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> Isn't there a third option where the decline is real, proceeds at a faster pace than over several millennia, and leads to the collapse of the civilization of
by Timon3 3y ago
> Isn't there a third option where the decline is real, proceeds at a faster pace than over several millennia, and leads to the collapse of the civilization of the historical observer?
If this were true, shouldn't we see intermittent periods of "moral uptick" after the collapse of civilization? Either there has been a steady decline (i.e. the next civilization starts lower than the end of the previous one), or the feeling of decline is false due to the missing opposite.
- rsaarelm 3y agoDon't we? It just looks like a new culture establishing itself instead of something that happens in the circumstances of the collapse. There was the early history of the Roman Republic, High Middle Ages in Europe, the Puritans in America. The Victorian era in England feels like a moral uptick that wasn't an entire new culture or nation.
- Timon3 3y agoThe question as I understand it isn't whether there is a moral uptick from our point of view, but from a contemporaneous one. During Victorian era people still perceived a constant moral decline.