The Golden Age of the West

[Kobal2]

@Curtis LeMay

So what? Indians would be worse off today-far worse off. India would be some sort of an absolute monarchy or feudal state. Think Bhutan or pre-Communist Chinese Tibet times X1,000,000. The average Indian would be worse off and the whole world would suffer for it.

On which data do you base that assertion, exactly ? What did the British bring to India that modernist Indians couldn’t have figured out on their own, besides musket firing drills ?
Oh, you’re right : their misrule brought the worst famines in recorded history. 10 to 20 million dead, give or take. Guess that’s something.

Had the Marathas or Moguls ruled India the ideas of democracy and caste equality would have been laughed at or worse.

Oh, bullshit. A feudal Maratha system would have tumbled down from within eventually, just as the monarchies of Europe and Asia fell one after the other. Who are you to say what would have replaced them without the friendly and caring iron yoke of Britain on the region ?

Curious how leftists say “MYOB” when caste systems exist but not when things such as health care is concerned.

Wow. Way to conflate things that have nothing in common. Or have you heard leftists opine that the health care system of Bhutan is really crap and the US should invade them to get things right, maybe ?

Besides, “leftists” can and should get to have a say in what goes on within the confines of their own country. It’s when you start ruling on what’s best for the cack-handed peasants of other small, uncivilized and uncultured nations* who must be led gently by the hand** into the shining light of Western democracy*** that we’re gonna have a problem with you.

(which have 9 millenia of history behind them)
(* and by that I of course mean “bombed and shot the shit out of until they get the idea”)
(*** read “complacent puppet state”)

First of all European class systems were rather more mobile than Hindu ones

cite ?

and by modern times they have mostly disappeared.

Well, Hindu castes are still there, for the most part (although the younger generations tend to care less and less about them).

So, what did the British (who **enforced **them) bring to the table again, remind me ? Or are you arguing that, had those uppity Indians kept well in their place and not thrown the British Raj out the window, there would be no castes at all today ?

[QUOTE=Fuji]
You can’t be serious, can you? Mohandas was a fucking Hindu!
[/QUOTE]

Actually, I heard he tried his best not to

[Miller]

@Curtis LeMay

Because it would be mostly a tribal society as it was before colonization although there were exceptions in the Arabic-influenced areas.

Why would that be worse than the current pestilent, war-torn, poverty stricken anarchism that currently reigns over most of that continent?

[Bridget_Burke]

@Curtis LeMay

…To give an example. Had Germany’s offensive to the Marne succeedeed (it failed due to the fact that several divisions were siphoned off to support the Eastern Front but they got there after the battle was over) they would have reached Paris in a few weeks and Britain may have negotiated a peace with the Wilhelmine Germans. No ten million dead on the trenches, no Russian Revolution, no Nazis, no breakup of the old European empires and the rise of bitter ethnonationalisms, no Communists, basically every evil of the last hundred years gone…

No. you’re explaining how WWI would have turned into a happy event if Britain had stayed out! No negotiated peace.

Read The Guns of August & get back to us.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Miller

Why would that be worse than the current pestilent, war-torn, poverty stricken anarchism that currently reigns over most of that continent?

Some of the Africans are Christians now. Everybody knows that Yahweh doesn’t care about anything but the number of baptisms.

[Kobal2]

@Bridget_Burke

No. you’re explaining how WWI would have turned into a happy event if Britain had stayed out! No negotiated peace.

Read The Guns of August & get back to us.

Not to mention, his little scenario hinges on France “taking one for the team” and not resenting or trying to overthrow their new Deutscher overlords for the next thousand years.
Yeah, that’s likely… it’s not like the French have a marked cultural identity or anything.

OTOH, if you thought WW2 German uniforms were the shit, just think what a French Nazi regime (which would have inevitably risen from the exact same kind of bitterness and revanchism that led to the rise of Hitler in Germany) would have done for military fashion !

ETA : I also fail to grasp the logical step between “Germans take France” and “no Russian Revolution”. Help, anyone ?

