b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 1 The Price Of Empire
Why America and Britain Are Self-Destructing (And What the World Can Learn
From it)
https://eand.co/the-price-of-empire-38b2863d8e75
All empires die the same way. Bankrupt. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 2 That there is a price to empire. A grave and ruinous one. And that price has
grown over the centuries - so high that now, it is not worth
paying anymore. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 3 To be a great empire, you must also be a certain kind of culture, society,
place— a people with a certain set of values, a certain kind of attitudes.
You must cherish control and prize possession over humanity and empathy and
wisdom. You must value brutal competition above all else — and
train your children to be little warriors, basically, whether tossing them
into seas, like Spartans, or making them do “active shooter drills.” You
must be domineering and controlling and vengeful, feared, not loved —
you must come to prize anger and rage as the only true or worthy
emotions in life, not, say, intelligence gentleness, kindness, or happiness.
The primary objective of your institutions, the aspiration of your best and
brightest, must be subjugating others, instead of lifting them up —&
#8202;after all, empires are made of subjects, not equals. You must instill
in people an admiration for violence — since empires are run
with bullets, whether fired from drones or armies. Your science and art and
so forth must be dedicated, fundamentally, to the proposition that somehow,
you are the natural masters of the world which is your dominion —&#
8202;no matter how they claim to admire freedom and equality and truth. You
cannot plan for any kind of long term good — your primary
motive is simply to acquire, colonize, plunder, take the next possession. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 4 In other words, to be an empire, you must cultivate the qualities of cruelty
, of selfishness, of greed, of tribalism, socially. Of materialism and
acquisitiveness and conformity to greed and selfishness, mentally. You must
encourage the rise of supremacy and triumphalism and bigotry and misogyny,
culturally. You must attach to all human life just one purpose: not
happiness, or belonging, or the growth of meaning and purpose, but material
gain, whether it’s measured in colonies, protectorates, slaves, bodies, or
GDP. Thus, the overarching organizing principle of your entire empire must
be just this: the strong survive, and the weak perish. Everyone —&#
8202;even the weak — must come to buy into this principle,
treasure it, cheer it, applaud it — even when they themselves
are the ones being destroyed. Just think of how Donald Trump embodies all
those values to a comical, disgusting degree. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 5 How else are you to run an empire? How else are you to convince people to go
out there and conquer the world for you — instead of happily
tilling their fields and loving their children, taking fields and children
from others? You can’t do it without accomplishing most or all of the above
. Every empire from Rome to Egypt to America to Britain has needed to build
these ramparts and beams of the human mind and spirit to be an empire.
Empires are Darwinian things, little pecking orders of humanity —&#
8202;what they are not is democracies, really, though they might be so in
name, they cannot be in spirit, in intellect, in sentiment, in truth. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 6 Now, the problem with a colonial mentality, attitude, society, way of life
is this. What happens when you run out of stuff to colonize? After all,
sooner or later, you’re going to run out of tempting frontiers, helpless
savages, Manhattans to trade for beads, fish in the ocean, and so on, right?
That day might seem a long way away — but it has to come,
after all. Well, then, my friends, you are screwed — if you can
’t give up the colonial mindset, then you will have to colonize yourself.
What do I mean by this curious phrase, “colonize yourself”? I mean that
you will have to exploit your own people the very same way that you
exploited others before. You will have to teach them to exploit each other,
just the same way that they once exploited poorer people of different “
colors” and creeds, when there are no more of those strangers in new
frontiers left to conquer, no more fresh mountains left to plunder. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 7 The lesson is as simple as it is crystal clear. Empires require colonial
mindsets. Attitudes of materialism, selfishness, greed, cruelty, domination.
