Re: 'Pseudomorphosis' continued
Are you perhaps thinking that Latin America will soon revert completely to the pre-Christian religions once dominant in the region? If so, then why is Fundagelicalism spreading like wildfire down there?Originally Posted by Tim Walker
response to Prisoner post
I have no opinion myself. The point Toynbee was trying to make, I believe, was the hardiness/resilience of a culture-even when accepting much from another.
Actually, Toynbee seemed to be describing a layering effect, where the adopted culture is layered on top of the original culture like an onion.
Given the three factors listed in the above quote, I would hazard to guess that the Western World has the rest of this century to live - at the most. We will probably survive this 4T, though this is by no means certain. If we do survive this 4T, it won't happen without our paying a terrible and appalling social price in the process - one which we'll continue to pay for the rest of the century. We will most certainly not survive the next 4T (due around 2100).
Xers are always so wonderfully depressing.Given the three factors listed in the above quote, I would hazard to guess that the Western World has the rest of this century to live - at the most. We will probably survive this 4T, though this is by no means certain. If we do survive this 4T, it won't happen without our paying a terrible and appalling social price in the process - one which we'll continue to pay for the rest of the century. We will most certainly not survive the next 4T (due around 2100).
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"
I'm not an Xer. :wink:
Cat,I'm not an Xer. :wink:
In spite of his paranoia about the coming demise of Western civilization, he's actually a really cool cat --- for a Boomer. :wink:
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.
borrowing
Interesting comment-that a society borrows only what itself lacks.
If you scroll down to the map you will see which countries are technological innovators: Western, mostly, but including Japan and Korea. Japan created its own version of modernity; I anticipate that Korea will do likewise.
A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee
The disintegration of a civilization has the rhythm listed as such: rout, rally, rout, rally, rout, rally, rout :arrow: extinction.
The first rout/rally is deemed to occur during the State phase of a civilization; an Expansion phase has ended, and the states have entered an "Age of Conflict" or "Time of Troubles", a period of fraticidal warfare. The first rally is an attempt to fix the problem while the civilization is still in the State phase. This rally is followed by another bout of fraticidal warfare. The second rally is the establishment of a Universal Empire. Eventually the civilization enters a period of Decay. The next rout is a time when the empire begins to fall apart; the next rally is a shoring up of that empire. The final rout sees a collapse of the civilization.
Toynbee continued
re: Hellenic/Classical civilization, or Graeco-Roman society
The first rout listed is the Peloponnesian War. Toynbee described an attempted rally-somewhat diffuse over time-during the Hellenistic Age. This includes the ideal of Concordia or Harmonia, a time of peace and cooperation. Also, constitutional experiments such as the Aetolian and Achaen confederacies.
Didn't work out; the vast Hellenistic kingdoms warred against each other.
Toynbee again
Quoting:
"...we have identified the original breakdown of Syriac Society, which had brought the Syriac 'Time of Troubles' on, with an outbreak of internecine warfare among the parochial states of the Syriac world which had occurred toward the end of the tenth century B.C. after the death of Solomon....
"...can we observe any symptoms of a first rally and a second rout? One plain token of a rally in the course of the intervening age is a coalition of Syriac forces which defeated an Assyrian aggressor at
the Battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C. Conversely, we may diagnose a rout in the subsequent relapse of the Syriac states into a fratricidal strife that made it easy for Tiglath-Pilser III and Sargon to conquer piecemeal in the eighth century B.C. a cosmos of Syriac city-states which had not found it difficult in the ninth century to keep Shalmaneser III at bay by making common cause against a common alien enemy."
when are we?
A rally of the State phase, broadly similar to the Hellenistic Age. An important feature of most of the MilSaec was the Cold War-which provided an external threat that the West could unite against. With the end of the Cold War this glue has disolved.
Re: borrowing
And recognizes that it lacks. Right now, a significant section of U.S. youth is borrowing entertainment from east Asia, primarily Japan, but also Korea and China. What lack is this borrowing filling?
That map is very revealing, both by pointing out which countries and regions inside them form the 'Core' (light green and buff), and which form the 'Fringe', and which areas inside the West are not Core (northern South America, for starters).If you scroll down to the map you will see which countries are technological innovators: Western, mostly, but including Japan and Korea.
Which won't be much different from the Japanese version, I expect.Japan created its own version of modernity; I anticipate that Korea will do likewise.
Your local general nuisance
"I am not an alter ego. I am an unaltered id!"
Re: borrowing
And recognizes that it lacks. Right now, a significant section of U.S. youth is borrowing entertainment from east Asia, primarily Japan, but also Korea and China. What lack is this borrowing filling?
...