[Guinastasia]

BTW, Curtis, the Bolsheviks were NOT responsible for the Russian Revolution. It started out as a bread riot in St. Petersburg and ended up as a revolt against the Tsar. Lenin and company weren’t even IN Russia. From February of 1917 until about, oh, October?, a provisional government under Alexander Kerensky was in charge. (Democratic, I might add)

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Kobal2

Oh, bullshit. A feudal Maratha system would have tumbled down from within eventually, just as the monarchies of Europe and Asia fell one after the other. Who are you to say what would have replaced them without the friendly and caring iron yoke of Britain on the region ?

India did not unlike the West have a tradition of limited power or democracy-democracy might have come but not for many, many centuries.

Wow. Way to conflate things that have nothing in common. Or have you heard leftists opine that the health care system of Bhutan is really crap and the US should invade them to get things right, maybe ?

Besides, “leftists” can and should get to have a say in what goes on within the confines of their own country. It’s when you start ruling on what’s best for the cack-handed peasants of other small, uncivilized and uncultured nations* who must be led gently by the hand** into the shining light of Western democracy*** that we’re gonna have a problem with you.

(which have 9 millenia of history behind them)
(* and by that I of course mean “bombed and shot the shit out of until they get the idea”)
(*** read “complacent puppet state”)

Well than what human rights violations should we ignore? Should we ignore Darfur? The ethnic cleansing in the Balkans?

cite ?

All those businessmen like Carnegie and so on, of the US Presidents since World War II only the Bushes and Kennedy came from anything like a privileged background, the enormous middle class, lack of a religion based class system, need I go on?

Well, Hindu castes are still there, for the most part (although the younger generations tend to care less and less about them).

So, what did the British (who **enforced **them) bring to the table again, remind me ? Or are you arguing that, had those uppity Indians kept well in their place and not thrown the British Raj out the window, there would be no castes at all today ?

No. Decolonization probably was inevitable but had it happened more wisely India may have remained united and not subject to the massacres between the Hindu and Muslim populations.

@Kobal2

Not to mention, his little scenario hinges on France “taking one for the team” and not resenting or trying to overthrow their new Deutscher overlords for the next thousand years.
Yeah, that’s likely… it’s not like the French have a marked cultural identity or anything.

OTOH, if you thought WW2 German uniforms were the shit, just think what a French Nazi regime (which would have inevitably risen from the exact same kind of bitterness and revanchism that led to the rise of Hitler in Germany) would have done for military fashion !

ETA : I also fail to grasp the logical step between “Germans take France” and “no Russian Revolution”. Help, anyone ?

If France falls in 1914 Germany will concentrate all it’s energy on Russia. Russia will either see defeat is inevitable or be defeated by 1916 or such. Also the Bolsheviks took power because the Germans sent Lenin to Russia to cause revolution. In a shorter war such a thing would not have happened.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

Spengler I must note BTW has been on target regarding his predictions so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West

Spengler also compares the “world-city” and province, as concepts analogous to civilization and culture respectively. This argument has elements of Marxist conceptions of a core and periphery. The city draws upon and collects the life of broad surrounding regions. He contrasts the “true-type” rural born, with the nomadic, traditionless, irreligious, matter-of-fact, clever, unfruitful, and contemptuous-of-the-countryman city dweller. In the cities he sees only the “mob”, not a people, hostile to the traditions that represent Culture (in Spengler’s view these traditions are: nobility, church, privileges, dynasties, convention in art, and limits on scientific knowledge). City dwellers possess cold intelligence that confounds peasant wisdom, a new-fashioned naturalism in attitudes towards sex which are a return to primitive instincts, and a dying inner religiousness. Further, Spengler sees in urban wage-disputes and a focus on lavish sport expenditures for entertainment the final aspects that signal the closing of Culture and the rise of the Civilization.

Spengler predicts that the permanent mass conscription armies will be replaced by smaller professional volunteer armies. From millions, states will revert to armies of hundreds of thousands. However, the professional armies will not be for deterrence, but for waging war. Spengler states that they will precipitate wars upon which whole continents—India, China, South Africa, Russia, Islam—will be staked. The great powers will dispose of smaller states, which will come to be viewed merely as means to an end. This period in Civilizational decline he labels the period of Contending States.

