There is also Glubb's more amateur-based cycle, plus Parkinson's (of the Law's fame) modification of Aristotle.
Regardless of the mechanism or timing of the theory of collapse, all agree (usually tacitly) that even though many know a collapse is coming, nobody is able to stop it.
By the way, it's an honor to count you as a reader. I've read your blog for quite some time now and own your book. I don't know how I missed the fact you have a Substack, but I've added you to the Recommendations.
Thanks for this link! It's a great essay. When I read it I realized I must have read it years ago, let it subtly influence my views...and then forgotten I had read it. Glubb is great.
Georgetown professor Carroll Quigley also had a theory of historical cycles, which he held were driven by the nature of institutions to switch their purpose from performing a role in society to perpetuating their own existence at the expense of the population, thus bringing about their own demise.
I suspect both progressive Whig history and cyclical reactionary history are half-truths. History is clearly not a monotonic improvement in the human condition. But at the same time, it certainly doesn't repeat itself perfectly, and when one takes the really long view there is good reason to infer that, overall, things do tend to advance over time.
So for example, while much Roman literature was lost, along with many of their engineering techniques, we certainly didn't lose literacy entirely, nor forget how to smelt iron or create steel.
Applying the same lens to the natural world, while there are many mass extinctions, the overall trend is towards increasing encephalization and rising metabolic energy density.
The most accurate picture may be a superposition of the two - a rising curve, with a sine function oscillating on top of it. Of course, the amplitude of the sine wave can be quite significant, to the point of dominating historical evolution over generational timescales.
So, while we may well be looking at an immanent collapse and dark age, I doubt we'll lose firearms, electricity, electronics, or telecommunications. Those capabilities will certainly be degraded, perhaps even falling out of general use and becoming the province of elites or isolated monastic communities, but the fundamentals will be retained and be built upon later when springtime returns.
There is no objective measuring standard (i.e. metric) out there to categorize two or more technologies with regard to "what is BETTER?"
What do I mean by that?
If I have a lightbulb in my left hand and a heavy duty flashlight on the other... well we know what metric we will be using for brightness- the Lumen. Now we have a common language for actions like categorization, sorting, differentiation and overall comparison.
However.... with regards to "technology"-ness this is non-existent. If a Chimpanzee uses a stick for crude purposes on the one hand, and on the other we have something like the International Space Station.... we have no common language for aforementioned actions.
This means that technology is shackled by being value-laden and by consequence forever being subject/slave to our whims and desires. And so any pronouncement (however well meaning, as I see you striving here to be) that the Sine-Wave is Oscillating upward... well now!
It really is only as good as the weakest link, which happens to be Humanity's Essential characteristics (i.e. subconscious drives, tendencies, habits, etc). The Conscious world of belief formation, argument, philosophy, etc.... are not the final arbiters here of Value.
It will be said weakest link that determines our fate. So all that needs to happen is straightforward: The Ecumene (i.e. sum total of Civilizations, Hybrid societies and Hunter-gatherers on the planet) needs to be shattered with a Trauma event large enough to violate all three simultaneously in a meaningful capacity. (Enter Darkness our old friend i.e. Nuclear War).
Once that happens, we get a paradigm shift. It's no longer a sloping upward sine wave; but rather one which *seemed that way*, but all along it was a negative slope which culminated in aforementioned Crippling and Traumatic Ecumene Devouring events.
tl;dr version: My friend, Technology is only as good as the "final outcome" for Humanity-proper with regards to its Essential traits; which if violated will make technology an Iron Prison/Coffin of no return for the entire species; rather than its eventual Springtime saviour.
What I have said is common knowledge in Philosophy of Science circles. Unlike things such as Time, Distance and Mass that are "fundamental" and independent (for the sake of argument we will Assume this is the case), Complex variables like "Brightness" are dependant on the interplay of the fundamental three.
But now bring in things that are one step more Complex (and "technology"-ness would fall in that category) and you cannot help but be Value-laden. Unless of course you want to go the route the Positivists and their successors took.... which ended with the rejection of Epistemology and Ontology as meaningful fields to begin with.
