Macrohistorical analysis is perhaps my favourite subject of all possible subjects. Even if a particular view of history isn't convincing, the view itself tends to reveal a lot about the thinking that informs it -- and this is usually very interesting. (For instance: I have very often encountered a near-
hysterical aversion to the concept of cyclical history among the sort of people who believe that the morals and views of "modernity" represent the "final stage of history".)
Regarding what "Western civilisation" really is: I must disagree with the assessment that it is "in essence Rome (...)". On the contrary: it seems quite clear to me that the Roman Empire was the culmination of the preceding cycle (in the relevant bit of the world). I don't think that Oswald Spengler was correct about everything, but he certainly intuited the basic principles. (his claims were often very astute, and his attempts to then rationalise those intuitive claims occasionally fall short.) Spengler argued that the development of a High Culture, if not dramatically pertubed by outside forces (e.g. conquest by another High Culture), will follow a fairly predictable route. I tend to agree. Obviously, Spengler had his own views, and I have mine. This is more my own "neo-Spenglerian" view than his actual argumentation, so keep that in mind/
The interesting thing is: I still arrive at the same prediction of an "Empire yet to come". So did Spengler. But it's not because the West is basically Rome and people imitating Rome. Rather, it's because the Roman Empire was the inevitable conclusion of
every succesful High Culture's natural life-cycle. As such, the history of the West will culminate in something similar. I think it may be a lot sooner than some people think....
To outline my own views on this, I'll draw up a comparison between the history of the Classical World and that of the Western World. I could add lines of comparison to other High Cultures, such as China and Ancient Egypt, but that would probably clutting things up too much. So I'll limit myself to just the two.
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-- Most High Cultures emerge in the wake of another's collapse, with a post-cultural/pre-cultural transition phase in between. The (or some of the) ancestors of those who will found the arising culture may well have a hand in dealing the death blow to the dying culture. Thus, one might compare the founding of the Mycenaean culture by Indo-Europeans moving into the Aegean region around the sixteenth century BC to the Germanic peoples moving into the territory of the crumbling Roman Empire around the Fifth century AD.
-- The arising culture is not yet formed, but already thrives and expands in its pre-cultural stage, feeding off the corpse of whatever preceded it. In fact, this success is what allows it to consolidate and truly
become. Compare the Mycenaeans expanding to subdue Minoans (1500 BC - 1540 BC) to the Merovingians forming a an expansionist Frankish realm (AD 509 - AD 537).
-- Upon this basis, the successful "upstarts" manage to become more consolidated, with a classical cultural heartland beginning to emerge. This is when the culture really comes into being, emerging from its pre-cultural stage to become a more defined and self-aware whole, with a real identity. Expect a leading dynasty coming to its zenith in the form of a monarch who is going to be be important in a cultural context. Compare Agamemnon and Charlemagne. Usually this is also the time where you find archetypal and mythologised cultural heroes who embody the warrior-ideal that will become emblemic for the culture, usually by dying very famously. Compare Achilles and Roland. (Oh, and the Great King usually has a forebear who paved whe way or established the dynasty: compare Atreus and Charles Martel.)
-- The leading dynasty tends not to last long, having achieved its success on the basis of some really exceptional people being really exceptional. So you get a period of political disintegration, where it seems for a bit that everything is going to the dogs again, and that the chaotic period that existed before the rise of the ruling dynasty is coming back. Compare the Greek Dark Ages to the Post-Carolingian disintegration.
-- Fortunately, that period doesn't last very long, and the culture finds its footing again. The heartland becomes less all-important, as ties to surrounding regions become more important. At the same time, the core ideas established earlier are (via those same connections) spread more widely. Compare the Greek Archaic Period to the High Middle Ages. This is a dynamic, vitalic period of expansion and growth.
-- Defining cultural epics take shape during the period of disintegration, but are only recorded/compiled at the end of that period, or at the start of the subsequent period. In fact, this happens in large part because order is returning to the world. Compare the Greek Epic Cycle (pertaining to the events before the Greek Dark Ages, but recorded/compiled in a 'canonical' form in the first half of the seventh century BC) and the Matter of France & the Nibelungenlied (pertaining to or rooted in much earlier historical events, but compiled in the twelfth century AD).
