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This is the first chapter from a book I am writing about the decline of the West, and how to reverse it. This chapter summarises a number of indicators of decli

This is the first chapter from a book I am writing about the decline of the West, and how to reverse it. This chapter summarises a number of indicators of decline and implications for the future, while also touching on the potential causes by applying the thoughts of Spengler and Toynbee. Enjoy and feedback welcome!

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
thanks I look forward to reading it. Jacques Ellul's 1979 "The Betrayal of the West" [0][1] was way ahead of it's time. You might find it useful during your research. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057367903600119?journalCode=ttja https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057367903600... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-West-Continuum-book/dp/0816493383 https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-West-Continuum-book/dp/08164...
- sheefrex 6y ago
  Many thanks for your comment and this reference -- he looks like a very interesting thinker.
DanielBMarkham 6y ago
Interesting, and (so far) well-sourced. You picked a good day to post here. For some reason, Sundays is always it's-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it on HN. Every week I see variations around the same theme. It's cool to have the topic covered with reduced scope (societies, not the planet at large), and in-depth. Which brings me to my questions. One, what is "The West"? Would the French Revolution count as a civilization-wide failure? The Bronze Age collapse? Sea Peoples? The Long March? The Hellenic Era ending? Perhaps this is explained elsewhere, but some clarification would be helpful. Two, it might be good to cover all of the "false positives" when it comes to predicting civilization collapse. It's been quite the cottage industry over the centuries. Romans were quite concerned with the lack of morals and corruption the Greeks brought them. Many believed that signaled the end of Rome. Why, some of the "new" Romans weren't even sleeping on the ground any more! They were using beds! Three, and I apologize for so many queries, but "collapse" or "failure", or whatever you're using could also use a bit of definition. The Western Roman Empire collapsed and failed, that much is obvious. But just when that occurred is much less clear. People in Europe thought of themselves as Romans long after modern historians view Rome as being gone. I believe there are a couple of other examples of unclear failures, where the people involved in the failure couldn't see what was happening right in front of them, but none come to mind right away. Good work. Look forward to seeing more of it!
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > You picked a good day to post here. For some reason, Sundays is always it's-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it on HN. I’ve noticed this too but I wasn’t sure if it was in my head/confirmation bias or an actual pattern. I wonder whether the Sunday Scaries could be to blame for the uptick in that sort of reading material.
  - DanielBMarkham 6y ago
    Fascinating idea. I've noticed it for a couple of years or more now. I figured most readers of HN have also noticed it, so I thought I would throw it out there to see if my observation was shared or not. I know that people cycle through moods in their lives. I also know that people require some amount of drama in order to feel as if they have meaning (Even/especially people who say they don't like drama). Doomscrolling and the associated content promotion, curation, and aggregation probably tap into that primal need. The internet at scale and the associated Markov-chain-like content selection and promotion we're seeing is hacking the species in some very significant and unexplored ways. Between the folks completely in denial and those claiming that the end is near, there needs to be some real philosophy and science going on (I don't think either one by itself is going to help much since this is a completely new area of intellectual exploration) *(Reference to phrase "Sunday Scaries" for those who haven't seen it before: www.sunday-scaries.com/what-are-sunday-scaries )
- sheefrex 6y ago
  Thank you for this positive response and good questions. 1. I think what constitues the West is constantly changing. The historical base is Western Europe. If W. Europe and the US diverge in ideology over the next few decades (not necessarily a bad thing) then as a category the West will shrink back to the base. Possibly a bit larger if the EU stays intact or integrates further, as I hope it does. 2. I would define failure as a near complete and permanent loss of control by a society over itself and its internal territory. So the Bronze Age Collapse would definitely qualify, as some of those societies never rose again. But under this definition the French Revolution and the Long March would not qualify. The conquest of Greece by Rome could count, but the re-emergence of Greece in the Byzantine Empire complicates things. Some see the latter as a different culture -- I would need to read more myself before coming to a view on this. It's true that some thought of themselves Roman well into the 600s -- such as Gregory the Great, for instance. But they weren't in control anymore, so that would be a partial collapse under my definition (as the Eastern Roman Empire persisted)