I found Jim Penman's Biohistory (book: https://amzn.to/40d74vH) an interesting epigenetics-based causal mechanism for the long cycles of Sima Qian as well as shorter term fluctuations. He also produced a series of four short videos explaining the concept here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4-Od8cq5Gk). I haven't seen much more from him lately.
Sadly, even those who know the history are going to repeat it, just with better program notes.
We can go a step further and say that what is upon us is not "Civilizational Collapse" per se, but rather the first time in Human History where the tier above "Civilization" (i.e. Ecumene) is at stake.
Even the Bronze Age Collapse will pale in comparison to what comes next. Behaviours and Tendencies taken for granted will be shifted (sort of akin to how rivers and water bodies shift after massive earthquakes). The "Human Being" as such will come to an End.
Meat consumption and Standard of Living are definitely linked; but after the coming Dark Age in the hellholes of CONUS, Europa, etc. they will be ripped apart; since the bulk of "New Meat Consumption" will be Human (especially those who escaped the initial Radiation poisoning).
If anything, it's good that the housekeepers, futurists and whatnot are Optimistic. They will be easy pickings for the New Predatory Species prowling through the Urban Wastes all decked out in pre-Apocalypse Gear. Bone Density, Blood Cell count, etc will all rapidly increase once the initial "humps" (i.e. Protein poisoning and whatnot) are breached. And so in a roundabout way:
The Steven Pinkers of the world (always putting out "success porn" out there on how great everything is Standard of Living wise) will end up becoming correct. It's just that it will happen to "Post-Humans" after some 2 billion are slaughtered, hundreds of millions more Devoured AND many hundred million more get their Nervous System Stapled and become Genetic Slaves.
The ones who remain (i.e. the Post-Human Predatory Species) will NO DOUBT have a Standard of Living far greater than anything we peons/proles possess today; but it will come at aforementioned costs. As always, nothing really comes free: The PRICE is paid upfront.
Interestingly, 80 years is also the average lifetime of a world reserve currency according to that one graph I see repeatedly in the reactionnary internets.
To cite Strauss/Howe Generations Theory as one example, do they not apply it to one "civilization" or, more particularly, one nation at a time? I mention this because it is by no means clear to me that what the civilization of the west, if taken as a quasi-national entity, is facing for its Fourth Turning is the same thing that, say, China, the Global South, Eurasia, or however else you might designate these cultures/national entities is facing. I haven't even checked to see whether they might fit on the same S/H generational timeline that the West is. Are they in their own Fourth Turnings or not?
WWII synchronized the Strauss/Howe cycle for most of the world. Certainly for Europe and China. I don't know what the situation in the Muslim world or in Africa is.
If the model were to be applied to said non-Western Civilizations; I would argue that the timelines are definitely non-overlapping.
China and the Sinic world in general for instance had their "Fourth turning" around the 1930s to 50s (i.e. with the Japanese invasion, genocide and the ensuing Chinese Civil War P2).
The Muslim world had theirs in the 1910s to 1920s with the collapse of the Caliphate. And then again in the early 2000s to 2010s with the looting of the Holy lands.
For the Indic world, the turning would be the 1950s to 70s with the crises brought about via partition and the ensuing civil strife, famines, mass murder, etc.
Assuming that the Five etymological rivers of Language (i.e. Latin, Greek, Arabic, Chinese and Sanskrit) correspond broadly speaking to the bulk of humans living in Civilizations (the rest living in Hybrid societies and neo-Hunter-gatherer and/or neo-forager lifestyles); the above would roughly cover the "fourth turnings" of all major extant civilizations, at least in my view.
I'd venture a compromise. I think in terms of economic opportunity, access to resources, and availability of information there has never been a better time to be alive. Unfortunately, there are also more ways than ever to squander these resources and opportunities and lose our humanity. It's a giant character test, and most people fail.
I think you're a bit rough on Peter Brown and the Late Antiquity paradigm. You mention his nameless epigones who may have oversimplified the theory, but overall his emphasis on cultural continuity was nuanced and based on evidence. It's clear that there was a late Roman world from Constantine to the coming of Islam that was neither "classical" nor a "dark age", notwithstanding precipitous economic decline, of which Brown was well aware.