Sincerity (Seijitsu)
HTH
A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee
re: the folks who gave the world the Jewish faith and Christianity:
"The civilization (whether unitary or multiple) that we find in Syria in the last millenium B.C. was not only comtemporary with the Hellenic Civilization; it also displays some striking resemblances to it. In contrast to the irrigational civilizations of the lower Tigris-Euphrates basin, the lower valley and the delta of the Nile, and the Indus basin, the Syriac World resemble the Hellenc World in depending on rain fo the watering of its rare fields and eking out its scanty agricultural resources by long-distance maritime enterprise. (Even the landlocked highland canton of Judah took the Phoenicians into partnership for opening up sea-borne trade with countries on the Indian Ocean as soon as Judah had acquired a south-sea port at Elath at the head of the Gulf of Aqabah.) The Syriac World in this age also resembled the Hellenic World in its political configuration. It too presents itself, when the curtain rises on its history, as a mosaic of small sovereign independent states. These Syriac statelets, like their Hellenic counterparts, were perennially at war with each other; and though they occasionally made common cause against formidable aggressors from outside, they too were eventually extinguished, as the Hellenc statelets were, by empire-builders on the grand scale."
Toynbee again
"Was the relation between the Syriac and Hellenic civilizations even closer than this? Was it a relation, not only of resemblance, but of affinity?...I suggested that the Syriac Civilization might prove to be the Hellenic Civilization's 'sister', in the sense of being affiliated, as the Hellenic Civilization was, to the antecedent Minoan-Helladic-Mycenaean Civilization in the Aegean area. Indisputably the Minoan-Helladic-Mycenaean Civilization was one of the Syriac Civilization's sources...."
Re: borrowing
:idea:And recognizes that it lacks. Right now, a significant section of U.S. youth is borrowing entertainment from east Asia, primarily Japan, but also Korea and China. What lack is this borrowing filling?
...
Sincerity (Seijitsu)
HTH
That's an interesting possibility. I'll try that one on the Millie anime and manga fans I know and get back to you.
Your local general nuisance
"I am not an alter ego. I am an unaltered id!"
IMO there seems to be two events that could qualify for the start of the West's Time of Troubles, the Thirty Years War and the American and French revolutions. If the latter is correct the Universal Empire should come at then end of the next saeculum in 2100, if the former is correct the Universal Empire failed to fom on schedule because the impact of democracy and nationalism prevented the US from becoming that universal empire.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Toynbee though that Ancient Mesopotamia was 2 successive civilizations, Sumeric and Babylonic, with the Babylonic civilization being absorbed into the Irano-Leventine (Toynbee's "Syriac") civilization.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
If if The American and French revolution revolutions were the start of the first rout we would have been the "Long 19th Century" (American Revolution to WW1) and WW2 and we are at the end if the first rally. The UN and related internationalism is the Western equivalent of the Hellenistic notions of Homonia and the Cosmopolis.
Last edited by Odin; 01-07-2007 at 03:08 PM.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
The way the West has been organized in this saeculum is remarkably similar the the Hellenistic world.
US = Roman Republic
EU = The Greek States
Canada = Sicilian Greeks?
USSR = Carthage
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
WTF is whith paleoconservatives and Declinism? It seems like every time I go to Barnes and Noble and look in the Current Events section I run into a new book talking about how the west is in terminal decline and Europe is about to become Eurabia, usually with the aid of some supposed "Transnationalist Left that wants to see the distruction of Western Civilization" boogeyman.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Partly, it's a manifestation of who the paleocons are. A suspicion of Europe as a declining, corrupt force has been a feature of one camp of American thought all the way back to the days of Benjamin Franklin.WTF is whith paleoconservatives and Declinism? It seems like every time I go to Barnes and Noble and look in the Current Events section I run into a new book talking about how the west is in terminal decline and Europe is about to become Eurabia, usually with the aid of some supposed "Transnationalist Left that wants to see the distruction of Western Civilization" boogeyman.
Partly, though, it's based on some very real things, and it's not just paleocons who are beginning to think about the implications of certain trends.
Something significant seems to be happening with regard to population trends around the world. I saw occasional references to this phenomenon back in the late 80s, but it's only recently (the last few years) that it's really started to catch some serious, nervous attention.
Total Replacement Rate refers to the number of children an average woman has over the course of her fertile period, usually defined as 15-49 for convenience. Since all children have two parents, neglecting infant mortality would mean that a TFR of 2 would keep the population steady. Add in infant mortality and it rises a trifle, in advanced countries it's in the neighborhood of 2.1 or so. (That is, a TFR of 2.1 over time means that the population will hold constant, neglecting immigration and emmigration.)
