Could Modern Civilization Fall?

[Sokar]

This is a question that I have often thought about, as a student of history my knowledge is replete with examples of the 'crumbling' of various civilizations and the periods of destruction and anarchy that often followed. Now granted this crumbling was often due to a mix of internal problems and external pressures as the areas of 'civilization' as a term were often geographically small as compared to the 'uncivilized' portions of the world.

My question is this , could our modern society, replete with all of its govenmental institutions, technology and social structures suffer a similar fate? Or, does that very same structure insure a continious period of unbroken civilization from now through the future. Have we conqured the factors that led to these periods of disorganization?

[Darth Fanboy]

If it crumbles it will take a long time unless there is some kind of catalyst.

[weemadando]

It could go any day now, buty its not likely too.

All of the civilzations that "fell" really just changed. Kind of like USSR -> CIS. Its all still there, just a but different.

[Keevan_Colton]

Fall....no....
Get pushed....
*grins evilly and laughs maniaclly*

[Shinova]

If your talking collapse of the Roman empire with the global population dropping massively, it'd take a lot to bring down today's civilization, like a global nuclear war or something like that.

[weemadando]

If your talking collapse of the Roman empire with the global population dropping massively, it'd take a lot to bring down today's civilization, like a global nuclear war or something like that.

What the fuck are you talking about?

The global population didn't drop massively at the fall of the Roman Empire in the mid 5th century CE. The Roman Empire ceased to be after collapsing from within. Yes there were the barbarian hordes etc, but most of these didn't kill people off, they established trade with them...

Have you been reading the "malaria caused the collapse of the Roman Empire theory"?

[Vympel]

A lot of people seem to think that the Western Roman Empire fell in a series of great Barbarian cavalry charges or something ... the Western Empire really just ... ceased to be. It went out with a whimper, not a bang. It became something else.

[Gil Hamilton]

Maybe, I'm not sure really. I'm sure it's possible and if and when it happens we won't even see it coming.

[Frank Hipper]

If your talking collapse of the Roman empire with the global population dropping massively, it'd take a lot to bring down today's civilization, like a global nuclear war or something like that.

What the fuck are you talking about?

The global population didn't drop massively at the fall of the Roman Empire in the mid 5th century CE. The Roman Empire ceased to be after collapsing from within. Yes there were the barbarian hordes etc, but most of these didn't kill people off, they established trade with them...

Have you been reading the "malaria caused the collapse of the Roman Empire theory"?

Gotta agree with W. there. In a way, Rome never really fell at all. Just transformed and fragmented.
Now, Teotihuacan fell. Nobody knows what language they spoke, where they went after the city was abandoned, or how it happened. Or even what happened, other than sometime around 750 C.E. the city was burned and abandoned.
On topic, however, modern global civilization could fragment and morph into something else, but I think it would take a catyclysm of stupendous proportions to be wiped out.

[BenRG]

I agree that if western civilisation were to fall, it would be with a whimper (at least in terms of a single high-SFX disaster). The most likely catalyst would be disease or total economic collapse. There would be wars, but they would be tiny brushfire things as the few surviving governmental authorities try to keep power against the increasing tide of anarchy.

However, the threat of large-scale terrorism and the nuclear bomb have put in place one major factor that might lead to the end of the world, as we know it. People originally grouped together into villiages, towns and, ultimately, cities for the mutual protection that this offered. One heavily-fortified city was once a very difficult prospect for any would-be conquerer. It would require a siege, investing thousands of troops for a period of possibly years to take a single strategic strongpoint. These days, a city is just a convenient way of grouping all your enemies into a single location that you can erase easily with a medium- to high-yield nuke.

People are subconsciously aware of this threat, even if they can't consciously articulate it. So, inevetably, the population will disperse when improvement in communications technology make it possible to run a modern economy almost entirely by cyberpresence. Then a banking scandal (Enron, anyone? How about WorldCom? Or Citygroup?) implodes the whole interlinked inter-dependent global economy, with its associated technological and communications infrastructre. The dispersed population suddenly finds that it has to start again from scratch.

Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? I would say 'no', at least not in a catestrophic civilisation-ending manner. However, it might destabilise the old way of doing things enough so that we have to seriously reconsider how we want to run our planet.

[HemlockGrey]

It can. And will.

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

[Darth Fanboy]

Just life Firefly. Hahaha

(j/k)

[jaeger115]

I agree that if western civilisation were to fall, it would be with a whimper (at least in terms of a single high-SFX disaster). The most likely catalyst would be disease or total economic collapse. There would be wars, but they would be tiny brushfire things as the few surviving governmental authorities try to keep power against the increasing tide of anarchy.

However, the threat of large-scale terrorism and the nuclear bomb have put in place one major factor that might lead to the end of the world, as we know it. People originally grouped together into villiages, towns and, ultimately, cities for the mutual protection that this offered. One heavily-fortified city was once a very difficult prospect for any would-be conquerer. It would require a siege, investing thousands of troops for a period of possibly years to take a single strategic strongpoint. These days, a city is just a convenient way of grouping all your enemies into a single location that you can erase easily with a medium- to high-yield nuke.

People are subconsciously aware of this threat, even if they can't consciously articulate it. So, inevetably, the population will disperse when improvement in communications technology make it possible to run a modern economy almost entirely by cyberpresence. Then a banking scandal (Enron, anyone? How about WorldCom? Or Citygroup?) implodes the whole interlinked inter-dependent global economy, with its associated technological and communications infrastructre. The dispersed population suddenly finds that it has to start again from scratch.

Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? I would say 'no', at least not in a catestrophic civilisation-ending manner. However, it might destabilise the old way of doing things enough so that we have to seriously reconsider how we want to run our planet.

I doubt it will happen. Have you seen a satellite photo of the Earth at night? The lights tend to flock around water. Near water, irrigation is better, and it helps balance the climate.

[pellaeons_scion]

Fall? Not in the traditional sense. No empire is going to rise and demolish the other nation-states. And the chances of a massive popular uprising against the established institutions around the world are very slim.

I would say we are falling though, slowly towards a corporate form of feudallism. More and more Corps dictate what we think, buy, watch etc. Even the govts fall into line to their whims. The corps play off one another, get rich whilst people die, and establish small fiefdoms in the thrid world countries to exploit their resources.

Democracy is dead, Communism is Dead, even Fascism is dead. The idea of Empire is gone, and the idea of Free Trade has created this monster that now is slowly controlling our lives. They dont need armies, or soldiers. They have lawyers, and money, and control of the media.

[Perinquus]

I think civilization is already falling. I think it has been for some time. As a student of history, I see several of the signs, and it fills me with a sense of anxiety and melancholy. Today, when we think of "civilization", it is usual to think in terms of Western civilization - technology, the scientific method, industry, progress, and a whole raft of idea bequeathed to the world by the West. As a man of European (i.e. Western) descent myself, I can't help but take a certain pride in the achievements of the Western world. And though I like to think I am largely above racist sentiment, I cannot help but feel a certain sadness at what I truly think is the coming eclipse of Western civilization. It would grieve me less if I thought the world were changing into something better, but with the rise of radical Islam, and the seeming dearth of any other strong ideological trends, I do look at the futrue with a certain apprehension.

It is highly popular in some circles these days to be intensely critical of Western civilization, far more so than of any other culture. Western civilization is condemned for things that others are not. It is judged by a different, and much harsher standard. Readers will not find this observation a surprise, I think. Just exactly why this is so, however, is a little harder to understand. It is usually an oversimplification to lay the blame for the condition of a society on a single event, and usually presumptuous for an individual to claim to have found the cause for anything so complex. Yet I think that I have identified a cause. I believe it to be a very significant one. I believe that between the years 1914 and 1918, Western Civilization cut its own throat. I think it is still in the process of bleeding to death. What remains to be seen is whether or not the wound can be closed before it is too late.