-- Similarly, the transition between the era of disintegration and the era of restoration also marks a cultural and intellectual renaissance that precedes the expansionism of the latter period. The first 'thinkers' who may be called "definitive" of the culture's intellectual tradition arise. The classical Greeks considered this period to be the origin of the philosophical tradition, typically citing Thales of Miletos as the first of the 'greats'. Similarly, in the West, we see the ascent of the scholastics, with none so prominent as Thomas Aquinas (who may be deemed the first true "Western" thinker, and in fact the man whose ideas came to define what "Western thought"
means).
-- The thriving period of expansion (archaic period / high middle ages) runs into a Malthusian limit (too many people, to concentrated) which invites famine and plague to do a real number on society. Compare the Agrarian crisis of the 7th century BC to the Black Death of the 14th century AD.
-- In the latter stages of this period, foreign rivals truly begin to encroach. Compare Akhaimenid supremacy over once-Greek Western Anatolia to.... Turkish supremacy over same.
-- In the subsequent period, those foreign rivals launch a far deeper invasion. Xerxes invades Greece itself; Suleiman besieges Vienna. Nevertheless, the invaders are cast back from the heartland.
-- Internally, we now arrive at a stage wherein the culture, having defined many of its forms, is at a crossroads. There is a great internal division about which traits are truly the important ones. Two factions arise, and the culture becomes divided against itself in the resulting rivalry over values, core beliefs, and political/social norms. Compare the struggle between Athens and Sparta to that between Catholics and Protestants.
-- This culminates in a major war that is supposed to settle the matter to a great extent. Compare the Peloponnesian War to the Thirty Years' War.
-- Unfortunately, the side unfit to reign wins; although it achieves success, it doesn't have the legitimacy to take over the whole culture and become the true and undisputed intellectual/cultural leader. That would be Sparta and the Protestants, respectively. The victors thus can't truly capitalise upon their success, and he losing side isn't vanquished.... but at the same time, the losing side can't regain the initiative. Thus, the underlying issues are not resolved.
-- Due to this division, a pandora's box has been opened, and all sorts of radicalisms and reforms spill out into the world. The old order has been delegitimised too thoroughly, but the competitors can't usurp the position adequately. A descent into chaos ensues. Brilliant philosophers arise, but their ideas are deemed (and very well may be) dangerous. Yes, Socrates and his intellectual heirs are cognates to the Enlightenment philosophers.
-- Destabilisation of the old political and intellectual order allows for an unpstart ruler of relatively ignoble birth to achieve meteoric succes. Compare Alexander and Napoleon. This conqueror doesn't achieve lasting success, but his very existence leads to a collection of powerful states, with increasingly far-reaching powers (unsee in previous ages, when government was fairly minimal), which engage in heated rivary with on another. Compare the Hellenistic kingdoms to the modern nation-states. (In the subsequent period, keep an eye out for a fairly powerless fringe state that embraces innovative ideas and quickly becomes way more powerful.)
-- A period of competing states and increasingly horrifying ways of waging war now arrives. "Total war" becomes a bit of a thing now. If you want to draw comparisons between the Romans razing Carthage and salting the earth and the USA fire-bombing and nuking cities in Japan... well, that's because such comparisons make
sense. That upstart nation of quasi-barbarians that the hoi polloi back east looked down on? Yeah, that's become the foremost power within the culture's bounds now. (Of course, all the well-educated Romans still felt Greece was cultured and worthy of respect, and well-educated Americans feel the same about Europe. They are right in both cases. Some Greeks felt the Romans were boorish barbarians, and some Europeans feel the same about Americans. They are wrong in both cases.)
-- This period is defined by all those innovative ideas that got introduced a bit earlier. Those ideas tend to embrace concepts like "more egalitarianism", and all sorts of fairly radical reforms. All sorts of social behaviour that was previously considered 'deviant' becomes more and more of a
fait accompli. Radicals bitterly rage, because despite getting all these things done, they always want
more. Conservatives despair and believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
-- Politics in this period become more and more acerbic and populist, particularly in the power that is becoming dominant. We see a classical struggle between a cosmopolitan elite faction and a populist faction. These factions become less and less civil with each other, and soon armed mobs associated with both groups begin to manifest. Violence begins to escalate.
[WE ARE HERE]
-- Obviously, as of this point, I can no longer define what happens in the West. It hasn't happened yet! Or has it? It's happened in the Classical world already.
