Is western civilization going to decline

[waechter418]

or collapse ?
In the beginning of the twentieth century Oswald Spengler predicted “The decline of the Occident”.
Hundred years later Oreskes predicted “The collapse of western civilisation”.
Spenglers work was mostly based on the histories of past civilisations, while Oreskes study bases on contemporary environmental, political, social, scientific etc data.
Despite its traditional philosophical approach, the Decline caused for decades quite a bit upheaval, whereas the Collapse gets, despite its terminal vista, barely any reactions. Is it because Hollywood made the collapse familiar, or because of a growing collective awareness that Western civilisation has already past its zenith, and its future is thus greeted with indifference, and even resignation.
Of course, all civilisations do eventually disappear, usually in less than a thousand years. India and China have been around for an exceptional long time, but will most probably disappear with the Western civilisation, since they are subjected to its social, economical, cultural, technological, scientific, etc, globalisation.
But it is not only invasions that make a civilisation disappear, inner corruption and suicide usually play important roles as well. In the Occident latter seems to become dominant, considering the determination with which its citizens attack, rape, plunder & poison the organism – also called Mother Nature, Gaia, Pachamama - which does bear and feed them.
It certainly might be an explanation for the large economical and labour efforts they spend on the production of weaponry which is able to wipe out all mankind.

[Socrates]

Until reading Land, I used to roll my eyes at this idea of occidental decline, but I think there is something to it now.

Capitalism requires an opposition, otherwise it's too nihilistic. In regards to Fisher, watch 'Sapphire and Steel' on YouTube.

[atreestump]

I like the bit about Hollywood, movies can have a huge impact on what we think is real.

There do seem to be 'death throes' occurring, cluster bombs of contraction and condradiction - Accelerationism is a kind of surrender rather than a pathetic fatalism in a way.
[hr]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-HfNIN-pc

[waechter418]

A parable:

On our flight to nowhere, we notice that our civilisation vehicle is having serious problems.
We may play blind, deaf & dumb (or accelerists) and crash - or try to land it, with the help of common sense, as smooth as possible.
In both cases the flight of western civilisation will have ended.
But in latter case remains the possibility to investigate the abandoned vehicle, and to salvage parts that might be useful (like koan, internet, antibiotics, blues…) for generations (civilisations) to come.

[atreestump]

I am not against playfully imagining possible decivilized worlds. But for such imaginings to be truly playful and to have experimental potential, they cannot be models worked out from abstracted conceptions of either past or future societies. In fact, in my opinion, it is best to leave the concept of “society” itself behind, and rather think in terms of perpetually changing, interweaving relationships between unique, desiring individuals. That said, we can only play and experiment now, where our desire for the apparently “impossible” meets the reality that surrounds us. If civilization were to be dismantled in our lifetime, we would not confront a world of lush forests and plains and healthy deserts teeming with an abundance of wildlife. We would instead confront a world full of the detritus of civilization — abandoned buildings, tools, scrap, etc., etc.[2] Imaginations that are not chained either to realism or to a primitivist moral ideology could find many ways to use, explore and play with all of this — the possibilities are nearly infinite.

[waechter418]

I am not against playfully imagining possible decivilized worlds. But for such imaginings to be truly playful and to have experimental potential, they cannot be models worked out from abstracted conceptions of either past or future societies. In fact, in my opinion, it is best to leave the concept of “society” itself behind, and rather think in terms of perpetually changing, interweaving relationships between unique, desiring individuals. That said, we can only play and experiment now, where our desire for the apparently “impossible” meets the reality that surrounds us. If civilization were to be dismantled in our lifetime, we would not confront a world of lush forests and plains and healthy deserts teeming with an abundance of wildlife. We would instead confront a world full of the detritus of civilization — abandoned buildings, tools, scrap, etc., etc.[2] Imaginations that are not chained either to realism or to a primitivist moral ideology could find many ways to use, explore and play with all of this — the possibilities are nearly infinite.



YES ! and once more YES !

[atreestump]

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/wolfi-landstreicher

[kFoyauextlH]

https://monoskop.org/images/8/83/MacGre ... Insane.pdf

"
Atavism: Another formal characteristic of special
interest to the art historian is referred to by Lombroso
as "atavism." He detected what he felt were references
in the work ofthe insane to stylistic features belonging
to earlier periods in history (Fig. 6.5). As an example
of this atavistic tendency he described the case of a
megalomaniac who "executed a coloured bas-relief, in
which the disproportionate size of the feet and hands,
the extreme smallness of the faces, and the stiffness of
the limbs, completely recall the work of the thirteenth
century" (p. 200) (Fig. 6.6). Since Lombroso, a vast
quantity ofsimilar material commenting on the super-
ficial similarities between the drawings of the men-
tally ill, the painting of children and primitive peoples,
and modern art has filled the literature. For Lombroso,
this similarity with historical styles, also noticed by
Frigerio, represented a psychological remnant of more
"primitive" mental states, a hypothesis that contrasts
with and yet anticipates the thinking of modern dy-
namic psychiatrists
"