pstuart 6y ago
So far you're on point as far as I'm concerned. I'm eager to see what you have to say about reversing course. An issue that bothers me no end is the fact that we very well could get out of this mess if we collectively wanted to.
- ssb1 6y ago
  "to no end" means: uselessly, futilely. 'no end" means: endlessly.
  - pstuart 6y ago
    Thank you for the correction. Edited accordingly.
- rpiguy 6y ago
  Everyone collectively wants to, we just can’t decide how. Half the population wants the post-capitalist, ecologically sound, anti-racist path forward. The other half wants to lean hard into capitalism and traditional civil liberties (“freedom to” not “freedom from”) with an emphasis on innovating our way to the future and out of our current problems. The post-capitalists look too much like communists to be trusted by the freedom folks, and the freedom folks look too much like history’s economic oppressors and robber barons to be trusted. Historically these divides take a long time dissolve (unless there is a bloody conflict and clear winner).
  - rtsil 6y ago
    I believe you're trying to apply the US model to the rest of the West. For instance, I'm not sure there is a conflict between ecologically sound and innovation in most other western countries, or the same perception of "communism" as the Bogeyman: for most, it's just a failed experiment/ideology, not an imminent threat to their way of life like how some US discourses view it.
  - tristor 6y ago
    > traditional civil liberties (“freedom to” not “freedom from”) There's no such thing as "freedom from", which is probably one of the main sticking points between these two groups. "Freedom from" is just a nice way to say "loss of agency due to oppressive external control". I realize this may seem like a pointless semantic quibble, but I think at it's root it points out a philosophical divide, where-in I personally believe one side is divorced from reality. There are reasonable discussions to be had about where on the sliding scale from totalitarian to libertarian that society should fall for the best results for everyone, but in no case is there ever a situation in which "freedom from" is a real thing. You are trading off "freedom" for "safety".
EliRivers 6y ago
If you've read "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future" by Oreskes and Conway, what did you make of it? The collapse they portray (and they're not so much saying "this is how it will happen" as just running with an idea) is driven by climate change and a refusal (political and social inability?) of the West to save themselves, if I recall correctly. You certainly touch on this in your first section, although Spengler and Toynbee discuss other ways for a civilisation to collapse.
- sheefrex 6y ago
  Thank you for the comment. I haven't read that but I will take a look!
Alex3917 6y ago
IMHO this misses the mark. For me the crux of it is that it's only possible for liberal western values to exist in contexts where most people have enough wealth to not have to seriously worry about their physiological- and safety-related needs.[1] And the reason we're at this level of wealth now is only because we've been unsustainably borrowing wealth from the future, and as per all unsustainable things by definition, sooner or later this situation is going to come to an end. Saying things like climate change or political corruption or whatever might cause western civilization to collapse is accurate, but that's not really a good starting point. There's a bigger pattern here that you should be mentioning. [1] I realize Maslow's Hierarchy is not an accurate model, but close enough for the point I'm making.
- jules 6y ago
  Different regions have had vastly varying levels of liberalism with vastly different levels of wealth. Look at Saudi Arabia. And remember that rich countries 100 years ago were much poorer than poor countries now. There is some correlation for sure, but there is a certain tendency to say that everything is due to the level of wealth, which is empirically false.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    And yet, those examples do fit. Saudi Arabia has "vastly different levels of wealth" but much less liberalism precisely because of how that wealth was achieved (not through competition, building an internal market, developing a middle class etc, but by digging holes on the ground where basically money comes out in the form of oil - holes which are tied to the owning families). So the development is still economic it's just not merely about "amount of wealth" but about the process in which the wealth was created too. A self-made guy with a 1 billion wealth is more likely than not a savvy businessman. A guy who won 1 billion in the super-lottery is not - even though both have 1 billion.
    - jules 6y ago