This is all the more tragic an event, because there are, in hindsight, so very many ways in which it might have been avoided. It is water over the dam, however, and we are left in the aftermath. It might not be obvious to most, how such a remote and distant event as the First World War could lie at the root of so much of the uncertainty, moral ambiguity, and declining values that we face today, but I think it does. I also think that we are indeed declining in a great many ways. To be sure, we have advanced in others. The world (the Western world at least) is certainly less unjust to women and minorities than it was in the years before the Great War. White people are less smugly arrogant and sure of their superiority over the rest of humanity. These are certainly improvements. And yet in many other ways, things seem worse. It seems as though there are much fewer things in life that one can be sure of. Many people are less comfortable with feelings like patriotism, nationalism, and pride in their history than they used to be. Many long-held beliefs have fallen into disfavor, and indeed, it does seem as though there are fewer things than one can really be sure of. Life seems a lot more complicated.

I believe that the terrible carnage of the so-called "War to End All Wars" dealt a tremendous blow to the prevailing attitudes, convictions, beliefs, and values of Western Civilization. It resulted in a fundamental change in our perspective. Things were never the same again. In his great novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque said that his intention was simply: "to tell the story of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped the shells, were destroyed by the war." Probably no war of the twentieth century was more horrifying and shattering for the soldiers to endure. The trenches were a hell on earth. The sheer, overwhelming trauma of this caused many who lived through it to change many of their ideas, discard many long-cherished values and ideals, and question many old assumptions. Things have never been quite the same since.

In the introduction to his book Citizen Soldiers, the historian Stephen Ambrose compared American soldiers who fought in the Civil War, with those of the Second World War (he was actually citing America's leading Civil War scholar, James M. McPherson). He noted that in their letters home, the men of the Civil War spoke of cause and country, while the GIs seldom, if ever, did so. The soldiers of World War Two, when asked what they fought for, would almost invariably reply that it was for their buddies, the men in their squad. Ambrose notes that unit cohesion was probably just as important for Billy Yank and Johnny Reb as it was to any dogface, and cause and country were probably as important to the GIs as they were to Civil War troops. What accounted for the difference in what they spoke of, however, was the Great War. The GIs still lived in its shadow, as we do today. The terrible, senseless slaughter of the Western Front made patriotic words sound hollow and empty after all, wasn't it jingoism and nationalism of that sort that had helped bring the war about. Who can forget the images of smiling, eager young men marching off to war in August of 1914, confidently expecting to return home by Christmas to celebrate their victory? Their confidence proved tragically misplaced. Indeed, it was so badly misplaced that that kind of old-fashioned, patriotic bombast has made people distinctly uncomfortable, if not actually embarrassed, ever since.

I think this signifies a fundamental shift in attitudes, not just a change in the language we are comfortable using. World War One broke the world apart and remade it. There is no question that this is true in a political sense. What many don't realize is that it is true in a cultural sense as well. Is it any coincidence that so many of the basic assumptions and attitudes comfortably held by most people have been changing since 1918. Today, new theories hold sway on subjects like child-rearing and discipline, crime and punishment (or rehabilitation as some prefer), international relations, and so forth. Religion has been declining in the West, and this has reached such a point that many now refer to western Europe as a post-Christian society. Sexual mores have loosened dramatically. Revisionists are at work rewriting history. Many cherished heroes of yesteryear are now viewed in a different, and sometimes very uncomplimentary light. It would be impossible for me to list, in this short space, all the countless ways in which our attitudes and ideals have changed.

In this new era of moral uncertainty, people have been searching for new values and ideals to replace ones now seen as old-fashioned or outmoded. This has led many people to adopt and espouse sometimes radical new theories, often with unfortunate results, for one should not lightly cast aside the accumulated wisdom and practice of generation for untried new ways.

Does this mean I think we would be better off returning to the kind of value system that existed in Western society before the Great War? I am not sure I would go so far as to say that, even if it were possible. Do I think that society today would be healthier if World War One had never been fought? In many ways, yes. I think that we have become, to a certain extent, morally rudderless and being adrift is not usually a good thing. I think in morally uncertain climate of today, we are letting many of the greater aspects of Western society and culture slip away.

