!
And wry.
The asshole threshold, so good.
“Societies don’t collapse because millions pick up weapons. They collapse because millions approve and normalize cruelty. “ - Yikes! This is 100% accurate and 100% sadly where we have been at for a while.
Hannah Arendt wrote an entire book around this theory - The Banality of Evil. Really good.
@Carlyn, I operate a tiny podcast called NoTime2Read where (with permission) I take thoughtful articles written by esteemed persons (such as yourself and Danielle Allen) and convert them to audio (my voice). I do this only to help the authors' ideas get wider exposure and nothing more. May I have your permission to put this article on the podcast? You can check it out on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wKv2XXfn4kLdtntZmqyu8?si=veD8DB1SQjW931FB75uqhA or you can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Podcasts.
I had the same idea Mitchell...but in video format. No one has time to read all of these GREAT articles.
In Riane Eislers, "The Chalice and the Blade" she speaks about the predominator and the dominator (where we are today) model.
This is why the pre-dominator model worked: Art and tools were communal, not personal.
In Neolithic and Minoan societies, creations were never signed. There were no "authors," no "rulers," and no records of individual deeds. That wasn't an oversight; it was the structural reality of a Partnership model.
No Private Property: Tools and art were "principal means of production" owned by the clan, not individuals.
No Ego-Driven Hierarchy: Status wasn't gained by hoarding credit or resources. The community's survival was the priority.
The Shift: The moment we see signatures, "heroic" records, and lavish individual burials, the system has flipped to a Dominator model. That is when individualism, private property, and hierarchy took root.
The lack of signatures proves that the culture functioned on collective value, not individual accumulation. That is the missing piece of our modern narrative.
I think we will have to find some middle way. Tools and art are now available in such abundance that the community's survival does not depend upon sharing and protecting those resources. In essence, everyone can have them to some significant degree. Perhaps the middle way is not striving for the 100% communal ideal but instead ensuring that the benefits of tools and art are equitably available (not necessarily "distributed") to all. Thinking out loud here. Not promoting some agenda.
The irony for me is I found it takes far longer to listen to someone else read aloud or discuss than it does for me to read it myself. I can read anywhere from 4-6 times as fast as I listen. What I don't have time to do is listen to podcasts and have to be doing something else simultaneously to fully optimize the time.
Yes, Kevin, I get it. As Magma says, lots of people desire to multitask and listen to thoughtful content while doing something else (driving a car, ironing clothes, taking a walk, gardening, etc). And some people I know have told me they simply hate "reading" and just prefer to listen to thoughtful content. So, that's why I do it. No shade on your preferences or reading speed. More power to ya!
As can I...(read faster than listen)... but many people do that activity while driving ;)
The author has her own plans for potential audio versions and so my offer was politely declined. But keep liking my comment if you want to encourage her in those plans.
I can appreciate it...and at the same time fear it limits just how many people get exposed to the material. But yes, I get it!
Civilization is collapsing because when people started abolishing tradition they forgot to preserve basic, essential traditions, and also the love of crime. People love crime.
*and also, there is a problem where people love crime.
Patriarchy and slavery were once considered “essential traditions” among other aberrations. There is nothing sacred about doing things the same way forever. Humans’ fundamental survival mechanism is to adapt and change.
Wasn't Arendt part of the CCF (CIA funded)?
Indeed:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
"It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race." – Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor
Really? How many people throw blokes out 20 story windows? Turns out, rather a lot. Is South Africa uniquely full of monsters?
Yes most great powers aren't destroyed by outside powers but from within with notably rare exceptions of the Aztecs, Incas. The Nazis did an own goal by picking fights.
People are all emotions, zero empathy on both sides.
What are both sides?
The leftwing and rightwing in the contemporary West.
A quick scan of the platforms of left and right will quickly dispel that notion.
I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've used bluesky for 1.5 years, and had to delete it last month or so. I also have used the newer reddit, and it's no good.
I mean, David Bowie wrote a song about it 30 years ago so….
(i’m afraid of Americans)
Wow. At first, I was thinking, ah, a fine wine and a soft brie with a baguette, sitting on the hillside watching the flickering glow on the horizon grow closer.... but then we get to the closing peroration. Magnifica! Thanks for the best pep talk I've gotten in a long time. Much needed.
