Has Western Civilization Already Ended?

[Raginfridus]

Provincial life continued much as it had in districts like Cornwall. Frontier villas remained profitable for a time, commerce didn't just disappear when Odoacer took Rome in the 400s. Even after violence done upon them, by man or by nature, civilization doesn't need to just stop either - it can continue - but at some time Western Roman civilization collapsed.

As a rule, we don't just point to a siege or genocide (like Carthage) and say it all stopped then, something exhausts a civilization, culminating in slow death. I think we remember dates and timelines because they can be tools for us to concentrate study, but they're only tools not rules; arbitrary but purpose-made for our sake, looking back.

Going back to the villas of Roman Britain, archaeology of the past four decades has really shown us that civilized life continued, yet it was fragile enough to be blown away in the Dark Age. However, to the frontier aristocracy, Ravenna and Rome's falls might have been a great pity and nothing more.

Is it too late to be asking how to save Western Civilization? Are we in that period where our civilization has already collapsed from exhaustion; when commerce may continue "unimpeded" thanks to where we are technologically, but civilization itself has essentially ended or is idling by?

(P.S. I don't think Western Civilization has ended, but that civilization, expressed in Whiggism and developed into ideologies of the 19th century, has horribly failed mankind.)

[Swordsmyth]

Provincial life continued much as it had in districts like Cornwall. Frontier villas remained profitable for a time, commerce didn't just disappear when Odoacer took Rome in the 400s. Even after violence done upon them, by man or by nature, civilization doesn't need to just stop either - it can continue - but at some time Western Roman civilization collapsed.

As a rule, we don't just point to a siege or genocide (like Carthage) and say it all stopped then, something exhausts a civilization, culminating in slow death. I think we remember dates and timelines because they can be tools for us to concentrate study, but they're only tools not rules; arbitrary but purpose-made for our sake, looking back.

Going back to the villas of Roman Britain, archaeology of the past four decades has really shown us that civilized life continued, yet it was fragile enough to be blown away in the Dark Age. However, to the frontier aristocracy, Ravenna and Rome's falls might have been a great pity and nothing more.

Is it too late to be asking how to save Western Civilization? Are we in that period where our civilization has already collapsed from exhaustion; when commerce may continue "unimpeded" thanks to where we are technologically, but civilization itself has essentially ended or is idling by?

(P.S. I don't think Western Civilization has ended, but that civilization, expressed in Whiggism and developed into ideologies of the 19th century, has horribly failed mankind.)

The embers could be fanned into a new flame, I'm not overly optimistic but we have a chance.
The remains of the western Roman empire also had a chance, King Arthur (AKA Riothamus) nearly revived it in Britain and could have done so on the continent if he had succeeded.

[Zippyjuan]

How do you define "Western Civilization"?

[Raginfridus]

How do you define "Western Civilization"?

Before I bother, do you think there is a Western Civilization? Surely this isn't the first you've heard of it.

[r3volution 3.0]

Has Western Civilization Already Ended?

It ended 225 years, 1 month, and 21 days ago, excluding today.

It was in the morning, in Paris, 10:22am to be precise.

P.S. There were, incidentally, no Mexicans in the vicinity..

[Ender]

It ended 225 years, 1 month, and 21 days ago, excluding today.

It was in the morning, in Paris, 10:22am to be precise.

P.S. There were, incidentally, no Mexicans in the vicinity..

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.........

[osan]

As a rule, we don't just point to a siege or genocide (like Carthage) and say it all stopped then, something exhausts a civilization, culminating in slow death. I think we remember dates and timelines because they can be tools for us to concentrate study, but they're only tools not rules; arbitrary but purpose-made for our sake, looking back.

Out with a whimper, generally speaking, yes.

Going back to the villas of Roman Britain, archaeology of the past four decades has really shown us that civilized life continued, yet it was fragile enough to be blown away in the Dark Age. However, to the frontier aristocracy, Ravenna and Rome's falls might have been a great pity and nothing more.

A lesson there - arm yourselves to the teeth and be ever willing to slaughter to the man the entire world for the sake of your own, if that world threatens. We have yet to learn this well. To put it in the immortal words of Kim Jong Il:



Why, indeed.

Humans.

Is it too late to be asking how to save Western Civilization?

Depends on the rigorous definition of "western civilization" one has at hand.

Are we in that period where our civilization has already collapsed from exhaustion;

Hell $#@!ing no. There is nothing exhausted about America, for example. We are collapsing from stupidity, or rather, stoopidity. Our children have been raised to be weak and phague-ish. We might call that exhaustion, but it is not organic, but rather the product of nudging. Little nudges here and there are all that is needed to destroy a culture unawares. This crap probably started ca. the turn of the twentieth century, but took off in the post-WWII era of filthy beatniks and later the even filthier hippies.

Sure, all decent men want unicorn poo for breakfast every day in a world where nobody is mean to their fellows. They want a world where rape, robbery, battery, and murder don't exist. They also recognize that the world doesn't bend to their naive desires - that it is often a cold, harsh, and even evil place where men must at times do horrible things in order to ensure the survival of their own. But the hippies turned their backs on reality and for whatever the reason, their idiotic positions about achieving a world of bunnies and light managed to stick in enough minds that we now have the world in which we all suffer the degradations of government running wildly amok as they support idiocy and evil while shamelessly punishing and disparaging sense and decency.

We live in the result not of natural devolution, but of planned and deliberately instituted artifice designed to destroy that which has been in place, in favor of chaos and confusion of which advantage is readily taken to consolidate power. We are living it. There is nothing there really to discuss. This is your life. It is mine. And it sucks.

when commerce may continue "unimpeded" thanks to where we are technologically, but civilization itself has essentially ended or is idling by?

The big punchbowl of koolaid was made available and the nitwits and corrupts couldn't get there fast enough to swill down as much as their greedly little gullets could manage.

Theye may or may not be geniuses, but they most certainly have every advantage of human weakness on their side. Hence, we are likely doomed.

See second sig line for the only likely help.

[dannno]

[Republicanguy]

I quite doubt that, the future is either energy intensive or not, with plenty or not available for all of us.

[acptulsa]

I quite doubt that, the future is either energy intensive or not, with plenty or not available for all of us.

Quite nice to see you commit yourself or not.

[Raginfridus]

The only common threat to civilizations and their cultures I see is Progressivism, w/ or w/o the immigrants. I do see a culture war, in Europe and America, but States have brought ruin to their own Nations' cultures by (mis)shaping them. Its the Progressive fallacy for either conservatives to champion their cultures' causes or sue for protection in the government, because bureaucrats will always wrap their hands around them, and try to plan the culture toward some utopian fantasy.

Which is even more impossible, the more bureaucrats you've got, so its like a playground full of "those" kids - the kid who never played fair and just made $#@! up for rules - combining all their stupid ideas into a plan, which a supreme kid certifies (and you know he's just going to replace or adapt the plan according to his own bad ideas). That's basically the mincing a government of a thousand agencies does to culture.

So yeah, trusting culture to government is churching a bunch of pirates. You either end up with an orgy, reformed souls, or a slaughter. Progressives call it revolution, but its just a Millenarian death cult w/o God. That's the greatest threat to Western Civilization, and our worst failure by far.