Yah, that's fair - Brown was definitely not a hack, he was a consummate pro. If he hadn't been he'd have failed to overturn the paradigm. That said, I don't think at the time he wrote that the evidence of the economic decline was nearly so great as what we have today -- you can verify this by looking at papers written around his time and ours.
As far as Late Antiquity, I personally am persuaded of the Pirenne thesis of the real cause of the Dark Age. But that's a topic for another day!
Ah,soi don't have to comment this. The new book Mohammed and Charlemagne revisited, updates Pirenne with archeological evidence confirming him: the Younger Fill.
There was definitely a collapse in the third century. But the 6th century was a time of recovery and growth in much of the west (excepting Italy, which was destroyed by Justinian's wars of conquest). Look at the fine work of he Book of Kells in Ireland at that time. It ended when trade ended when Mohammed's followers ended it.
What's missing here is globalization/immigration. When Europe collapsed post WWII, the US was able to build it back up. Europeans were able to immigrate to US.
No such thing existed during Roman Times.
The Circulation of the Elites is also a direct response/counter to this:
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.”
what's happening now transcends "civilizational collapse". A 3,000 year-old Tribe whose ultimate purpose is universal death is now in near-universal power.
One nitpick I have on the endlessly parrotted life expectancy schtick, that perhaps you or someone else can shed light on, is that in the Psalms we read that "the life of a man is but 70 years, or 80 for those who are strong".
This tells us that the Psalmist, living sometime close to the Davidic Kingdom era in the Middle East, lived in a culture where at least male life expectancy was 70 years on average. 80 if you're healthy and strong. Even assuming calendar variations, we're looking at LE of 60 to 90 years roughly. A far cry from 25. So what gives? Shameless propaganda?
I felt if I didn't mention the life expectancy, people would say I was being unfair to their argument, so I included it. It shows up everywhere in arguments about improvement in humanity. But it's not really true, as the others have said.
I am rather glad you addressed it, for a number of reasons, this being one of them. But I found the evidence of quality of life variations you presented a much more compelling basis for an argument, and one I hadn't heard before. Based on what youve presented here it looks like even in years of plenty, post-roman zenith, it mostly meant plenty of bread and veggies. Is there any data on other animal products consumed, such as cheese and eggs and butter?
Good question. I haven't seen info on cheese, eggs, and butter consumption post-fall. There was a paper in the literature which had the likely diet during the height of the Empire, and they argued that the Roman diet was comparable in nutrition to the diet of people about a thousands years later, but it didn't discuss the dark ages in between.
So it is a bit of a disingenuous claim about life expectancy then. Sure, it is the actual average, but there's quite a distinction between "high infant mortality" and "people generally died young."
There is also Glubb's more amateur-based cycle, plus Parkinson's (of the Law's fame) modification of Aristotle.
Regardless of the mechanism or timing of the theory of collapse, all agree (usually tacitly) that even though many know a collapse is coming, nobody is able to stop it.
It certainly feels that way.
By the way, it's an honor to count you as a reader. I've read your blog for quite some time now and own your book. I don't know how I missed the fact you have a Substack, but I've added you to the Recommendations.
I even more delighted to have discovered your writings. Always look forward to them.
@Alex - if you have not read Glubb, I found a pdf here.
http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
Like Mr. Briggs (I read you also sir), Glubb's essay came to mind in reading this.
Thanks for this link! It's a great essay. When I read it I realized I must have read it years ago, let it subtly influence my views...and then forgotten I had read it. Glubb is great.
Thank you, I've wanted to read this since reading Immoderate Greatness.
Excellent article, thanks!
Georgetown professor Carroll Quigley also had a theory of historical cycles, which he held were driven by the nature of institutions to switch their purpose from performing a role in society to perpetuating their own existence at the expense of the population, thus bringing about their own demise.
I suspect both progressive Whig history and cyclical reactionary history are half-truths. History is clearly not a monotonic improvement in the human condition. But at the same time, it certainly doesn't repeat itself perfectly, and when one takes the really long view there is good reason to infer that, overall, things do tend to advance over time.
So for example, while much Roman literature was lost, along with many of their engineering techniques, we certainly didn't lose literacy entirely, nor forget how to smelt iron or create steel.