But I think we may be closer to collapse than many think, though I think it will be a collapse much like that of the Roman Empire in the West - a gradual breakup and transformation into something different; so gradual that the people who lived through it were not even aware just what was really happening. As final food for thought, I leave you the following essay, written by an Englishman, Robert Harris, just after the September 11th atrocity.

In an essay published last year, the author Tom Wolfe, with characteristic humility, summed up how he thought a future historian would one day write about America as it approached the year 2000: "American superiority in all matters of science, economics, industry, politics, business, medicine, engineering, social life, social justice and, of course, the military was total and indisputable. Even Europeans suffering the pangs of wounded chauvinism looked on with awe at the brilliant example the United States had set for the world as the third millennium began."

This is fine, and mostly true, but, even as I read it a year ago, I couldn't help feeling that a Roman could have written almost exactly the same at the start of the first millennium.

It would surely have seemed equally inconceivable to a wealthy homo novus - let us call him Lupus - lounging in his villa on the Bay of Naples, that the Roman imperium would falter. After all, Latin was the universal language. The great military threat from the east - the Parthian empire - had faded. Rome controlled the global economy. Roman society, to the extent that it was possible for an ambitious slave to see his children become full citizens, was open to talented outsiders. Where was there a cloud on the horizon? Lupus could have had absolute confidence that history had come to an end.

Well, if Wolfe's words seemed slightly hubristic even back in 2000, how much more so do they now, in the aftermath of the nemesis that has been visited on Washington and New York? We have been reminded, in the most horrible and graphic way, that no civilization is ever safe, that history doesn't end, that claims of "superiority in all matters" are illusory, and that all empires - perhaps even this one - must eventually pass away.
Of course, thank God, America is not going to collapse overnight, simply because two buildings, however symbolic, have been attacked. The Americans, like the Romans, are the world's most ingenious, resourceful and - when the chips are down - most disciplined people. They will still, I hope, be the dominant power on earth when I die.

Who knows: the American imperium may even see out my children's lifetimes as well. But for the first time since the end of the Cold War, one has the uneasy feeling that the future is not as settled and monolithic as it once appeared, that the American empire may one day go the way of the Roman.

It is, for a start, very hard for rational men and women, be they Romans or Americans, to combat the irrational. And the Romans in the first century, for all their superstitions, could be every bit as rational as we like to think we are.

Pliny the Elder, for example, admiral of the Roman fleet and the empire's greatest encyclopaedist, dismissed the notion of an afterlife: "Neither body nor mind has any more sensation after death than it had before birth." His theological position was almost humanistic: "God," he said, "is man helping man."

He did not realise, even as he was writing (this was 40 years after the death of Christ) that a cult religion from the east was beginning to take hold among the poor, which explicitly stated that there was an afterlife - one so glorious that martyrdom was a fate to be welcomed. Yet it was the spread of Christianity, more than anything else, that began to undermine the foundations of the Roman state.

How odd it is that America, of all countries - a nation that believes overwhelmingly in a supreme being, and which, to a sceptical European, often seems terrifyingly literal in its Christianity - should be surprised to find itself rocked by a handful of men who regard martyrdom as a sublime consummation.

The Romans' eventual solution - in the end, as we know, it was to prove no solution - was to adopt Christianity themselves. The Americans are hardly likely to do that with Islamic fundamentalism.
Instead, they will try to defeat the irrational by rational means - rationality, in the third millennium, finding its natural expression via the Tomahawk cruise missile, the B1 stealth bomber and the Apache attack helicopter. But whether these will prove any more successful than the mass crucifixions and pogroms of ancient Rome is doubtful.

In military terms, America, like Rome, certainly enjoys a massive technological superiority over its enemies - but with one crucial difference. Unlike the Romans, America - being a far more civilised society - is reluctant to take casualties.

Thus we live in an age in which an American pilot who gets lost over his target - as one did in Bosnia, when Nato finally took action - who ditches his plane and has to be rescued at great risk to his comrades, is regarded not as an embarrassing fool to be quietly cashiered, but as a national hero to be greeted by the president. How is such a military mindset going to cope with an enemy who is not only ready and willing but eager to die?
America has famously met and overcome such fanatics before. But the Japanese kamikaze pilots in 1945 were tools of a conventional military machine, controlled by a state: eventually, when ordered to do so, Japanese soldiers surrendered.