Despite having fought wars for democracy and rights during the period of Contending States, the populace can no longer be moved to use those rights. People cease to take part in elections, and the most qualified people remove themselves from the political process. This is the end of great politics. Only private history, private politics, and private ambitions rule at this point. The wars are private wars, “more fearful than any State wars because they are formless.” The imperial peace involves private renunciation of war on the part of the immense majority, but conversely requires submission to that minority which has not renounced war. The world peace that began in a wish for universal reconciliation, ends in passivity in the face of misfortune, as long as it only affects one’s neighbor. In personal politics the struggle becomes not for principles for but executive power. Even popular revolutions are no exception: the methods of governing are not significantly altered, the position of the governed remains the same, and the strong few determined to rule remain over top the rest of humanity.

On the subject of the press, Spengler is equally as contemptuous. Instead of conversations between men, the press and the “electrical news-service keep the waking-consciousness of whole people and continents under a deafening drum-fire of theses, catchwords, standpoints, scenes, feelings, day by day and year by year.” Through the media, money is turned into force—the more spent, the more intense its influence.

For the press to function, universal education is necessary. Along with schooling comes a demand for the shepherding of the masses, as an object of party politics. Those that originally believed education to be solely for the enlightenment of each individual prepared the way for the power of the press, and eventually for the rise of the Caesar. There is no longer a need for leaders to impose military service, because the press will stir the public into a frenzy, clamor for weapons, and force their leaders into a conflict.

We stand now currently about eighty years away from according to Spengler’s projection the rise of Caesarism. I don’t think it will happen but considering how much Spengler has been correct I won’t rule it out completely.

[Kobal2]

@Curtis LeMay

India did not unlike the West have a tradition of limited power or democracy-democracy might have come but not for many, many centuries.

What tradition are you speaking of ? Do you mean the limited power of guys like Louis “State” XIV and Napoleon ? Gals like Queen Victoria ? The very democratic Spanish and Portuguese empires maybe ? Perhaps were you thinking of the famous People’s Republic of Prussia ? The smattering of ever-feuding principalities composing the Roman Empire ? Well, they had Prince-electors, so that must mean they elected something or other, QED. Y’know, democratically and stuff.

Newsflash : in the age of colonization, there were two major Republics in Europe : the Dutch and Venice. That’s it. And even they were, like the United States at first, plutocracies more than anything.
Oh, and of course the French had their Republican stint (read : tyranny by different unelected autocrats) and utterly corrupt Directory before deciding that no, really, emperors it is.

Strong Western tradition indeed…

Well than what human rights violations should we ignore? Should we ignore Darfur? The ethnic cleansing in the Balkans?

Now what caused those, hmm… could it have been… Western meddling and arbitrary drawing of borders to suit their own interests and power games, without any regards for the local populations whatsoever ? I mean, it could be that.

I’ll grant you it could also be the inevitable result of the inherent barbarism, vulgarity and blood thirst of non-WASP Europeans. Inferior genes and zero culture, all of them.

All those businessmen like Carnegie and so on, of the US Presidents since World War II only the Bushes and Kennedy came from anything like a privileged background, the enormous middle class, lack of a religion based class system, need I go on?

Not talking about the US, who as far as I am aware didn’t colonize India, nor Africa. I could be wrong, of course - we obviously don’t operate from the same history book.

No. Decolonization probably was inevitable but had it happened more wisely India may have remained united and not subject to the massacres between the Hindu and Muslim populations.

Great. So, what about them castes ? Those that still exist, and we were discussing ?

If France falls in 1914 Germany will concentrate all it’s energy on Russia. Russia will either see defeat is inevitable or be defeated by 1916 or such. Also the Bolsheviks took power because the Germans sent Lenin to Russia to cause revolution. In a shorter war such a thing would not have happened.

Right. Because there wouldn’t be a need for soldiers to keep France in check, as we’ve already established the French, spineless and humble that they are, would have happily welcomed and accepted German subjugation. The huge shift in the European balance of powers would also have zipped completely past Britain, Italy and the Ottomans, who would have happily taken it in their stride, knowing what’s best for Germany is best for everyone. Europeans were nothing if not mutually co-operative, thanks to their centuries’ worth of tolerant and democratic traditions.