Applying the same lens to the natural world, while there are many mass extinctions, the overall trend is towards increasing encephalization and rising metabolic energy density.
The most accurate picture may be a superposition of the two - a rising curve, with a sine function oscillating on top of it. Of course, the amplitude of the sine wave can be quite significant, to the point of dominating historical evolution over generational timescales.
So, while we may well be looking at an immanent collapse and dark age, I doubt we'll lose firearms, electricity, electronics, or telecommunications. Those capabilities will certainly be degraded, perhaps even falling out of general use and becoming the province of elites or isolated monastic communities, but the fundamentals will be retained and be built upon later when springtime returns.
There is no objective measuring standard (i.e. metric) out there to categorize two or more technologies with regard to "what is BETTER?"
What do I mean by that?
If I have a lightbulb in my left hand and a heavy duty flashlight on the other... well we know what metric we will be using for brightness- the Lumen. Now we have a common language for actions like categorization, sorting, differentiation and overall comparison.
However.... with regards to "technology"-ness this is non-existent. If a Chimpanzee uses a stick for crude purposes on the one hand, and on the other we have something like the International Space Station.... we have no common language for aforementioned actions.
This means that technology is shackled by being value-laden and by consequence forever being subject/slave to our whims and desires. And so any pronouncement (however well meaning, as I see you striving here to be) that the Sine-Wave is Oscillating upward... well now!
It really is only as good as the weakest link, which happens to be Humanity's Essential characteristics (i.e. subconscious drives, tendencies, habits, etc). The Conscious world of belief formation, argument, philosophy, etc.... are not the final arbiters here of Value.
It will be said weakest link that determines our fate. So all that needs to happen is straightforward: The Ecumene (i.e. sum total of Civilizations, Hybrid societies and Hunter-gatherers on the planet) needs to be shattered with a Trauma event large enough to violate all three simultaneously in a meaningful capacity. (Enter Darkness our old friend i.e. Nuclear War).
Once that happens, we get a paradigm shift. It's no longer a sloping upward sine wave; but rather one which *seemed that way*, but all along it was a negative slope which culminated in aforementioned Crippling and Traumatic Ecumene Devouring events.
tl;dr version: My friend, Technology is only as good as the "final outcome" for Humanity-proper with regards to its Essential traits; which if violated will make technology an Iron Prison/Coffin of no return for the entire species; rather than its eventual Springtime saviour.
You've gone full post-modern subjectivist, never go full post-modern subjectivist.
Except I have not.
What I have said is common knowledge in Philosophy of Science circles. Unlike things such as Time, Distance and Mass that are "fundamental" and independent (for the sake of argument we will Assume this is the case), Complex variables like "Brightness" are dependant on the interplay of the fundamental three.
But now bring in things that are one step more Complex (and "technology"-ness would fall in that category) and you cannot help but be Value-laden. Unless of course you want to go the route the Positivists and their successors took.... which ended with the rejection of Epistemology and Ontology as meaningful fields to begin with.
> What I have said is common knowledge in Philosophy of Science circles.
Only to the extent that philosophy of science is suffering from the same post-modernist affliction as the rest of philosophy.
Not at all. Philosophy of science as it is practiced today is a descendant of the Analytical schools.
What you are talking about (i.e post-modernism) is a bunch of schools that responded to the structuralists, who hail from the Continental schools.
They are not even in the same conversation, expertise and subject matter wise.
This simply shows unfamiliarity and lack of education regarding the overall subject matter.
Very insightful essay, thanks!
I found Jim Penman's Biohistory (book: https://amzn.to/40d74vH) an interesting epigenetics-based causal mechanism for the long cycles of Sima Qian as well as shorter term fluctuations. He also produced a series of four short videos explaining the concept here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4-Od8cq5Gk). I haven't seen much more from him lately.
Sadly, even those who know the history are going to repeat it, just with better program notes.
It's like the weather, or the seasons - one can pay attention, and prepare, but no man can stop them or change them.
We can go a step further and say that what is upon us is not "Civilizational Collapse" per se, but rather the first time in Human History where the tier above "Civilization" (i.e. Ecumene) is at stake.