The nightmare that the West now faces is far more insidious and multi-headed. Every ton of bombs dropped on the fundamentalists' bases, and on the people of the states that harbour them, is likely to create only more martyrs, more fanatics, more terrorist atrocities.
In the end, it is the vast global success of the American imperium - its all-pervasiveness - that, like its Roman predecessor, renders it so vulnerable. Can it really hope to be everywhere at once?

Can it really prop up Israel, contain Iraq, appease Iran, intimidate Libya, bomb the Taliban back into the Stone Age (admittedly, by the look of them, not too great a distance), police the Balkans, deter the Chinese from invading Taiwan, build a space shield to ward off rogue Russian missiles, meet its obligations to South Korea, keep India and Pakistan from brawling with atomic bombs, cut off the drug traffic from Latin America, create fortress-like borders to prevent a repeat of Tuesday's horrors - can it do all this, and at the same time ward off recession and remain the motor of the world economy? As Enoch Powell used to say: one has only to pose the question to know the answer.

If this sounds anti-American, it isn't meant to be. I sincerely hope that America can manage it all. I don't want to see it retreat. I feel like the ancient Briton in the famous painting of the last Roman galley leaving England: I lie on the shore and stretch out my hand to a country that, for all its faults, remains the great protector of civilisation.

But the dust-covered streets of Manhattan, and the images of men and women, coated in ash, groping and gasping in the darkness, created an irresistible reminder of that other great symbol of Rome's eventual destruction: Pompeii.

President Bush said on Tuesday night that America wouldn't topple, even if its skyscrapers did. In the short term, thankfully, that is true. But the collapse of the World Trade Centre surely marks the end of the Antonine Age of American hegemony and the start of darker and more uncertain times.

Pliny (who died in the eruption that wiped out Pompeii) was perhaps a wiser man than Wolfe, when he observed in his Natural History that "this alone is certain, namely that there is no such thing as certainty, and that nothing is more wretched and conceited than man".

[Frank Hipper]

I believe that between the years 1914 and 1918, Western Civilization cut its own throat. I think it is still in the process of bleeding to death. What remains to be seen is whether or not the wound can be closed before it is too late.

Forgive me for not reading the rest of your post, but thank you for saying that.
There was a thread at SB a while ago where some people actually sounded proud of the fact that they knew little or nothing of the most influential event of the 20th century.

[Zaia]

I like the story of Easter Island. Do you know it?

For a long time I believed it was a miniature version of what we were going to do to ourselves, but there was one bit of information I had that was incorrect.

See, this is how I knew the story: people existed, procreated, had jobs, lived happily, greedily consumed more natural resources than they should have, realized it a bit too late, and over a fairly short amount of time, were forced into cannibalism to stay alive and ultimately perished. Too many of their plants were used, so the animals died off, having nothing to eat, and then the people of Easter Island died off too, having no food themselves and no way to escape (E.I. is remarkably very, very far away from everything). They prayed to their gods for help, but no help came, and so they toppled some of their great statues in rage and frustration in their last moments as a people.

The part that's incorrect (read: missing, which I later read in 'National Geographic') is that what helped this circumstance along was a large drought; it wasn't solely the civilization's fault that it fell, as would be the case with us. I still think it's eerily close to what will happen in the not-so-distant future, though.

Edit: Tweaks.

[Frank Hipper]

IIRC, in Taoism there's a saying that goes something like, " If it is named, it is mortal". All things in their own time.

[Perinquus]

There is an old story of an Eastern potentate who gathered together all the wisest men of his realm, and asked them if they could devise some statement that would be true and appropriate for all things and in all situations. After much thought, this is what they came up with:

"And this too shall pass away."

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is a question that I have often thought about, as a student of history my knowledge is replete with examples of the 'crumbling' of various civilizations and the periods of destruction and anarchy that often followed. Now granted this crumbling was often due to a mix of internal problems and external pressures as the areas of 'civilization' as a term were often geographically small as compared to the 'uncivilized' portions of the world.