We further establish that, like all invasions of Russia before and since, Kaiser Wilhelm’s would have of course succeeded admirably, in the space of a few months, a year at best.

Finally, we can establish that the Russian Revolution wasn’t in fact a national uprising of the lower classes following centuries of oppression at the hand of a decadent, tyrannical and oppressive Tsarist autocracy (spread among God only knows how many individual factions, from bolsheviks, to Makhno’s anarchists, to college idealists, to half the army and navy, to disenfranchised peasants, to hungry factory workers, to the Cossacks…), but all the devious work of that one guy. Man, was he *ever *clever.

I really wasn’t kidding about you working from an different history book altogether.

It’s also somewhat amusing how, to you, the Mughals & Marathas were horrible feudal oppressors who enforced a ‘orrible, human rights’ defying caste system, but Tsarist Russia was just A-OK. Hey, at least they weren’t commies. Like the Indians, I suppose them uppity kulaks should have just shut up and kept their place, in order to… avoid a century of oppression at the hands of their own State, I guess. Wait, that doesn’t sound right :dubious:.

[Alessan]

Actually, while I agree with nothing else he has to say, Curtis is kind of right about WW1.

Unlike Hitler, Wilhelm and his generals were not conquerors, and they had no interest in making major changes to the map of Europe. If they had won at the Marne and taken Paris, there probably would have been a repeat of 1870 - the French would have handed over a few choice colonies in Africa or Indochina in return for a full German retreat, Russia would have handed over a few tracks of land in Poland or the Ukraine for a peace treaty of its own, Britain would have realized that there was no percentage in fighting a Continental war, and the Great Game would have continued for a few more decades until the next crisis.

In other words, the last thing the Germans wanted was to actually conquer France or Russia - just as the Allies had no interest in conquering Germany in return.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Curtis LeMay

Spengler I must note BTW has been on target regarding his predictions so far.

How many predictions did Spengler make overall?

[Miller]

@Revenant_Threshold

How many predictions did Spengler make overall?

Well, there was that one about the giant Twinkie that panned out pretty much the way he predicted…

[Indistinguishable]

@Curtis LeMay

If the British hadn’t come India probably would not be the world’s largest democracy. It was Western ideas that laid the foundation for the tolerant philosophy of Ghandi.

C’mon now, Curtis is only saying things that are undeniably true. Without the background provided by Britain’s rule of India, Gandhi could not possibly have led the independence movement for which he is now celebrated…

[MrDibble]

@Curtis LeMay

When did I deny that? By modern times I meant post World War II. Yes there’s still an aristocracy but they have little power and are mostly for show or honours.

Who owns the most land in Britain? Who are its richest people? Which schools are the best, and how much do they cost?

[Alessan]

@MrDibble

Who are its richest people?

Paul McCartney and J.K. Rowling?

[MrDibble]

@Alessan

Paul McCartney and J.K. Rowling?

Not individuals - I meant as a class.

[Alessan]

Oh.

Then the answer is investment bankers, just like everywhere else.

[MrDibble]

@Alessan

Oh.

Then the answer is investment bankers, just like everywhere else.

Or, more generally, the paper-pushers and landowners, yes.

[Guinastasia]

Hell, we don’t even have to go as far away as India – look at what Britain’s done to Ireland for centuries? Since what – the 12th century?

[Maeglin]

The only thing Spengler wasn’t wrong about, perhaps, was the spelling of his own name. Joseph Tainter offers a devastating critique of Spengler in his The Collapse of Complex Societies. It’s not a great book, but he is absolutely dead on about Spengler.

Curtis, I would submit that on reflection, you might change your mind about the Fin de Siecle. I also love the period, but not for the reasons you do. It was one of the craziest times in European history.

Baudelaire
Rimbaud
Verlaine

And of course, the craziest of the crazy. Alfred Jarry.

And my favorite piece of fin de siecle decadence, absinthe.

I think I’m going to decant myself a nice Kubler 53 and dream of European decadence.