You may be whack, but you're funny. That is every night on little slice of hilltop.
Liars and Tigers and Assholes, oh my.
The only flaw in this essay is that i don’t think that everyone knows the setup of prisoners dilemma. The cooperate or defect dilemma is originally set in terms of escape, as I remember it, rather than resistance. I’m not sure that it makes a big difference, but I have an inkling that it makes some difference in the outcomes. Otherwise, I really think you’re onto something here. Great essay! Obviously made me start thinking, which is always a welcome event. Thanks!
I agree and thought the same. But this is a 15 minute read and over 3500 words. I thought I might be getting a bit cruel with the length. 😬
Yes, my eyes sometimes glaze over when I see the length of the scroll.
But a fascinating read such as this, illuminating the mechanics of corruption in the egregious gilded age then cataloging key strikingly similar periods across history, culminating at today’s precipice, is a reward as it helps readers understand and, hopefully, plot an intelligent path out of the quagmire one more time.
Rest easy on that score, I tend to skim when they're long, but not thoroughly engaging, and didn't on this one.
Though as far as magats go, I'll still happily strike the match, and make no apologies, the rage needs an outlet, and the revolution grows closer to hand by the day.
This said though, what they mean by "civil war", and what I mean by "revolution" are, I suspect, very different things, that is, the former is always violent, and probably somewhat spontaneous, and the latter, not necessarily so, though I won't negate its possibility, there are any number of ways it can be avoided.
It also involves lots of contingency planning, strategy, covering of bases, and peaceful appeals, as the first one did. At least, at any rate, I don't see elections fixing it either, nor social security coming out of it....
Wait till someone shows you a "book"....ffs
Yes, escape is an "immediate gratification" with a very hard line whereas "resistance" is a long game with results not necessarily manifest within a person's lifetime depending on age. It makes a very big difference because few are the people willing to plant trees who's shade they will never experience.
There are far more people "resisting" in the "burn it all down" camp than there are in the "highest good of the whole" camp and unless the "purists" move a little closer to center and understand the difference between working with those who have greater than 50% in common rather than waiting for someone who ticks all their boxes, the end result will be like the last election. 30% who voted Maga won because 30% wouldn't vote (nobody ticks all the boxes) and the other 40% were divided among enough 3rd party candidates that Maga carried the day.
You'd think we might have learned something?
Great point. And while I hate to use labels, I would say the 'centrists' have to be willing to move a bit to the left and the 'progressives' need to be willing to respond in kind.
Do you mean 'progressives' need to be willing to more toward the center?
No, the ‘center’ today is the ‘far right’ of the Eisenhower era. We need real sweeping progressive change and its decades overdue. But how do we get there? I just think progressives need to pick their battles carefully. A ‘civil war’ between progressives and moderates would only help the far right.
“Yes, escape is an "immediate gratification" with a very hard line whereas "resistance" is a long game with results not necessarily manifest within a person's lifetime depending on age.” That’s an excellent way of parsing it. Thanks.
You have learned nothing. The eligibile non voters, 40 million of them are the only relevant demographic. Motivate them and you win.
Ahhhh the caveat ....
Someone must offer the possibility of good governance.
I needed this today, so thank you. We in action are the only antidote to any of this bullshit.
Alas, no one in the current media has the brass and the spine to commission and sustain running political editorial cartoons of the current clowns in DC. Glad we have it here as the MSM is too damn scared to be useful.
Here's a good selection of American political cartoons. So yep, they're still out there!!
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics - POLITICO https://www.politico.com/tag/cartoon-carousel
Such a fascinating thought. Are there political satire cartoons anymore or have been totally replaced with AI slop memes? I'm off now to have a look!
Anne Tellnas is everyday fantastic politics cartoonist on Substack
Is that spelled right? I can't find "Anne Tellnas" on Substack. Thanks!