All of this has happened before. So what happened? Things continued to escalate, to the point of political murder, blood in the streets, and ultimately civil war. Not even about ideology, but about naked power: whoever wins gets to butcher the opposition. Funny story: Caesar, as "transition tyrants" go, was one of the mildest and most humane in history. He didn't butcher his opponents, and pardoned most of them instead. For his trouble, he was brutally murdered. Compare Qin Shi Huang, who fulfilled the same role in China: he had countless people put to the death because he suspected some of their ideas
might be subversive.
-- In the end though, it makes little difference. If the transition tyrant is too mild, he gets stabbed by people he failed to kill. Result: civil war, final round. If the transition tyrant is brutal enough to kill all the people who might (and
would) otherwise stab him to death, he ends up being
so brutal (by default) that his dynasty becomes unacceptable to too many. Result: civil war, final round.
-- The funny thing about this whole bloodbath is that its backdrop is pretty much literally the collapse of all civilisation. Thankfully, that's temporary. Why? Because the civil war goes on until the right guy wins. Why? because nobody except the riht guy can accrue sufficient legitimacy to seize lasting power. How does the right guy manage it? By being the most reactionary man the world has seen in three hundred years. (Incidentally, the period that is thus concluded somehow seems to always last around three centuries. So in the West, where it started in the second half of the 18th century, we may expect it to conclude -- in bloody fashion -- in the second half of
this century.)
-- Remember that the period in question was defined by inter-state rivalry and all sorts of reform, radicalism, egalitarianism and "modern" thinking. That ends. The man who seizes power over a world that has torn itself apart deliberately reaches back to tradition. He makes real the idea of the universal "high king" who theoretically held supreme worldly authority at the culture's inception. Agamemnon never ruled the classical world. Augustus
did. Charlemagne never ruled all Christendom. But I assure you: the man who may style himself "Emperor of the West"
will.
-- At this point, I hold that a
culture becomes a
civilisation: when it is politically united into one polity. The Universal Empire. This is also when it finalises its cultural and intellectual traditions, and begins to calcify. That's more-or-less why Spengler, while fully expecting there to be an Imperial phase lasting hundreds of years, called his book
Der Untergang des Abendlandes. The foundation of the Empire is the inevitable commencement of the final phase of a culture's history. To be finished... is to be
finished.
-- The Universal Empire lasts about five centuries. The first half is pretty relaxed: the preceding period saw a lot of government activism, and look how that ended up, eh? So the Principate (if you will) is a time wherein government demands fairly little of the common man. Everybody reveres the Emperor, but most people never see him. He's an idea, more than a person. This kind of thing has its draw-backs, and when the carnage that led up to the Empire's foundation fades from memory, shit starts up again. That's how you get a crisis period. Not fun. It gets resolved, but the government that becomes the norm afterwards is much more powerful and interventionist. (Spoiler alert: governments that get too big inevitably fail after a while: they're too expensive to keep functioning normally, so they always over-tax the populace, debase the currency and/or rack up the debt. This never ends well.)
-- The Empire comes to an end. Internal problems, declining vitality, a dying economy. More youthful barbarian competitors. When there has been order for too long, disorder becomes inevitable. Maybe some successor entity will hold on, like the Byzantine Empire. (But note how quickly those guys became Greek again, in all but name. The real
Romanitas evaporated quickly. That will happen to any hypothetical future counterpart, too.) In China, which is centred on a well-defined core region surrounded by rather excellent natural barriers, civilisation ended, fell apart... and then fell back together. That cycle kept repeating. Same happened in Ancient Egypt, for the same reason. It didn't happen to Classical/Roman civilisation. I wouldn't expect it to happen to the even more geographically disparate West, either. When we end, the best we may hope for is that our Universal Empire may be the "Rome" to some later culture: a revered but ultimately distant ancestor.
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So, yeah. That's my view of history, and of the next six hundred years or so. It's long and rambling, but I refuse to apologise: this part of the site has "essays" in the title, after all!
Minor edit -- My initial post made brief reference to the USA bombing Dresden. This was of course a sloppy error on my part, which
@PsihoKekec pointed out to me. This was done, very courteously, via PM; but the error was mine, and the credit for correcting it should go to the one who spotted it. Thanks!
