Yesterday's post began covering what may be the most relevant Age in Sir John Glubb's, The Fate of Empires.

Stage six. The Age of Decadence

The next topic Glubb addresses is:

Religion

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Finally, something to cling to, along with our guns.

Historians of periods of decadence often refer to a decline in religion, but, if we extend our investigation over a period covering the Assyrians (859-612 B.C.) to our own times, we have to interpret religion in a very broad sense. Some such definition as ‘the human feeling that there is something, some invisible Power, apart from material objects, which controls human life and the natural world’.

Huh?

But what about Christians and Muslims and Jews?

We are probably too narrow and contemptuous in our interpretation of idol worship. The people of ancient civilisations were as sensible as we are, and would scarcely have been so foolish as to worship sticks and stones fashioned by their own hands. The idol was for them merely a symbol, and represented an unknown, spiritual reality, which controlled the lives of men and demanded human obedience to its moral precepts.

Moral precepts?

What do morals have to do with religion?

We all know only too well that minor differences in the human visualisation of this Spirit frequently became the ostensible reason for human wars, in which both sides claimed to be fighting for the true God, but the absurd narrowness of human conceptions should not blind us to the fact that, very often, both sides believed their campaigns to have a moral background.

That may be true, but our religion is better than theirs, and yours.

And our religion says you are all evil, while we follow the religion of peace.

Now we're sorry but we're going to have to bomb your people out of existence so we can achieve peace (and prosperity).

In due course, selfishness permeated the community, the coherence of which was weakened until disintegration was threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the period of pessimism with the accompanying spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, byproducts of despair. It was inevitable at such times that men should look back yearningly to the days of ‘religion’, when the spirit of self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make men ready to give and to serve, rather than to snatch.

But I thought God was going to step in and save us from those bad people?

Or maybe save us from ourselves.

According to Glubb, well, maybe, eventually "religion" can help recover those long lost characteristics that help to forge empires.

In this manner, at the height of vice and frivolity the seeds of religious revival are quietly sown. After, perhaps, several generations (or even centuries) of suffering, the impoverished nation has been purged of its selfishness and its love of money, religion regains its sway and a new era sets in.

His point, in my opinion, is that any religion that evokes a sense of duty, responsibility and service for the good of the many, has the ability to help establish the empire and provide the impetus to make it grow.

And that turning away from those very things is the action that indicates the beginning of its decay.

Image from Giphy.com

It's also worth noting that no one sect appears to have demonstrated a superior ability to build empires.

Glubb cites examples of a diverse set of religions, and yet, they all followed the same basic cycle.

The gods seem to have been pretty even handed in their treatment of empires.

Thus periods of affluence gradually dissolved the spirit of service, which had caused the rise of the imperial races.

In due course, selfishness permeated the community, the coherence of which was weakened until disintegration was threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the period of pessimism with the accompanying spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, byproducts of despair. It was inevitable at such times that men should look back yearningly to the days of ‘religion’, when the spirit of self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make men ready to give and to serve, rather than to snatch.

Don't old your breath waiting for this to be it.

New Combinations

Glubb recaps the process briefly here reminding us of the apparent passing on of the good characteristics from one empire to the next before he goes on to say:

But the objection may here be raised that some day the time will come when all the races of the world will in turn have enjoyed their period of domination and have collapsed again in decadence. When the whole human race has reached the stage of decadence, where will new energetic conquering races be found?

So what's next?

Does the cycle just start over again at the beginning?

The answer is at first partially obscured by our modern habit of dividing the human race into nations, which we seem to regard as water-tight compartments, an error responsible for innumerable misunderstandings.

In earlier times, warlike nomadic nations invaded the territories of decadent peoples and settled there. In due course, they intermarried with the local population and a new race resulted, though it sometimes retained an old name.

The truth of the matter is that there are no more uninhabited territories on Earth to explore and conquer.

True, you could make an argument for living on or under the Seas. They do make up 70% of the surface of the planet.

And, for the time being, colonizing space is a tempting dream that's still not technologically within our grasp.

This is where Glubb may have been more forward thinking than anyone realizes.

Decadence of a System

It is of interest to note that decadence is the disintegration of a system, not of its individual members. The habits of the members of the community have been corrupted by the enjoyment of too much money and too much power for too long a period.

Here's a very important point, It's not the people; it's the system.

But when individual members of such a society emigrate into entirely new surroundings, they do not remain conspicuously decadent, pessimistic or immoral among the inhabitants of their new homeland. Once enabled to break away from their old channels of thought, and after a short period of readjustment, they become normal citizens of their adopted countries. Some of them, in the second and third generations, may attain pre-eminence and leadership in their new communities.

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Not the huge waves of people fleeing warfare, but individuals, looking to break away from the masses mired down in the frivolity and pessimism of a dying empire.

This seems to prove that the decline of any nation does not undermine the energies or the basic character of its members. Nor does the decadence of a number of such nations permanently impoverish the human race. Decadence is both mental and moral deterioration, produced by the slow decline of the community from which its members cannot escape, as long as they remain in their old surroundings.

Decadence is not physical

That's a pretty self-explanatory statement.

I guess you could go a bit further and say it's not genetic or hereditary.

The citizens of nations in decline are sometimes described as too physically emasculated to be able to bear hardship or make great efforts. This does not seem to be a true picture. Citizens of great nations in decadence are normally physically larger and stronger than those of their barbarian invaders.

Moreover, as was proved in Britain in the first World War, young men brought up in luxury and wealth found little difficulty in accustoming themselves to life in the frontline trenches. The history of exploration proves the same point. Men accustomed to comfortable living in homes in Europe or America were able to show as much endurance as the natives in riding camels across the desert or in hacking their way through tropical forests.

No anti-depressants or safe spaces.

"Suck it up and carry on" has been demonstrated over and over throughout history as an ability we all carry within us.

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Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving.

Is the point of all of this just tell us that we have to pack up and move to Argentina or volunteer for some exploration into the jungles of Borneo?

No.

The point is to show that we're not trapped in a cycle of decay simply because the system around us is starting to fall apart.

There is hope.

The next post will conclude the overview of Glubb's work and look at the options available to us in the emerging age of the blockchain.

If you haven't read the earlier posts, here's a link to The Fate of Empires, An Overview (Part 1)