Introduction
Forty years ago I used to work for a well-known French company in Paris. Founded in 1900 by a very dynamic man, who had seen a market opportunity, it had become quite large. However, the son, profiting from his father’s success, had simply managed the company, resting on his father’s laurels. All went fairly well, but there was no innovation. The company had then passed on to the grandson. He did nothing and took out money for his expensive lifestyle. By the 1980s all was in decline and it was something of a ‘museum’ or ‘heritage’ company. As there was little investment in new equipment and ideas because the grandson was taking out the money, it was declining. A three-stage process similar to this one happens with empires.
Imperial Rise and Fall: The Three Stages
There are apparently some 200 theories to explain the fall of the old pagan Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. This clearly suggests that there was not one simple cause for it, but a combination of causes. Nevertheless, perhaps we can put forward three general stages associated with the rise and fall of empires, as did the British military hero Sir John Glubb (1897-1986) in his interesting analysis, The Fate of Empires. Here he suggested, controversially, that many empires seem to last about ten generations, 250 years, before they fall. He admitted that although this was a generalisation, his remarks did come purely from practical observations, not from some intellectual theorisation or ideology. We too suggest three stages in the rise and fall of empires:
- The first stage, that of the grandfather, in the rise of empires is the Age of Conquest, in which great self-belief, energy and courage, as well as great cruelty, greed and racist superiority are shown. (‘All others are barbarians’. ‘The West is Best’). We can see this with the aggressive expansion of the West in the eleventh century, which led at the end of that century to the official ‘First Crusade’ and to the accelerating expansion of settlement, colonisation and exploitation, starting in 1492, with a further drastic and global acceleration about 250 years ago with the conquest of India. This period is the age of the spirit of enterprise and positivity, of ‘we can do it’. We can clearly see this in the recent Victorian Imperial Age of Great Britain and then in the post-1945 Imperial American Age.
- This is followed by the second stage of profit-taking, the stage of the son, of affluence, arrogance, self-congratulation, complacency and hubris. ‘We will rule for ever’, as was expressed in the Edwardian British anthem Land of Hope and Glory, glorifying the Empire ‘on which the sun never set’. That ended with the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic and the suicide of 1914. This was also the slogan of the ‘thousand-year’ Third Empire (= ‘Reich’) of Hitler, which lasted for exactly twelve years. Complacency means that there is a refusal to learn from history and from mistakes, a lack of openness to others, to anything new. ‘We are the greatest, we have nothing to learn from others’. At this stage, empires fall into denial and cannot see how low they are sinking.
- The third stage in the fall of empires, the stage of the grandson, interests us most, since we believe that this is what the Western world is now going through.
Falls are marked by mismanaged crises, dissension, lack of cohesion and common goals. This produces a disparate society because of the lack of shared beliefs and values. As society pulls in different directions, there follow disintegration, negativity and pessimism. Immigration takes place, for there are few to do, or who are interested in doing, vital tasks, since those who were born into that society are interested in the selfish infantilism of ‘fun’. ‘Why bother?’ The lack of energy comes from the lack of self-belief, courage and so passivity. One of today’s phenomena is ‘snowflakes and wimps’, those who constantly suffer from ‘anxiety’ and ‘stress’. People say: ‘There is nothing in it for me’, which shows the selfishness that comes from their lack of aims and values.
Decline is also marked by loss of faith in any religious aim or belief. This creates personal and collective decadence. As Glubb remarked: 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. This cynicism is the result of despair. In the case of Britain, no longer ‘Great’, this can be seen in the satire that has pervaded society since 1945. The spirit of mocking everything, especially the discredited Establishment, can be seen in many satires, such as Monty Python and Mr Bean. There is even a satirical show called Mock the Week.
Conclusion
This cynicism or, in English, world-weariness, can be seen everywhere in contemporary Britain, and in Western countries in general. The lack of self-belief can be seen in the young people, in fact beggars, who stand in the street and sing American songs or, at least, songs in an American accent. When you cannot even sing in your own language, that is the end. The result of the absence of any respect for God and for neighbour ends in a lack of self-respect. This nihilistic attitude to self is seen in poor dress and diet, tattoos, pieces of metal fixed in the face, and the use of drugs, whether vapes, tobacco, alcohol or harder drugs. The decline proceeds generation by generation until it results in nihilism. The cynicism is such that all alternatives are rejected. And so the fall comes.
