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"Just as Western Civilization staggered and faded after the fall of Rome, Western Civilization has never really recovered from the shock of the Great War. Cultu
by FlowerPower 15y ago
"Just as Western Civilization staggered and faded after the fall of Rome, Western Civilization has never really recovered from the shock of the Great War. Cultures which endured and developed over a thousand years were wiped out, never to return again. Western culture, abstract thought and artistic development: nothing important has developed since 1919; we’re still reeling from the shock."
What a load of bollocks. The author hasnt heard of the situationism, dada-ism, Zerzan or Sartre but for sure the western civilization has.
Further on "The Mongols never had the societal organization the West did, so they could never take advantage of their successes, and their various empires only served to make the Russians and Chinese paranoid, and Eastern European women more exotic looking.".
This is also bollocks, the mongols successfully ruled a vast area from China to Europe, the silk road was again revived, you could travel from Poland to Peking and not get robbed. The mongols collected all the taxes from such a vast region, even after Djenghis Khan died, thats some hell of organization right there.
On manuvre warfare, Alexander The Graeat (or as persions like to call him Alexander the Gay) certanly knew about this.
- hernan7 15y agoOr maybe he heard of situationism, dada, etc., and classifies them under "nothing important".
- philwelch 15y agoFrankly, I would too--but in terms of culture and philosophy there were certainly significant advances post-1919.
- gwern 15y ago> This is also bollocks, the mongols successfully ruled a vast area from China to Europe, the silk road was again revived, you could travel from Poland to Peking and not get robbed. The mongols collected all the taxes from such a vast region, even after Djenghis Khan died, thats some hell of organization right there. They successfully ruled.. for a very short period of time even by empire standards, before splitting up into various dynasties and going native and whatnot. Why did Subutai stop in Eastern Europe, after destroying all opponents and units on par with the best Western Europe could offer, and with every prospect of conquering the Holy Roman Empire and extending the Mongolian empire to the Atlantic? Because Ghengis Khan's successor, Ogedei, had died and the succession process was so ill-defined and chaotic that Subutai had to stop everything and travel a continent back to Mongolia. Succession and peaceful transfers of power, among other things, was never something the Mongols managed to deal with competently. We can admire them for their military prowess, we can admire individuals like the sinicized Kublai Khan for being good peace-time rulers, but we can't admire them for ruling competently 'from China to Europe' because they didn't.