In case you’re feeling happy about life, I thought it would be a good idea to write an article to pour misery on your delusion. However, if you’re not sleep-walking through life, then you know that the hitherto free-wheelin-easy-going Australia, that we once knew and loved, is slipping inexorably away, we’re not quite sure why, and are powerless to stop it.
Civilization and societal collapse
From my extensive research (I read a book) and then the assiduous application of my attention to watching many YouTube experts (at least I didn’t consult Wikipedia), I had a catharsis. The scales fell from my eyes, when a social media authority said ‘…the end of civilization is not an event, but a process’.
There you have it, throughout history as civilizations rise to dizzy heights and then collapse in a heap, on each occasion most people aretotally unaware of their nation’s imminent demise. They realise times are troubled, but foolishly believe things will improve eventually.
You know ‘things will be back to normal soon’ (hmm ….where’ve I heard that before?). They don’t realise and perhaps you don’t either dear reader, that we’re living in the terminal stage of civilizational collapse, as John Bagot Glubb in his essay ‘The Fate of Empires in Search of Survival’predicts. Let’s take a look at his theory now.
Civilization is like a living organism
Glubb avers that all great civilizations can be likened to a living organism. And justas we humans go through a set of predetermined stages in our life-cycle (birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age and then death), so too, it’s natural for civilizations to pass through a set of historically demonstrable stages before their inevitable death.
Stage 1 begins when a critical mass, who share a set of common values and vision, abounding in courage, vitality and energy, determine to settle in, may be even conqueror new lands. They cross vast oceans ill equipped, in cockle shells (Glubb), determined to overcome every obstacle,against seemly insurmountable odds, until they succeed.
Stage 2, they settle down and start to manufacture stuff and grow things, and so the Age of Commerce begins. They believe that hard work creates wealth (¬ the RBA’s printing press). Throughout the Age of Commerce, the arts flourish, theatres are built, monuments constructed, the high-water mark of prosperity arrives. And with it the seeds of self-destruction are sown.
The Age of Commerce passes to the Age of Affluence,wherein greed and vanity are in the ascendency. The virtuous nexus between hard work and wealth creation is broken, money becomes an end in itself and is held to be the primarysource of happiness in life. Hmmm …. that sounds familiar.
At the same time, the welfare state is born. Now that the connection between hard work and reward is severed, an ethos of entitlement arises, the belief that everyone, even those who don’t work, should receive the same benefits as those who do, takes root. It’s been estimated that 1/3rd of Rome’s population was on the dole by the end of the C1st, funded by pillaging the wealth of the conquered.
Increasing affluence unfetters people from the drudgery of work, freeing them to follow intellectual matters. And so, the Age of Intellectemerges and withit rationality assumes supremacy.
Reason replaces religion and the original ethos upon which the society was built. AsNietzschesays ‘… rationality darkened the face of learning … the moral code which once guided the nation to greatness is replaced by moral relativism’,and the populace abandoned the notion of absolute Truth, in favour of ‘you can be your own truth’.
However human wisdom is folly. Paul reminds us‘…… Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20 .
The Age of Decadence: the terminal phase
And finally, we reach the Age of Decadence, the terminal phase before the inevitable collapse. This is the era that we’re living through now. Let’s take a look.
The pervasive legacy that the Age of Intellect bequeaths to us is Nihilism, which contends that our lives are meaningless, don’t bother looking for a purpose because there is none. Both the universe and we ourselves are made of atoms, and atoms don’t care about who you are, or what you do (Materialism). Consequently, virtue becomes vice, and vice virtue and no one candetermine the validity of either. With no imperative to seek truth, moral decay follows, as surely night follows day.
Life without a moral code and without purpose, invariably leads to decadence, mental illness, hedonism and all manner of addictions, as people attempt to escape their miserable lives. Lamentably these vices have become the hallmarks of Western civilization today.
Over 100,000 people die of drug overdoses in the USA per annum. In the year 20-2,in Australia two in five people age between 16-24 years had a mental disorder. Broken marriages abound, there’s one divorce for every 1.6 marriages. I won’t bore you with the mountain of statistics corroborating the moral collapse of society.
Again, Paul provides us the insight into the moral rot of the C1st presaging the fall of the Roman Empire two centuries later. In Romans chapter 1 verse 28 he states
‘…….Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, ……29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
We aren’t without Hope
Notwithstanding the inevitable demise of the West, we’ve the resources and the power to stand for Jesus Christ. To foreknow is to be forearmed. We believe that our God reigns and that Jesus Christ has been pre-ordained to rule over all earthly kingdoms, bringing permanent peace and justice to our world. Amen