Even the Bronze Age Collapse will pale in comparison to what comes next. Behaviours and Tendencies taken for granted will be shifted (sort of akin to how rivers and water bodies shift after massive earthquakes). The "Human Being" as such will come to an End.
Meat consumption and Standard of Living are definitely linked; but after the coming Dark Age in the hellholes of CONUS, Europa, etc. they will be ripped apart; since the bulk of "New Meat Consumption" will be Human (especially those who escaped the initial Radiation poisoning).
If anything, it's good that the housekeepers, futurists and whatnot are Optimistic. They will be easy pickings for the New Predatory Species prowling through the Urban Wastes all decked out in pre-Apocalypse Gear. Bone Density, Blood Cell count, etc will all rapidly increase once the initial "humps" (i.e. Protein poisoning and whatnot) are breached. And so in a roundabout way:
The Steven Pinkers of the world (always putting out "success porn" out there on how great everything is Standard of Living wise) will end up becoming correct. It's just that it will happen to "Post-Humans" after some 2 billion are slaughtered, hundreds of millions more Devoured AND many hundred million more get their Nervous System Stapled and become Genetic Slaves.
The ones who remain (i.e. the Post-Human Predatory Species) will NO DOUBT have a Standard of Living far greater than anything we peons/proles possess today; but it will come at aforementioned costs. As always, nothing really comes free: The PRICE is paid upfront.
Interestingly, 80 years is also the average lifetime of a world reserve currency according to that one graph I see repeatedly in the reactionnary internets.
To cite Strauss/Howe Generations Theory as one example, do they not apply it to one "civilization" or, more particularly, one nation at a time? I mention this because it is by no means clear to me that what the civilization of the west, if taken as a quasi-national entity, is facing for its Fourth Turning is the same thing that, say, China, the Global South, Eurasia, or however else you might designate these cultures/national entities is facing. I haven't even checked to see whether they might fit on the same S/H generational timeline that the West is. Are they in their own Fourth Turnings or not?
WWII synchronized the Strauss/Howe cycle for most of the world. Certainly for Europe and China. I don't know what the situation in the Muslim world or in Africa is.
If the model were to be applied to said non-Western Civilizations; I would argue that the timelines are definitely non-overlapping.
China and the Sinic world in general for instance had their "Fourth turning" around the 1930s to 50s (i.e. with the Japanese invasion, genocide and the ensuing Chinese Civil War P2).
The Muslim world had theirs in the 1910s to 1920s with the collapse of the Caliphate. And then again in the early 2000s to 2010s with the looting of the Holy lands.
For the Indic world, the turning would be the 1950s to 70s with the crises brought about via partition and the ensuing civil strife, famines, mass murder, etc.
Assuming that the Five etymological rivers of Language (i.e. Latin, Greek, Arabic, Chinese and Sanskrit) correspond broadly speaking to the bulk of humans living in Civilizations (the rest living in Hybrid societies and neo-Hunter-gatherer and/or neo-forager lifestyles); the above would roughly cover the "fourth turnings" of all major extant civilizations, at least in my view.
I'd venture a compromise. I think in terms of economic opportunity, access to resources, and availability of information there has never been a better time to be alive. Unfortunately, there are also more ways than ever to squander these resources and opportunities and lose our humanity. It's a giant character test, and most people fail.
One minor edit: "research extraction" should clearly be "resource extraction".
I think you're a bit rough on Peter Brown and the Late Antiquity paradigm. You mention his nameless epigones who may have oversimplified the theory, but overall his emphasis on cultural continuity was nuanced and based on evidence. It's clear that there was a late Roman world from Constantine to the coming of Islam that was neither "classical" nor a "dark age", notwithstanding precipitous economic decline, of which Brown was well aware.
Yah, that's fair - Brown was definitely not a hack, he was a consummate pro. If he hadn't been he'd have failed to overturn the paradigm. That said, I don't think at the time he wrote that the evidence of the economic decline was nearly so great as what we have today -- you can verify this by looking at papers written around his time and ours.
As far as Late Antiquity, I personally am persuaded of the Pirenne thesis of the real cause of the Dark Age. But that's a topic for another day!
