What causes the rise and fall of nations?: Philosophy Forums

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What causes the rise and fall of nations?

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What causes the rise and fall of nations?

Makarismos
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Posted 03/28/09 - 06:17 PM:	#21
Surely the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?

Gulnara
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Posted 04/07/09 - 10:21 AM:	#22
Well, the many nations that disappeared so to say, did not absolutely disappear. Sometimes they just got another ruling system over them, acquire a different administrative name. In most cases they simply morphed into other nations, became a part of their genetic pool. The morphing, the mixing of different nations causes humanity to survive as a whole. This flow and redistribution of genetic material is the best method to survive climatic, social, political and economic change.
G.E.

colordye
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Posted 04/07/09 - 03:49 PM:	#23
Makarismos touched on this... I wonder if historical standards are going to change when our world progresses beyond old patterns (if). We already don't have to rely on a particular identity in our people in order to come together and continue to advance as One. There's an interesting contrast between the aspirations of modern equal-opportunities places like America and another less diversified places like Japan. I'm not saying that we're close to being able to unify in any meaningful way that trumps Us v Them, but I'm wondering "if/and if so how" this might affect the rise and fall of nations. The modern world has strayed from monarchies, and so too has it become more equal and unified between the "natives" and "foreigners". I know there were old powers that conquered vast territories and incorporated those peoples into their own civilization, but I don't think any of those were on equal footing with the original skin and creed and nationality of the power, which is an attitude we're working against in modern day. Monarchies contributed to falling empires and reborn nations, so the progression from them has helped our resilience. I wonder if this new unification will help it too, since we no longer have to rely on some archaic pure-blood native belief to advance ourselves and our nation. On another note somebody mentioned generational laziness, and that's a reasonable/inevitable explanation. If I work really hard my whole life so my kids don't have to, obviously my kids won't because I provided the opportunity for them. It's unrealistic to expect people not to enjoy the fruits of their labor (or more precisely the fruits of an elder's labor). At the end of the day we are still egotistical individuals who want happiness for ourselves before happiness for the good of our larger public. And I'm "okay" with that.

PontificatingChauncy
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Posted 04/08/09 - 08:25 AM:	#24
First off, I want to say that this isn't my original idea: I took this mostly from thearchdruidreport.com, and if you want info from the source, go there. Civilizations can be considered as a collective of the stories humans tell themselves to understand the world. Some of these stories are better than others. The problems mentioned earlier are extensions of this: Pluralality as a good thing refers to many stories coexisting, while PC is denying that some stories are better. It's important to point out here that better, is a situational term referring to the best thing to do HERE, and NOW, and you really can't say much else about it. Arrogance, mentioned earlier, is just thinking that your stories are so good you never try to adjust them to changes in the world, and once your story is out-of-touch compleatly, it gets you and your society killed. Basically, once a nation locks in certain stories, the timer starts on an increasing failure to adapt until the nation is destroyed by someone else.
The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. That thing is a chauncy

Warshed
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Posted 04/09/09 - 10:43 AM:	#25
What the united states needs to do to bring back its prior prosperity is re-institute slavery, and possibly take over some countries and rape them for all their natural resources. The problem is that other nations are willing to work longer, harder, and for less money and so we buy products from them, they get enriched and we lose our jobs or have our income deteriorate. The only way to solve that is to get an even cheaper labor force and their nothing quite cheaper than free, so if we want to stop the slow deterioration, we need to get some slaves going, otherwise globalization will slowly level the opulent lifestyle we have been living. I figure if we invaded Mexico, enslaved most of the population and distributed the slaves around the united states, maybe like 1 or 2 slaves per family, our GDP would go up tremendously and our standard of living would climb in proportion. Either that or we get some smart robots going, but that is a long ways away.

PontificatingChauncy
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Posted 04/09/09 - 01:17 PM:	#26
But they work longer and harder than us. How do we inslave them? I doubt they'll find guns as impressive the second time around.
The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. That thing is a chauncy

Dr. Tyko Glas
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Posted 04/10/09 - 06:08 PM:	#27
keda wrote: Anyone who has the slightest grasp of history should know there is a pattern ... Historicity ...? Surely you must know that the metanarrative has been abandoned as it signified the phlogiston of this particular science. keda wrote: Civilisation is hardly measured by military strength. A weak nation falls because of the character of its people, likewise does a strong one arise on its basis. Allow me to reconstruct your statement: Civilization is measured by the character of its people, i.e. its Volksgeist. It is laughable how you introduce 17th century Romantic nationalism as a viable argument. Save your sisu for another topic.
"In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods." -- Arthur Schopenhauer

kenichi
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Posted 04/11/09 - 04:23 PM:	#28
The word "nation" is is used in the history classroom usually connotes a people: a people who feel that they together belong to something. For the Greeks, it was helenism. While they were politically divided, they might well have been considered a Greek nation. The Indian tribes of America provide another similar example (Cherokee nation, Souix nation). Hell you could even make a case that the Boston Red Sox are a nation. The point is, a nation is not necessarily a political construction. What makes a nation great? In my opinion, self-sufficiency (I'm an OLD right winger). But if we mean "great" in a normative sense, I'd say a great nation offers it's citizens the protection of their God-given freedoms and asks of them nothing more than a little taxation. By either measure, the world is want of some great nations.
And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night

Braden Heron
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Posted 04/13/09 - 04:33 PM:	#29
Warshed wrote: What the united states needs to do to bring back its prior prosperity is re-institute slavery, and possibly take over some countries and rape them for all their natural resources. The problem is that other nations are willing to work longer, harder, and for less money and so we buy products from them, they get enriched and we lose our jobs or have our income deteriorate. The only way to solve that is to get an even cheaper labor force and their nothing quite cheaper than free, so if we want to stop the slow deterioration, we need to get some slaves going, otherwise globalization will slowly level the opulent lifestyle we have been living. I figure if we invaded Mexico, enslaved most of the population and distributed the slaves around the united states, maybe like 1 or 2 slaves per family, our GDP would go up tremendously and our standard of living would climb in proportion. Either that or we get some smart robots going, but that is a long ways away. You are two things, an ignorant bigot who fails to think before "it" speaks, and an idiot in the fullest measure. I would appreciate it if you would make no further comments on my personally post. Thank you for your input, and I hope for your sake we never meet in real life.

unenlightened
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Posted 04/13/09 - 08:31 PM:	#30
Perhaps Warshed makes an unflattering, but serious point, that what causes a nation to see itself as 'great' is a convenient amnesia for the sources of its wealth and power, and that this amnesia is also the source of its downfall. This point is not undermined by your outrage, but if anything, confirmed.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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