Take a look at these numbers, sourced from the CIA World Factbook:
Total Replacement Rates for the
EU as a whole: 1.47
and some member-states therof:
SPAIN 1.28
FRANCE 1.84
GERMANY 1.39
FINLAND 1.73
SWEDEN 1.66
DENMARK 1.74
BELGIUM 1.64
NETHERLANDS 1.66
PORTUGAL 1.74
GREECE 1.34
LIECHTENSTEIN 1.51
ITALY 1.28
AUSTRIA 1.36
MALTA 1.50
UNITED KINGDOM 1.66
IRELAND 1.86
ESTONIA 1.40
LATVIA 1.27
BULGARIA 1.38
POLAND 1.25
HUNGARY 1.33
LITHUANIA 1.2
CZECH REPUBLIC 1.21
Add in non-EU states like
NORWAY 1.78
SWITZERLAND 1.43
CYPRUS 1.82
TURKEY 1.92
If that trend holds, Europe is facing population collapse in the relatively near future, neglecting immigration. Some are worse than others, but all of them are looking at a significant population decline if that trend holds.
(The figures above are the CIA's, other sources give slightly different numbers, but they're all in the same ballpark.)
It's not just Europe, either.
CANADA 1.61
JAPAN 1.40
CHINA 1.73
RUSSIAN FEDERATION 1.28
UKRAINE 1.17
GEORGIA 1.42
TAIWAN 1.57
MACEDONIA 1.57
AUSTRALIA 1.76
NEW ZEALAND 1.79
IRAN 1.8
But not everyone is in decline, much of Africa and some of the Islamic world are gaining population fast:
Topping the list is
NIGER 7.46
Some other fast-growing states...
AFGHANISTAN 6.69
ANGOLA 6.35
CHAD 6.25
GAZA STRIP 5.78
IRAQ 4.18
EGYPT 2.83
INDIA 2.73
PANAMA 2.68
MEXICO 2.42
ISRAEL 2.41
etc.
Where is America?
UNITED STATES of AMERICA 2.09 by the CIA's figures.
So America is almost unique among the advanced Western (and comparably technologically advanced) nations in that our birth rate is somewhere close to, and may actually be over, the replacement level. The issue is somewhat confused by immigration, and our lack of hard data on illegal alien births. Some believe that without them America would be below replacement, others disagree, nobody knows for sure.
But the thing is, there are demographic subsets in Europe that have much higher birth rates, esp. Muslims. The relative percentage of Muslims as an element of the population in Europe is rising steadily and rapidly.
There are a whole bunch of 'ifs' in the projection of the future, but IF overall European birth rates stay low, and IF Muslim birth rates in Europe stay high, and IF assimiliation continues to fail, then over time we will see Eurabia emerge, and we're talking decades, no more. The alarm among some is based on how likely they see those 'ifs' being.
The problem with the "Eurabia" hypothesis is that it's based on linearist assumptions, the same kind of assumptions S&H reminded us to be wary of. I'm expecting Europe to shift towards the paleoconservative right during the regeneracy because of immigration and assimilation issues (won't that be odd, I'm expecting the US to shift left, thus reversing the current political sterotypes of Europe = center-left and the US = center-right).
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
As Odin said, things never stay the same through the crisis. It's impossible to predict exactly what will happen, although I find it hard to believe there won't be A) A significant backlash toward immigration, especially Muslim immigration and B) A significant reduction in the World population.The problem with the "Eurabia" hypothesis is that it's based on linearist assumptions, the same kind of assumptions S&H reminded us to be wary of. I'm expecting Europe to shift towards the paleoconservative right during the regeneracy because of immigration and assimilation issues (won't that be odd, I'm expecting the US to shift left, thus reversing the current political sterotypes of Europe = center-left and the US = center-right).
Last edited by Matt1989; 01-14-2007 at 01:29 PM. Reason: their=there
Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't expect to see Eurabia either, because trends do change. But sometimes avoiding something bad requires that the bad trend be pointed out, in that respect the warning that's being sounded is useful. It's helping focus attention on the fact that a problem exists.
This is one of the ironies of our age that for years and years through the Awakening, all the talk of was of the dangers of a population bomb, of overpopulation, Soylent Green, the alarmist works from Ehrlich and Co, etc. In fact, the population bomb has fizzled, for the most part, and in the West I suspect the talk of the Crisis will be on reversing population decline.
The low replacement birth rate has several dimensions. One of the reasons that there is so much economic pressure in Europe to bring in immigrants is that there is a shortage fo young workers, and that promises to get worse. Likewise, sustaining the enormous welfare states requires lots of young workers...who have to come from somewhere.
Yet large amounts of immigration is politically explosive, especially when assimilation is difficult.
It's a complicated matter, and my suspicion is that from the POV of post-Crisis Europe, the demographic issues will look huge, and they'll wonder how it all got so little attention in the 90s and early 00s.
China and Japan are heading for trouble, too, if things don't change. The demographic trends could lead to a relative increase in India's power in Asia compared to China's...or it could lead to war, because China's demographics have additional complications.