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Helter Skelter

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6921402

[kFoyauextlH]

https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... by-country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra

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The folk etymology holds that Charlemagne had named the region as a reference to the Biblical Canaanite valley of Endor or Andor (where the Midianites had been defeated), a name bestowed by his heir and son Louis the Pious after defeating the Moors in the "wild valleys of Hell".[27]
"

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Andorra

"
Andorra claims it is the last independent survivor of the Marca Hispanica, a military buffer zone made up of counties, created by Charlemagne to keep the Islamic Moors from advancing into the Christian Frankish empire.[2] Tradition holds that Charlemagne granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for fighting the Moors.[2] In the 9th century, Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Bald, named the Count of Urgell as overlord of Andorra.[2] A descendant of the count later gave the lands to the Diocese of Urgell.[2]

In the 11th century, fearing military action by neighboring lords, the Bishop of Urgell placed himself under the protection of the Lord of Caboet, a nobleman.[2] Later, the Count of Foix became heir to the Lord of Caboet through marriage to Ermessenda de Castellbò in 1208, and a dispute arose between the Occitan Count and the Catalan bishop over Andorra.[2]

In 1278, the conflict was resolved by the signing of a pareage (pariatges), which provided that Andorra's sovereignty be shared between the Count of Foix and the Bishop of La Seu d'Urgell (Catalonia).[2] The pareage, a feudal institution recognizing the principle of equality of rights shared by two rulers, gave the small state its territory and political form.[2] Andorra's borders have remained unchanged since 1278.[3]

Andorra was briefly annexed to the Crown of Aragon twice, in 1396 and 1512.
"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_Aragon

"
The Crown of Aragon (US: /-ɡɒn/)[nb 2] was a composite monarchy[1] ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Spanish Succession. At the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of present-day eastern Iberian Peninsula, parts of what is now southern France, and a Mediterranean empire which included the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Italy (from 1442), and parts of Greece (until 1388).
"

"
u/jayskew avatar
jayskew
•
7y ago

Don't know of any, but the Song of Roland, recounting events that supposedly took place in the vicinity of Aragon, includes the famous sword Durandal passed down from a previous king, a horn-blowing incident similar to the demise of Boromir, and various other things that seem to be reflected in LoTR. Durandal may mean strong flame. Anduril is Quenya for Flame of the West. Could be coincidence, I suppose.
9
Cellardaws
•
7y ago

I wonder if durandal is where the name of Aragorns people, the Dunedain came from
5
ArveduiTheLastKing
•
7y ago

It's actually, if I'm not mistaken, taken from the Gaelic name of Edinburgh: Dún Èideann.

Which is also the inspiration for Dunedin FL and Dunedin NZ.
8
"

"
Aragorn was voiced by John Hurt in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film version of The Lord of the Rings. Bakshi's Aragorn, unlike all other portrayals that were to follow to date, has no beard. This actually conforms to a statement appearing in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth that implicitly says that Aragorn was not supposed to have one, due to his Elvish ancestry (Elves did not grow beards). In a note written in 1972 or later, among the last writings of my father's on the subject of Middle-earth, there is a discussion of the Elvish strain in Men, as to its being observable in the beardlessness of those who were so descended (it was a characteristic of all Elves to be beardless. However, Tolkien actually wrote elsewhere that Elves did have beards; in The Lord of the Rings itself Círdan is described as having a beard. Also, some viewers and critics have said that this version of Aragorn looks Native American though not necessarily to the detriment of the film.
"

"


Valinor isn't the Americas. Valinor did occupy the spot on a flat Arda that the Americas would occupy on a flat Earth (if the Earth were flat, which it isn't, sorry Kyrie.)

But the Eru-induced cataclysm at the end of the Second Age, which transformed flat Arda into round Arda, was accompanied by the removal of Valinor from the circles of the world and the creation of new lands in its place. Per the Akallabeth section of The Silmarillion:

For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.

For reference, here's a map of Arda during the Second Age. What we have in the above quote is the relocation of the continent of Aman and the islands of the Shadowy Sea into another dimension. The Elves are still able to access a "Straight Road" that carries them there, but non-Elves are unable to access that path except via special dispensation (as in the cases of Bilbo/Frodo/Sam/Gimli.) We also have the removal of the "Empty Lands" which would presumably include the Dark Lands and the continent in the far east where the Walls of the Sun are located. As for the New Lands and New Seas - they would include the Americas and possibly Australia.
"

"
Columbus discovers America but instead of "Indians" he finds Elves, Dwarves and Numenoreans (LotR)

100 years before Columbus would discover the Americas, every Native American is magically transformed into either a LotR Elf, Dwarf or Numenorean. All of which are highly resistant to human diseases.