Ah,soi don't have to comment this. The new book Mohammed and Charlemagne revisited, updates Pirenne with archeological evidence confirming him: the Younger Fill.
There was definitely a collapse in the third century. But the 6th century was a time of recovery and growth in much of the west (excepting Italy, which was destroyed by Justinian's wars of conquest). Look at the fine work of he Book of Kells in Ireland at that time. It ended when trade ended when Mohammed's followers ended it.
That's such a good book! You're one of the few people I know who has read it.
What's missing here is globalization/immigration. When Europe collapsed post WWII, the US was able to build it back up. Europeans were able to immigrate to US.
No such thing existed during Roman Times.
The Circulation of the Elites is also a direct response/counter to this:
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.”
Great text, congratulations. Very useful references. All utopians (communists, feminists, etc.), believers of moral progress should read it. There is no superior moral. Sowell is right: man is not perfectible, and we should be happy if there is order at all, whatever social order. I am working on the media ecology and its dissonance with the political form "liberal democracy". See: https://www.amazon.com.mx/sociales-emociones-democracia-Perspectivas-McLuhan-ebook/dp/B0CRR34GG5/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_es_MX=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=3E8A27A7XW7H6&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5R4XivRtxcM1QkEUPB_TAKc9uoiPJ5DgtAzE4xcLRDeVnCw5n110IJaFF7Vh7MVw38PERAt2GP8y9qhesGw9Tw.cRSQ5_m_c8kTrvb6wCYSiwZSDf5eWj7yUu7G8MGPP8w&dib_tag=se&keywords=Alberto+Carrillo+Navarro&qid=1721427916&sprefix=alberto+carrillo+navarro%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-2
what's happening now transcends "civilizational collapse". A 3,000 year-old Tribe whose ultimate purpose is universal death is now in near-universal power.
Wow, you're an idiot.
The Dajjal will come from the Jews; so this is to be expected.
Great article as usual, Alex.
One nitpick I have on the endlessly parrotted life expectancy schtick, that perhaps you or someone else can shed light on, is that in the Psalms we read that "the life of a man is but 70 years, or 80 for those who are strong".
This tells us that the Psalmist, living sometime close to the Davidic Kingdom era in the Middle East, lived in a culture where at least male life expectancy was 70 years on average. 80 if you're healthy and strong. Even assuming calendar variations, we're looking at LE of 60 to 90 years roughly. A far cry from 25. So what gives? Shameless propaganda?
I felt if I didn't mention the life expectancy, people would say I was being unfair to their argument, so I included it. It shows up everywhere in arguments about improvement in humanity. But it's not really true, as the others have said.
I am rather glad you addressed it, for a number of reasons, this being one of them. But I found the evidence of quality of life variations you presented a much more compelling basis for an argument, and one I hadn't heard before. Based on what youve presented here it looks like even in years of plenty, post-roman zenith, it mostly meant plenty of bread and veggies. Is there any data on other animal products consumed, such as cheese and eggs and butter?
Good question. I haven't seen info on cheese, eggs, and butter consumption post-fall. There was a paper in the literature which had the likely diet during the height of the Empire, and they argued that the Roman diet was comparable in nutrition to the diet of people about a thousands years later, but it didn't discuss the dark ages in between.
Many died as infants or in early childhood. Those who survived lived to about 70.
So it is a bit of a disingenuous claim about life expectancy then. Sure, it is the actual average, but there's quite a distinction between "high infant mortality" and "people generally died young."
Basically yes. This is in fact one of my pet peeves.
life expectancy at age 5 urgently needs to replace life expectancy at birth.
To be fair, it's not just high infant morality. It's also many kids dying of infectious diseases before they reach 16.
That does make it a bit less duplicitous, but still deserves a footnote on the graphs.
'Barbarism' is severely under-rated by decadent over-educated civilised types.
If any thing barbarism tends to be overrated and romanticized by decadent civilized types.
Quoting InfoGalactic instead of Wiki***** immediately raised my level of respect.
I believe Alex and Vox Day are known to each other...
Great to see you here, Bill! Vox and I have known each other for quite some time, yes.