My question is this , could our modern society, replete with all of its govenmental institutions, technology and social structures suffer a similar fate? Or, does that very same structure insure a continious period of unbroken civilization from now through the future. Have we conqured the factors that led to these periods of disorganization?

We have a sufficient combination of internal pressures and external uncivilized regions as to easily bring about the downfall of our civilization. Heck, considering the partial barbarization of some regions, it could even be argued that - splitting Western Civilization into distinct groups - the European portion could be overwhelmed during the course of this century.

We live in very grave times.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I suspect that western civilization is hardly going to die: Even the collapse of Rome did not kill Roman civilization; what we have is a genesis of it.

Likewise I do not think that American power has been eclipsed by recent events; rather, that this is the beginning of our Imperial Age, which is hardly a potentially good thing, but rather that the full extent of our power shall now be exercised.

Western civilization as we understand it was a European creation that has colonized the whole world; when the shackles of direct control were thrown off, various levels of organization were gifted to the barbaricum.

Chaos to the Sub-Sahara, Envy to Islam, and Imitation to the Americas and the Far East. The last Imperial Age has well and truly died; the past fifty years two Great Powers fought over the scraps and one of them has in turn been thrown down.

To the victor the spoils.

When the victor falls? Shall a democratic Asian Rim take our place? Or shall the barbarians have overthrown both of us, and lowness and horror follow, until slightly raised up over the last starting point, we begin to drag ourselves forward again, as we have after each dark age?

Or shall, after Asia's reign, having adopted our customs, the reign of what we might call the barbaricum begin, or a contention of the whole world in our style, suitably evolved, and thus the whole world imitating in large the aspect of classical Greece, of many contending democracies?

There is hope that someday we shall reach that point; but we may fall far first, and at any point, the number of envious peoples in the organization of tribes, or under the tyranny of absolute religion or absolute despots, is still quite sufficient to see to the destruction of all that Western Civilization holds dear.

On the other hand, Western Civilization is no longer merely Europe: But now accounts nearly the whole of the Americas, and much of the Asian Rim, and glorious and numerous India in her melding of Aryan Republics and British tradition.

Our civilization is indeed not invincible, but it is resiliant enough that we have a reasonable chance of surviving the coming trials.

To Europe, though, I warn thee:

The Barbarians are at the gates!

[Vympel]

I think civilization is already falling. I think it has been for some time. As a student of history, I see several of the signs, and it fills me with a sense of anxiety and melancholy. Today, when we think of "civilization", it is usual to think in terms of Western civilization - technology, the scientific method, industry, progress, and a whole raft of idea bequeathed to the world by the West. As a man of European (i.e. Western) descent myself, I can't help but take a certain pride in the achievements of the Western world. And though I like to think I am largely above racist sentiment, I cannot help but feel a certain sadness at what I truly think is the coming eclipse of Western civilization. It would grieve me less if I thought the world were changing into something better, but with the rise of radical Islam, and the seeming dearth of any other strong ideological trends, I do look at the futrue with a certain apprehension.

What does radical Islam have to threaten anyone with? It's backward dogmatic primitive theological nonsense perhaps, or the underdeveloped shitholes where it holds sway?

I believe that between the years 1914 and 1918, Western Civilization cut its own throat. I think it is still in the process of bleeding to death. What remains to be seen is whether or not the wound can be closed before it is too late.

Justify this assertion.

This is all the more tragic an event, because there are, in hindsight, so very many ways in which it might have been avoided. It is water over the dam, however, and we are left in the aftermath. It might not be obvious to most, how such a remote and distant event as the First World War could lie at the root of so much of the uncertainty, moral ambiguity, and declining values that we face today, but I think it does. I also think that we are indeed declining in a great many ways. To be sure, we have advanced in others. The world (the Western world at least) is certainly less unjust to women and minorities than it was in the years before the Great War. White people are less smugly arrogant and sure of their superiority over the rest of humanity. These are certainly improvements. And yet in many other ways, things seem worse. It seems as though there are much fewer things in life that one can be sure of. Many people are less comfortable with feelings like patriotism, nationalism, and pride in their history than they used to be. Many long-held beliefs have fallen into disfavor, and indeed, it does seem as though there are fewer things than one can really be sure of. Life seems a lot more complicated.