But what happens an empire runs out of things to colonize? Do you see any
countries in the world left to colonize easily? I don’t. What happens when
a country that used to be an empire runs out of things to colonize is this:
it colonizes itself. Bang! That is the story of American collapse and
Britain’s stunning decline in one sentence. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 8 But English speaking societies, it seems, never learned this lesson. There
are days I wonder if they can. They are too wedded to their colonial mindset
— attitudes of supremacy, of being-number-one, of not being
able to treat anyone else as an equal, of an inability to cooperate, of
anger as the primary emotion in life — to make any progress now
, it seems to me. The English speaking countries probably won’t lead the
world in the 21st century. That shouldn’t be controversial. They can barely
manage themselves at this point. But the lesson, I think, cuts deep and
true. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 9 The price of empire is that maturity, psychologically, socially,
economically, culturally, becomes harder and harder, every day. Maturity
beyond what, exactly? Beyond violence. Beyond stupidity. Beyond greed and
selfishness and cruelty. You see, the Anglos of the world have never given
up their strange love of and lust for all these things —
whether it comes in the form of suddenly insulting their neighbours,
building walls, starting needless wars, whether wars of trade or wars fought
with missiles, drone-bombing children to death, or the subtler violence and
greed of people taking their neighbours’ healthcare and jobs and savings
away. | b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 10 But violence and greed and cruelty cannot lead anyone anymore to prosperity
in the 21st century. There is nobody left to colonize and exploit left but
yourself, your very own society, in a world which is out of easy frontiers
and helpless peoples. Nobody’s trading Manhattans for beads anymore, are
they? And so violence and greed is only left in one form: self-destruction.
Funnily, ironically, foolishly, tragically, the only choice that English
speaking world seem able to make anymore is self-destruction —
because the problem is that empire’s price is an addiction to ruin in the
first place, but in the end, there is no one to ruin but yourself. | h****e
发帖数: 1 | 11 英美帝国，或文化的特点就是狠毒，无所不用其极。两个国家都在医疗事故后杀婴儿
Alfie 被活活饿死
。。。。。
: The lesson is as simple as it is crystal clear. Empires require
colonial
: mindsets. Attitudes of materialism, selfishness, greed, cruelty,
domination.
: But what happens an empire runs out of things to colonize? Do you see
any
: countries in the world left to colonize easily? I don’t. What happens
when
: a country that used to be an empire runs out of things to colonize is
this:
: it colonizes itself. Bang! That is the story of American collapse and
: Britain’s stunning decline in one sentence.
【在 b*********3 的大作中提到】
: But violence and greed and cruelty cannot lead anyone anymore to prosperity
: in the 21st century. There is nobody left to colonize and exploit left but
: yourself, your very own society, in a world which is out of easy frontiers
: and helpless peoples. Nobody’s trading Manhattans for beads anymore, are
: they? And so violence and greed is only left in one form: self-destruction.
: Funnily, ironically, foolishly, tragically, the only choice that English
: speaking world seem able to make anymore is self-destruction —
: because the problem is that empire’s price is an addiction to ruin in the
: first place, but in the end, there is no one to ruin but yourself.
| b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 12 yeah but everyday Americans also aren't interested in learning about the
world or their place in it, either.
they seem to be happy sleeping their way through life, racking up debt on
their credit cards, perfectly content to watch the rest of the world burning
as long as THEIR houses aren't on fire, YET.
If they don't wake up soon from their "american dream," it WILL be their
houses, next.
see
happens
【在 h****e 的大作中提到】
: 英美帝国，或文化的特点就是狠毒，无所不用其极。两个国家都在医疗事故后杀婴儿
: Alfie 被活活饿死
: 。。。。。
:
:
: The lesson is as simple as it is crystal clear. Empires require
: colonial
:
: mindsets. Attitudes of materialism, selfishness, greed, cruelty,
: domination.
:
: But what happens an empire runs out of things to colonize? Do you see
: any
| b*********3
发帖数: 1709 | 13 When humanity will wiser and stop measuring its small dicks with a large
roulette - wake me up. Humanity is a single species of animals, empire is a
consequence of the policy "Divide and Conquer", which contradicts the unity
of the human species. Evolve or degrade, it's up to you. |
|