      I agree with that, but that's not what the comment said: > For me the crux of it is that it's only possible for liberal western values to exist in contexts where most people have enough wealth to not have to seriously worry about their physiological- and safety-related needs.[1] And the reason we're at this level of wealth now is only because we've been unsustainably borrowing wealth from the future Which is rather the opposite of what you're saying, particularly if "unsustainably borrowing from the future" refers to things like fossil fuels. While your changed hypothesis matches empirical data better than the original hypothesis, I think you have to be careful in how you interpret it. Countries like Norway and the Netherlands have large amounts of fossil fuels, yet are very culturally liberal, even compared to neighbors like Germany. So it doesn't seem to be the case that the presence of natural resources turns cultures away from liberalism, though that's probably not what you meant anyway. There's the question of the direction of causality. The comment I responded to only considers one direction, but could the other direction not be an important factor? Is it that wealthier societies develop certain kinds of cultures, or is it also that certain kinds of cultures tend to develop more wealth, even in the absence of vast locally available natural resources? For example, if we had an alternative timeline in which Saudi Arabia had no oil yet was rich, isn't it plausible that they'd also have a culture that focuses on scientific inquiry, education, and economic freedom, not because those things are a result of wealth but because they are a prerequisite for it in the absence of natural resources. There is obviously a relationship between economy and culture, but the relationship is not one-way, and it's far from simple.
pkkim 6y ago
Quite interesting work. My main questions are: What is the West? Which countries? and What do decline and death mean, and what don't they mean? These, I think, should be established as early as possible, and the ideas of Spengler and Toynbee presented afterwards, with points of similarity and difference with your own definitions highlighted. Some minor points: - Section 1.2 begins by discussing a crisis in creativity and the changing relationship between the elites and the masses. But then it switches to a list of "challenges" including aging and growing sovereign debt. This is rather jarring and needs to be reorganized. - It's very surprising to read that Greek philosophers switched focus from political philosophy to individual virtue once the Macedonians and Romans invaded. All of Plato's dialogues that I've read are about individual virtue. Even the Republic is only fifty percent politics and the rest is about the soul. Aristotle too is very concerned with what the personal virtues are and how they can be cultivated.
andi999 6y ago
I read it, and am still puzzled what precisely you mean by 'the West'. Spengler meant western Europe; is this also your definition? Or do you mean same vague idea, including countries like North America (with or without Mexico?), New Zeeland, Australia? What about South America?
- sheefrex 6y ago
  Thank you for reading. This is a very difficult question. I am sympathetic to the view of Spengler, which is similar to that of Toynbee. But in practise, I think what constitues the West is constantly changing. The historical base is Western Europe. If Western Europe and the US diverge in ideology over the next few decades (not necessarily a bad thing) then as a category the West will shrink back to the base. Possibly a bit larger if the EU stays intact or integrates further, as I hope it does. If one was to scientifically determine it they would look at how strong cultural transmission is across the different units -- probably looking at the distribution of movies and other media, as well as how quickly new phrases and political ideas spread across social media.
AlotOfReading 6y ago
As mentioned earlier, this is a well trodden field whose results depend heavily on how you choose to define collapse or decline. I didn't see any indication of that kind of discussion. Secondly, you seem to make use of historical examples as demonstrations, but without discussing the context around them (if they were even collapses!). There's a huge risk in doing that of making superficial comparisons with no actual basis in reality. This is the trap most works on the subject fall into, because it's almost impossible for any single person to have high level expertise across multiple disparate periods and history of any particular collapse is very much unsettled, expert level territory.
- sheefrex 6y ago
  Thank you for commenting. These are very reasonable criticisms and I will take them into account.
morelisp 6y ago
> feedback welcome You're a racist piece of shit.
- gguevaraa 6y ago
  How has this not been flagged or removed lmao. Dang pls!
  - morelisp 6y ago
    If HN is going to spread Identity Evropa onboarding documents like this one, it would be incredibly immoral not to also spread my comment. (Or at least grant it the same policy of moderator non-intervention.) This article is not worth engaging intellectually with; it is warmed over colonial racist drivel; it deserves shutting down immediately; it survives only because so many of HN's participants are deeply historically ignorant. If HN moderators won't get rid of it out of their own moral sense, we must force them to do it by driving the cost of such threads up until they cannot tolerate them for practical reasons.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

