9 Comments

I see that main challenge to this approach in that the centripetal forces would be too hard to overcome.

Expand full comment

That's undoubtedly been true for the last several centuries. I suspect that Innis' pendulum though is beginning to swing in the other direction. It always does, eventually, one way or another.

Expand full comment

I'd be interested to know why do you think that is so. What has changed? The mere fact that people are dissatisfied with the Imperial/centralized system does not mean that it can be changed.

Also, if I am not mistaken (which I might be), the last time that situation changed in Europe it went into the Dark Ages. When it emerged from the Dark Ages the centralization forces went to work again, producing English, French, Spanish, and Hapsburg monarchies. At least one of the important reasons Germany did not centralize until later was due mainly to some of those monarchies working very hard on preventing it from doing so.

Similarly (again, if I am not mistaken) in China decentralization meant war, with centralization leading to relative internal peace.

Expand full comment

You're raising two different questions: likelihood and desirability. I try to avoid the desirability questions. Grand social and political change tend to be desirable to some, while being undesirable to others. People have different values. To mix my metaphors a little, combining Innis and Dawkins: for time biased phenotypes the "Dark Ages" were more like the Bright Ages. These characterizations of ages as Dark or Middle are the perspective of space biased phenotypes.

And while Medieval war may have been more frequent, it was much less destructive, largely because the warring agents lacked the endless reservoirs of taxes and human canon fodder, which only becomes available with the ostensibly popular sovereignty state. Such are the virtues of pluralist societies.

As for widespread dissatisfaction, it may well be an important indicator, though less as a cause, as I take you to suggest, than as a symptom. But, I do have other reasons for believing that this space biased wave, which probably gathered steam (to continue mixing metaphors) about 500 years ago, started to crest some time in the mid-20th century -- appearances to the contrary.

But exploring all that is what the next months will be all about around here. *insert winking emoji here*

Expand full comment

>desirability

I was trying to argue that the centralizing forces are extremely strong, not that they necessarily lead to desirable outcomes. People do not like to live in a dark age, hence they'll try avoiding decentralization when they realize that it's where it leads. People want war to be moved to the borders, and for it to be less frequent, hence they'll desire centralization.

Putting it slightly differently, people will trade their freedom for safety. (This is a factual, not moral, statement.)

>for time biased phenotypes the "Dark Ages" were more like the Bright Ages

I read somewhere that the population of Europe was reduced to 5% if it's pre-collapse levels. The transition could not be pleasant

Expand full comment

Well, just as an empirical question, I think that 5% number a bit farfetched. I'd be curious to know which scholars have made that claim, and on what evidence. I think the standard estimate is closer to 50%, which still isn't nothing and appeals to your point. My impression is that there isn't any hard scholarly consensus. The fact of course is that one of the virtues, from the perspective of a time biased phenotype, of the collapse of centralizing power is the elimination of the means for the kind of micro-surveillance of public life that would make such a thing easily legible, as James Scott would say.

As for people preferring safety over freedom, I think you're overstating your case. Doesn't the recent COVID experience suggest that? Sure, there were a lot of people happy to make that trade off. But there were a lot of people who clearly were not. That's why I think it's better to avoid sweeping generalizations about people. Very little about humans is universally true. And when it comes to values preferences, I doubt anything is.

Finally, as to people not wanting to live in a Dark Age. It depends what you mean. I wasn't clear what you meant. I agree most people wouldn't want to live in the 5th century. And probably most people wouldn't say they'd want to live in a Dark Age, due simply to the stigma of the phrase. However, if you'd ask people if they'd like to live in an age characterized by dramatically reduced power in the hands of globalist elites, where their communities could be self-governing, following and sustaining their own traditions, customs, and institutions. I'm betting a lot of people would sign up for that. But that of course the left/Innisian space biased phenotypes would emphatically condemn as a Dark Age. Again, "Dark Age" is in the eye of the beholder.

Expand full comment

> I think that 5% number a bit farfetched.

I confused it with the decline in the population in the city of Rome

> I think you're overstating your case.

To some extent I am playing Devil's advocate. And to some putting in writing things that I will be looking for in your future posts.

However, I do think that we should be extremely careful of what we are wishing for. The breakdown of the Empire will be probably extremely painful. So when I say "people prefer safety over freedom" it comes from introspection.

---

Another thing about centralizing forces is that among the smaller communities there will be those with a more predatory outlook. They will start forming alliances, counter-alliances will be formed to defend against them, and lo and behold we are having a centralization race.

Expand full comment

💬 Clearly, these are not simple matters, and their resolution cannot be worked out in advance by some smug managerial class, social engineering type. They’ll have to be worked out in practice, by real-life organic communities.

As for trade unions (traduns? 😇), so for feduns ↑↓.

💬 the remarkable achievement of the Poles was to keep learning – from their mistakes, failures, and blind spots. It was the increasing recognition of the organizational and strategic practices available to them, and their determination to continually refine those practices through the iterations of their struggle, regardless of the short-term outcomes, which allowed them to finally act so effectively in the historic cauldron of August, 1980.

Expand full comment