Ann Tenaes my bad
Ann Telnaes
It's CORPORATE sponsorship. You will get nothing but a carefully constructed narrative to benefit the corporate sponsors.
ffs
Your article does suggest an uncomfortable possibility: societies are not destroyed by their worst citizens alone, but by the growing belief among ordinary people that decency is no longer worth the effort. Good read!
I like the historical analysis, but I think focusing on MAGA Americans like myself shows a willful blindness to the street soldiers supporting the Democratic Socialists of America who are advocating the destruction of America, to burn it all down, to rebuild the Socalist Workers Paradise stop the smoking ruins. They don’t present themselves to us as assholes; they smile like Iago and shoulder slap Othello in order to place the dagger most opportunely. But remember the George Floyd riots and the more recent ICE protests “mostly peaceful” and the Leftist trolls screaming for guns in the hands of their street soldiers, weapons to be wielded to secure their positions atop the brave new world they would rule. Corruption abides, but corruption in tandem with revolution is the recipe, the secret sauce for the casserole they have compounded of envy, hate, and avarice that seek to serve Americans for dinner, a meal paid for in blood.
“Democratic Socialists of America who are advocating the destruction of America.” Yup, you’re MAGA all right.
That’s patently wrong, even absurd, and of course totally unsupported by any facts. Can you provide any quote from any Democratic Socialist anytime ever saying this? Of course you can’t.
All you’ve got—all you’ve ever got—is something you disagree with and which you assert is un-American. To call that intellectually arrogant would be to demean the use of the word “intellectual.”
MAGA-talk is full of sweeping specific assertions like yours—but they always turn out to be vague, unproven and unprovable, rooted only in gut-feel opinions, usually motivated by baser instincts like fear and hate.
It’s an abuse of language, among other things, to make statements like that.
MAGA is just a bunch of stupid chuds, but you are right....all the people who did that study had to look at was the history of Communism to get a good, hard look at what happens when decency crumbles.
I mean, they are scared of these chuds who are waiting for somebody to throw a brick, when tens of millions of people in the USSR and China marched their fellow citizens into death camps, shot them, or intentionally starved them because they couldn't be bothered to be the guy who spoke up and called for a halt to the murder.
If that doesn't directly address the situation at hand, I don't know what will.
And yet, our dear author here defaults to their ideological bias instead of acknowledging that humans gonna human and that some kind of progressive utopia is the same formula for murder as any kind of fascist strongman ever would be.
It's humans all the way down.
The DSA will ultimately help MAGA. I don't think I've ever heard the MAGA position on the corruption at the heart of current capitalism that's leading to society - destroying inequality. Can you enlighten me?
Libertarians will say "if you let politicians decide what can get bought and sold, the first thing to be bought and sold is politicians."
(In short, corruption comes from centralization, and removal of the "other pillars" of society in favor of government -- church, family, etc.)
True Capitalism (FREE Markets) are a thriving bunch of chaos. Not Walmart armtwisting every vendor it's got, and forming a hiring monopsony (Yes, look that word up).
So we now know where the hope lies. The history did not destroy it. It merely made it unlikely. But not impossible.
This writing is why the word “erudite” was coined, to connote freeing us from (repeated) ignorance. Thank you! But also, there is now an historical distinction that imagining lessons from Rome and other empires can miss. Ours is not a unipolar world. If the US trips over the edge, there will be at least two other great power poles that stand well back from the edge and, perhaps slightly reluctantly, say “we’ll miss what you used to be”. Let’s hope the torch isn’t dropped, but if it is, let’s hope others carry it on - and lead the fallen back to the light.
This writing is transparently AI-generated lol
Wow, this is one of the most important pieces I have read in a long time. It’s long and in this TLDR time, it won’t get the attention that it deserves. I, for one, will reread this a few times and try to spread the word. Much to think about, much to do.
We must act. Business as usual is not an option.
Stunning. Thank you!
Very solid analysis. I’ve been thinking this, but hoping it wasn’t true. This made it real. We will get our first test in the midterms. Not just at the national level but at local levels. Will the assholes be turned out?
There won’t be any test, newer was, as long as loot exists, the rot marches on.
I'm a bit concerned that the DSA candidates will dilute the results. We'll see...
*BRRRAAAVAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!* (Standing Ovation Over Here)