thanks I look forward to reading it. Jacques Ellul's 1979 "The Betrayal of the West" [0][1] was way ahead of it's time. You might find it useful during your research. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057367903600119?journalCode=ttja https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057367903600... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-West-Continuum-book/dp/0816493383 https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-West-Continuum-book/dp/08164...

sheefrex 6y ago
Many thanks for your comment and this reference -- he looks like a very interesting thinker.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago

Interesting, and (so far) well-sourced. You picked a good day to post here. For some reason, Sundays is always it's-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it on HN. Every week I see variations around the same theme. It's cool to have the topic covered with reduced scope (societies, not the planet at large), and in-depth. Which brings me to my questions. One, what is "The West"? Would the French Revolution count as a civilization-wide failure? The Bronze Age collapse? Sea Peoples? The Long March? The Hellenic Era ending? Perhaps this is explained elsewhere, but some clarification would be helpful. Two, it might be good to cover all of the "false positives" when it comes to predicting civilization collapse. It's been quite the cottage industry over the centuries. Romans were quite concerned with the lack of morals and corruption the Greeks brought them. Many believed that signaled the end of Rome. Why, some of the "new" Romans weren't even sleeping on the ground any more! They were using beds! Three, and I apologize for so many queries, but "collapse" or "failure", or whatever you're using could also use a bit of definition. The Western Roman Empire collapsed and failed, that much is obvious. But just when that occurred is much less clear. People in Europe thought of themselves as Romans long after modern historians view Rome as being gone. I believe there are a couple of other examples of unclear failures, where the people involved in the failure couldn't see what was happening right in front of them, but none come to mind right away. Good work. Look forward to seeing more of it!

elliekelly 6y ago
> You picked a good day to post here. For some reason, Sundays is always it's-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it on HN. I’ve noticed this too but I wasn’t sure if it was in my head/confirmation bias or an actual pattern. I wonder whether the Sunday Scaries could be to blame for the uptick in that sort of reading material.
- DanielBMarkham 6y ago
  Fascinating idea. I've noticed it for a couple of years or more now. I figured most readers of HN have also noticed it, so I thought I would throw it out there to see if my observation was shared or not. I know that people cycle through moods in their lives. I also know that people require some amount of drama in order to feel as if they have meaning (Even/especially people who say they don't like drama). Doomscrolling and the associated content promotion, curation, and aggregation probably tap into that primal need. The internet at scale and the associated Markov-chain-like content selection and promotion we're seeing is hacking the species in some very significant and unexplored ways. Between the folks completely in denial and those claiming that the end is near, there needs to be some real philosophy and science going on (I don't think either one by itself is going to help much since this is a completely new area of intellectual exploration) *(Reference to phrase "Sunday Scaries" for those who haven't seen it before: www.sunday-scaries.com/what-are-sunday-scaries )
sheefrex 6y ago
Thank you for this positive response and good questions. 1. I think what constitues the West is constantly changing. The historical base is Western Europe. If W. Europe and the US diverge in ideology over the next few decades (not necessarily a bad thing) then as a category the West will shrink back to the base. Possibly a bit larger if the EU stays intact or integrates further, as I hope it does. 2. I would define failure as a near complete and permanent loss of control by a society over itself and its internal territory. So the Bronze Age Collapse would definitely qualify, as some of those societies never rose again. But under this definition the French Revolution and the Long March would not qualify. The conquest of Greece by Rome could count, but the re-emergence of Greece in the Byzantine Empire complicates things. Some see the latter as a different culture -- I would need to read more myself before coming to a view on this. It's true that some thought of themselves Roman well into the 600s -- such as Gregory the Great, for instance. But they weren't in control anymore, so that would be a partial collapse under my definition (as the Eastern Roman Empire persisted)

pstuart 6y ago

So far you're on point as far as I'm concerned. I'm eager to see what you have to say about reversing course. An issue that bothers me no end is the fact that we very well could get out of this mess if we collectively wanted to.