The Incans and Aztecs are turned in Elves

Other Mountain based tribes like the Nez Perce, Ute, Flathead, Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Shoshone turn into Dwarves. An Elder from each tribe gains the Middle Earth mining knowledge.

Every other Native American is transformed into a Numenorean.

Besides those select dwarves there is no other connection to Middle Earth. They are still Native Americans, just in new bodies.

How will the European Powers act now? Instead of finding a Western route to India, they've found a whole new world?
"

https://eternalevelyn.com/2022/02/13/co ... the-rings/



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https://www.reddit.com/r/barrie/s/A93vzHVmb0

https://www.reddit.com/r/ComedyHell/s/bjtYVAGm0o

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[kFoyauextlH]

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commenta ... returning/

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People laugh at stuff like this, but it seems pretty sad and horrible. I wonder if the number of laughers would reduce if they thought he had another sort of disease.

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I think these are people from Eastern Europe somewhere.

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https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/art ... 811-p5b93b

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https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/loc ... r-3077009/

So this guy and his new wife are making a lot of money.

There is practically no way to make lots of money like this otherwise for the poor, yet the already rich still have a better chance at it and take all the first fruits.

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The way information is being presented and interacted with is probably k*ll*ng people.

They had factoid books for a while, getting increasingly brief, until this form of stacatto infirmation presenting thst just seems to depress people.

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The top "alternative media" political commentators are at war with each other, one representing an apathetic right-leaning person and the other the "left", though both are ultimately pretty mild and closer to the center than what they are associated with.



They both stay relatively close to American center positions in order to get (young, stupid seeming, often foreign and largely irrelevant except as footsoldiers to spread opinions and make numbers look exaggerated) people to end up going further after choosing one of the sides.

Asmongold seems to have been paid whereas Hasan was doing this first from early on and due to his family.

The complaint of everyone on either side would be that neither goes "hard" enough really. Asmongold has the support of the Iz.

The most popular, but barely known or popular, further or "extreme" left, which is pretty much not the case in any way that can be seen due to restrictions, is BadEmpanada.







The now increasingly "mainstreamed" far-right baton has passed from Ben Shapiro to Nick Fuentes, both most likely or pretty obviously agents of the usual suspects, as they love to employ very racist and Neo-N rhetoric and tactics and look and speak very similarly.

There is currently no politician in the powerful U.S.A. that could be said to really be standing for human rights, as they are all ignoring the horrors that just occurred recently.

People like Tucker Carlson and many others are positioning themselves to be more mainstream right-leaning centrist thougth leaders, while on the opposite side of him is Mehdi Hasan, a different Hasan from Hasan Piker, operating in cooperating areas as providers of news that is colored by their political leanings or loyalties, which is the new popular style for a few decades since being popularized by Ruper Murdoch's influence on world news media after the retreat of Ted Turner with his belief in educating the public with things from the past and an older style of presentation that pretends neutrality.

Al-Jazeera, after the forced departure of RT from the mainstream, is now depended upon by most for supposedly less biased news that presents things that the Z controlled mainstream media may not report.

Novara media out of the U.K. tries to present the position of a small left-leaning reporting group for YouTube.

Philip DeFranco is probably a widely watched, lightly left-leaning, pretend neutral news reporter on YouTube.

The things these people say, do, or tolerate at various times makes them all annoying and untrustworthy.

For whatever the "right", particularly online, in America is yammering about, I check TheQuartering:



These different groups give a rough idea about the positions of the major "thought influencer" and propagandists for the factions' positions on things, though I don't even look at a whole chunk of the Neo-Liberal" and Liberal American Empire types who are a group that likes to pretend and claim at times that they are the "left", but they are practically unwatchable and possibly the least attractive to most people overall who may be more for other teams and find more solidarity among people like Hasan Piker. That extra group are often Liberal Z people whose whole politics are just double standards, posturing, masking, and things like that, and my favorite out of them is Kyle Kulinski:



These types are especially annoying because of how they are totally fine propping up a killer and war criminal mercenary who went to foreign lands to murder people for an adventure, like the person they are being so forgiving of and easy on here:



Oh, he is now saying a few things you like, so you want him in? They get tricked and betrayed all the time, though it is unlikely they are really fooled, but are just people who always choose what they think is the lesser evil, even if it is blatantly very evil, like how they didn't want Trump so were tolerant of how vile Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were and hold their grudge even though Trump has not been nearly as bad as those two were for certain things.

The real hellstorm awaits the world after Trump, since there is no one being positioned and everything will betaken even further by whoever tries to get in next, especially if it is overcompensation and trying to catch up on delayed plans from either party who are more Z.

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