I'm sorry but this is just rambling. What are you talking about? Fewer things we can be sure of? Not only is this claim not justified, it also has little bearing on WW1 cutting Western civilizations own throat.

I believe that the terrible carnage of the so-called "War to End All Wars" dealt a tremendous blow to the prevailing attitudes, convictions, beliefs, and values of Western Civilization. It resulted in a fundamental change in our perspective. Things were never the same again. In his great novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque said that his intention was simply: "to tell the story of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped the shells, were destroyed by the war." Probably no war of the twentieth century was more horrifying and shattering for the soldiers to endure. The trenches were a hell on earth. The sheer, overwhelming trauma of this caused many who lived through it to change many of their ideas, discard many long-cherished values and ideals, and question many old assumptions. Things have never been quite the same since.

And this is a BAD thing? I'd hate to burst your bubble, but the blithe, nonchalant, uber-patriotic way those masses of young men went off to war (BERLIN BY CHRISTMAS!) was not to be admired, and I applaud the demise of such moronic national sentiment- though you could argue it's making a comeback.

In the introduction to his book Citizen Soldiers, the historian Stephen Ambrose compared American soldiers who fought in the Civil War, with those of the Second World War (he was actually citing America's leading Civil War scholar, James M. McPherson). He noted that in their letters home, the men of the Civil War spoke of cause and country, while the GIs seldom, if ever, did so. The soldiers of World War Two, when asked what they fought for, would almost invariably reply that it was for their buddies, the men in their squad. Ambrose notes that unit cohesion was probably just as important for Billy Yank and Johnny Reb as it was to any dogface, and cause and country were probably as important to the GIs as they were to Civil War troops. What accounted for the difference in what they spoke of, however, was the Great War. The GIs still lived in its shadow, as we do today. The terrible, senseless slaughter of the Western Front made patriotic words sound hollow and empty after all, wasn't it jingoism and nationalism of that sort that had helped bring the war about. Who can forget the images of smiling, eager young men marching off to war in August of 1914, confidently expecting to return home by Christmas to celebrate their victory? Their confidence proved tragically misplaced. Indeed, it was so badly misplaced that that kind of old-fashioned, patriotic bombast has made people distinctly uncomfortable, if not actually embarrassed, ever since.

Why do you mourn the passing of patriotic bombast. It's what gave us WW1 in the first place, and if we had a dash of it during the Cold War, the USA and Russia *might* just not be here.

Also, I fail to understand how you inextricably link the decline of Western civilization to a decline in foolish misplaced ultra-nationalism and a lack of knowledge of modern war (which is what WW1 was, essentially).

I think this signifies a fundamental shift in attitudes, not just a change in the language we are comfortable using. World War One broke the world apart and remade it. There is no question that this is true in a political sense. What many don't realize is that it is true in a cultural sense as well. Is it any coincidence that so many of the basic assumptions and attitudes comfortably held by most people have been changing since 1918. Today, new theories hold sway on subjects like child-rearing and discipline, crime and punishment (or rehabilitation as some prefer), international relations, and so forth. Religion has been declining in the West, and this has reached such a point that many now refer to western Europe as a post-Christian society. Sexual mores have loosened dramatically. Revisionists are at work rewriting history. Many cherished heroes of yesteryear are now viewed in a different, and sometimes very uncomplimentary light. It would be impossible for me to list, in this short space, all the countless ways in which our attitudes and ideals have changed.

Vague scattergun claims without any supporting evidence. You must justify your assertions that such change in attitudes and ideals are bad. You sound like an old fogey whining about the good old days.

In this new era of moral uncertainty, people have been searching for new values and ideals to replace ones now seen as old-fashioned or outmoded. This has led many people to adopt and espouse sometimes radical new theories, often with unfortunate results, for one should not lightly cast aside the accumulated wisdom and practice of generation for untried new ways.