ssb1 6y ago
"to no end" means: uselessly, futilely. 'no end" means: endlessly.
- pstuart 6y ago
  Thank you for the correction. Edited accordingly.
rpiguy 6y ago
Everyone collectively wants to, we just can’t decide how. Half the population wants the post-capitalist, ecologically sound, anti-racist path forward. The other half wants to lean hard into capitalism and traditional civil liberties (“freedom to” not “freedom from”) with an emphasis on innovating our way to the future and out of our current problems. The post-capitalists look too much like communists to be trusted by the freedom folks, and the freedom folks look too much like history’s economic oppressors and robber barons to be trusted. Historically these divides take a long time dissolve (unless there is a bloody conflict and clear winner).
- rtsil 6y ago
  I believe you're trying to apply the US model to the rest of the West. For instance, I'm not sure there is a conflict between ecologically sound and innovation in most other western countries, or the same perception of "communism" as the Bogeyman: for most, it's just a failed experiment/ideology, not an imminent threat to their way of life like how some US discourses view it.
- tristor 6y ago
  > traditional civil liberties (“freedom to” not “freedom from”) There's no such thing as "freedom from", which is probably one of the main sticking points between these two groups. "Freedom from" is just a nice way to say "loss of agency due to oppressive external control". I realize this may seem like a pointless semantic quibble, but I think at it's root it points out a philosophical divide, where-in I personally believe one side is divorced from reality. There are reasonable discussions to be had about where on the sliding scale from totalitarian to libertarian that society should fall for the best results for everyone, but in no case is there ever a situation in which "freedom from" is a real thing. You are trading off "freedom" for "safety".

EliRivers 6y ago

If you've read "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future" by Oreskes and Conway, what did you make of it? The collapse they portray (and they're not so much saying "this is how it will happen" as just running with an idea) is driven by climate change and a refusal (political and social inability?) of the West to save themselves, if I recall correctly. You certainly touch on this in your first section, although Spengler and Toynbee discuss other ways for a civilisation to collapse.

sheefrex 6y ago
Thank you for the comment. I haven't read that but I will take a look!

Alex3917 6y ago

IMHO this misses the mark. For me the crux of it is that it's only possible for liberal western values to exist in contexts where most people have enough wealth to not have to seriously worry about their physiological- and safety-related needs.[1] And the reason we're at this level of wealth now is only because we've been unsustainably borrowing wealth from the future, and as per all unsustainable things by definition, sooner or later this situation is going to come to an end. Saying things like climate change or political corruption or whatever might cause western civilization to collapse is accurate, but that's not really a good starting point. There's a bigger pattern here that you should be mentioning. [1] I realize Maslow's Hierarchy is not an accurate model, but close enough for the point I'm making.

jules 6y ago
Different regions have had vastly varying levels of liberalism with vastly different levels of wealth. Look at Saudi Arabia. And remember that rich countries 100 years ago were much poorer than poor countries now. There is some correlation for sure, but there is a certain tendency to say that everything is due to the level of wealth, which is empirically false.
- coldtea 6y ago
  And yet, those examples do fit. Saudi Arabia has "vastly different levels of wealth" but much less liberalism precisely because of how that wealth was achieved (not through competition, building an internal market, developing a middle class etc, but by digging holes on the ground where basically money comes out in the form of oil - holes which are tied to the owning families). So the development is still economic it's just not merely about "amount of wealth" but about the process in which the wealth was created too. A self-made guy with a 1 billion wealth is more likely than not a savvy businessman. A guy who won 1 billion in the super-lottery is not - even though both have 1 billion.
  - jules 6y ago
    I agree with that, but that's not what the comment said: > For me the crux of it is that it's only possible for liberal western values to exist in contexts where most people have enough wealth to not have to seriously worry about their physiological- and safety-related needs.[1] And the reason we're at this level of wealth now is only because we've been unsustainably borrowing wealth from the future Which is rather the opposite of what you're saying, particularly if "unsustainably borrowing from the future" refers to things like fossil fuels. While your changed hypothesis matches empirical data better than the original hypothesis, I think you have to be careful in how you interpret it. Countries like Norway and the Netherlands have large amounts of fossil fuels, yet are very culturally liberal, even compared to neighbors like Germany. So it doesn't seem to be the case that the presence of natural resources turns cultures away from liberalism, though that's probably not what you meant anyway. There's the question of the direction of causality. The comment I responded to only considers one direction, but could the other direction not be an important factor? Is it that wealthier societies develop certain kinds of cultures, or is it also that certain kinds of cultures tend to develop more wealth, even in the absence of vast locally available natural resources? For example, if we had an alternative timeline in which Saudi Arabia had no oil yet was rich, isn't it plausible that they'd also have a culture that focuses on scientific inquiry, education, and economic freedom, not because those things are a result of wealth but because they are a prerequisite for it in the absence of natural resources. There is obviously a relationship between economy and culture, but the relationship is not one-way, and it's far from simple.