What does WW1 have to do with changing morals? Identify, if you can, the difference between morals in 1920 and 1950. God you sound like an old man. I'd hate to break it to you, but the older generation has been complaining about the decadence of the younger generation since the beginning of time.

Does this mean I think we would be better off returning to the kind of value system that existed in Western society before the Great War? I am not sure I would go so far as to say that, even if it were possible. Do I think that society today would be healthier if World War One had never been fought? In many ways, yes. I think that we have become, to a certain extent, morally rudderless and being adrift is not usually a good thing. I think in morally uncertain climate of today, we are letting many of the greater aspects of Western society and culture slip away.

The claim that modern Western society has no moral 'rudder' does not justify itself. What 'greater aspects' are lost?

But I think we may be closer to collapse than many think, though I think it will be a collapse much like that of the Roman Empire in the West - a gradual breakup and transformation into something different; so gradual that the people who lived through it were not even aware just what was really happening. As final food for thought, I leave you the following essay, written by an Englishman, Robert Harris, just after the September 11th atrocity.

Gradual breakup of what, exactly?

essay snipped

This guy isn't telling us anything new. Nation-states exist for the time being. America is a powerful nation-state. One day, it will cease to be powerful, but that doesn't mean it's going to cease being a nation-state.

[pellaeons_scion]

Does anyone think we have taken a bit of a backward step in political evolution at this point? During the Coldwar era the search was for "Reds under the Beds". 20 years on, we watched the Reds fall. So, there was a void. No big bad nasty to warrant a massive military force. Now there is again. Paranoia seems to have planted itself into the political structures of the US and Aus and military spending is increasing. Indivual rights seem to be being put under the microscope. I wonder what point the all encompassing title of "National Security" will stop at?

The USA up to this point has attempted to be the police force of the world. It has tried through backroom dealings and other policies to control, manipulate, and prop up corrupt governments all over the world. Now its backfired. People who were former allies against communism, who were well trained by the US, are now the enemy. And this is an enemy that is difficult to fight, especially if these groups such as Al Quaida and Islamiah Jihad move into full action. They can cause massive loss of life with minimal expenditure of resources and personell. They can hit their targets and fade away before any reponse can be brought to bear. You cant fight them with armies, its like trying to crush a flea with a hammer. The have the Martyr ideal, so loss of life for them isnt too important. Whereas for the West it is, and too many casualties can rapidly turn the public feral against govts who pursue the war (Vietnam)

Are these terrorists an enemy that can be truly be fought? And how do you do it without becoming one, as it appears to me to be the only valid counter to them.

As for patriotism, sure that can do wonders for your own country, but to your enemies, and even allies it makes you look like your trying to inflate your own ego, and place yourself in a superior position. That kind of thing promotes ill-feeling and doesnt help this cause.

Maybe the US will establish 'protectorates' around the world, and be a world ruler. One world government sounds like a good idea to me, and get rid of the UN, as it is an utter waste of time and space. As robin williams said "The UN is like a traffic cop on Valium **PHEEP!---*croaky voice* stooop..stooopp**". I have no problem with the idea of a world police force, an over-governing body to finally dispense with borders and local policies. Heh, maybe it would even get us to work together as a whole? I know, star trek utopia nonsense...Remove religion, Remove the idea of race and get together as a planet and do stuff

Personally I dont believe Islam as a religion is the threat. The Mullahs and Ayatollahs are the threat. Once more religion is wrecked by human interpretation. Goes the same for any fundy crap, Islam Xian whatever.

Heres a thought, anyone got an idea if there was a WW3 or near enough to it, what form of governance would rear its head?

[salm]

To Europe, though, I warn thee:

The Barbarians are at the gates!

huh
you´d better warn the usa because the barbarians are in americas living room. they came in with a couple of planes which they crashed into the twin towers, and some others developed from perfectly sane american citizens into illogical, hate promoting, christian warmongers. there are even a couple in the white house.

[Dalton]

What modern civilization? We're talking about people who'd willingly kill each other for natural resources.