pkkim 6y ago

Quite interesting work. My main questions are: What is the West? Which countries? and What do decline and death mean, and what don't they mean? These, I think, should be established as early as possible, and the ideas of Spengler and Toynbee presented afterwards, with points of similarity and difference with your own definitions highlighted. Some minor points: - Section 1.2 begins by discussing a crisis in creativity and the changing relationship between the elites and the masses. But then it switches to a list of "challenges" including aging and growing sovereign debt. This is rather jarring and needs to be reorganized. - It's very surprising to read that Greek philosophers switched focus from political philosophy to individual virtue once the Macedonians and Romans invaded. All of Plato's dialogues that I've read are about individual virtue. Even the Republic is only fifty percent politics and the rest is about the soul. Aristotle too is very concerned with what the personal virtues are and how they can be cultivated.

andi999 6y ago

I read it, and am still puzzled what precisely you mean by 'the West'. Spengler meant western Europe; is this also your definition? Or do you mean same vague idea, including countries like North America (with or without Mexico?), New Zeeland, Australia? What about South America?

sheefrex 6y ago
Thank you for reading. This is a very difficult question. I am sympathetic to the view of Spengler, which is similar to that of Toynbee. But in practise, I think what constitues the West is constantly changing. The historical base is Western Europe. If Western Europe and the US diverge in ideology over the next few decades (not necessarily a bad thing) then as a category the West will shrink back to the base. Possibly a bit larger if the EU stays intact or integrates further, as I hope it does. If one was to scientifically determine it they would look at how strong cultural transmission is across the different units -- probably looking at the distribution of movies and other media, as well as how quickly new phrases and political ideas spread across social media.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

As mentioned earlier, this is a well trodden field whose results depend heavily on how you choose to define collapse or decline. I didn't see any indication of that kind of discussion. Secondly, you seem to make use of historical examples as demonstrations, but without discussing the context around them (if they were even collapses!). There's a huge risk in doing that of making superficial comparisons with no actual basis in reality. This is the trap most works on the subject fall into, because it's almost impossible for any single person to have high level expertise across multiple disparate periods and history of any particular collapse is very much unsettled, expert level territory.

sheefrex 6y ago
Thank you for commenting. These are very reasonable criticisms and I will take them into account.

morelisp 6y ago

> feedback welcome You're a racist piece of shit.

gguevaraa 6y ago
How has this not been flagged or removed lmao. Dang pls!
- morelisp 6y ago
  If HN is going to spread Identity Evropa onboarding documents like this one, it would be incredibly immoral not to also spread my comment. (Or at least grant it the same policy of moderator non-intervention.) This article is not worth engaging intellectually with; it is warmed over colonial racist drivel; it deserves shutting down immediately; it survives only because so many of HN's participants are deeply historically ignorant. If HN moderators won't get rid of it out of their own moral sense, we must force them to do it by driving the cost of such threads up until they cannot tolerate them for practical reasons.