The following are various resources and inspirations for this site. There is no overall ordering but a number of the initial references, such as Empire of Illusion, End Times, and The Changing World Order, have proved particularly significant in regards to this site’s main thesis (America as an empire in decline). They are also contemporary. The first provides a kind of overall context for the thesis. The works by Peter Turchin and Ray Dalio are both heavily data-centric and describe large-scale processes in terms of cycles.
Contemporary References
America, the Farewell Tour
Chris Hedges
These works describe an America well along the path of Decline. They describe a bifurcated society, with a top tier of the elite – the very rich, powerful politicians and heads of corporations, and a large segment of society who are at best treading water (The Sidelined). It’s a society that touts its exceptionalism, but increasingly is failing an ever larger proportion of the population. The entire society as a whole is engulfed in delusion (now super charged by digital tech) that prevents most members of the society from clearly seeing the true situation of this society: hence, Empire of Illusion. The preface of this work is a quote from James Baldwin:
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
This is a good entrance into the true state of the country. Although my take is many have “their eyes shut” through the agency of powerful and pervasive digital technology, as opposed to doing so via a rational decision. That’s the problem that I see (and explore throughout this site): the socio-economic system has devolved into a kind of monster – The System – that completely envelops and encroaches upon our lives – including, and especially, psychic aspect – that replicates the situation of The Cave. We are prisoners unable to understand how the “shadows” on the Cave’s wall are manufactured illusions that keep us from seeing that we are in fact enslaved.
In both works Hedges anchors the discussion of aspects of the American Empire’s decline in stories of real people and events. For example in the first chapter of Empire of Illusion he spends some time describing the spectacle known as the World Wrestling Entertainment match, an example that stands for the myriad of made-up “dramas” that saturate the mediaspace. This chapter is titled The Illusion of Literacy, with the overall theme of how literacy has all been replaced by entertainment and celebrity culture: spectacle.
Other chapters of the first work include The Illusion of Wisdom (“higher education”) and The Illusion of Happiness (bs feel-good psychology). In both we see institutions and narratives that help support The System. In both we see a lack of critical thinking (in the former there is some residue), that leads to a general lack of questioning the status quo.
In the last chapter, and in America, the Farewell Tour, there is a critique of the political order. Overall, the democratic narrative of “the consent of the governed” is seen to be a sham – platitude, a hollow “image” (simulacrum) – where the political order can most accurately described as a plutocracy (or, alternately, corporatocracy). This is a major factor of the unraveling of the Empire. A top tier in terms of wealth and power are the ones holding the puppet strings, and whose true interests are the maintenance and extension of that wealth and power.
We (most of us) might be held hostage, but we have plenty of diversions and distractions to keep us from any insight into the true state of affairs.
(I should end, though, with the observation that as this unraveling continues, and the disparity grows between what we are told (The Mirage) and what we increasingly see in our life and society as a whole, more are starting to question what is going on. How far this awakening will go and were it will lead to remains to be seen. In the meantime works such as those by Hedges help us to peel our eyes off the “shadows.”)
End Times
Peter Turchin
Peter Turchin began his career as a theoretical biologist, which included the study of population dynamics. At some point he felt the important questions in this area had been answered, and began wondering if the same sort of mathematical tools he had been using could be applied in the domain of human societies.
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio founded and until recently headed the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates (and is the single billionaire in the myriad of sources drawn upon for this site). While in that role as manager he began to notice a number of major developments that realized he had never observed in his lifetime (as he puts it). These included the buildup of massive amount of debt (at relatively low interest rates), large-scale money printing, a large wealth gap, and increasing social and political conflict. Plus, in these instances the emergence of a major competitor. Aware that these sorts of things had happened before, he began to study in more detail the historical processes of past empires, in particular the Dutch and British. With personal familiarity with China, he also analyzed some of the previous Chinese regimes. One thing that became clear was that the United States is only unique in the details but otherwise is following in the same path as these former great powers. And is well into the phase of decline.
He has organized his analysis in terms of three major cycles:
- Long-term Debt Cycle
- Internal (dis)Order Cycle
- External (dis) Order Cycle
With just a few comments on the preceding: The first cycle involving debt includes whether a nation’s currency is used as a global reserve currency – for if it is, such as with the dollar in the current world order, then that nation enjoys a privileged position in terms of finances (including the financing of it debt). However, all major powers have always ended up abusing this position and at some point have had their currency lose global reserve status. Again, the United States is traveling in the same well-worn path (the dollar’s share of global reserves has been in decline for some decades, and now has something like 50% share). In the second cycle, the US is now in the grip of a populist revolt that has landed a billionaire who has promised to fix the nation’s problems two presidential terms. For the last cycle, Dalio recognizes China as competing world power. (I note that while overall this is true it is also true they are experiencing quite massive financial problems – and their currency at this point isn’t anywhere close to replacing the dollar)
He combines what he has found in this
The Big Cycle
A People’s History of the United States
Howard Zinn
Instead of focusing on…
The following are less recent, but are very much relevant. We start out with a work that contains an important key to understanding the current state of affairs in the United States (to my mind).
Daniel Boorstin
This was written in the 1960s and is still relevant today – if not more so. As with Hedges, he believes the country has been given over to fantasy and illusion. In this book we are presented with the critical term pseudo-event and a definition of celebrity: a celebrity is someone who is known for being well known. Pseudo-event describes all the events that we are aware of (mostly via media) that are deliberately staged in order to get our attention and to mold our cognition. One important point is that we are literally drowning in pseudo-events and this plays a major role in our increasing inability to distinguish reality from fantasy/simulation (AI is only making the situation worse).
The very first sentence in the book is I believe a major key to understanding what occurred in the country to bring it to its current state (its importance is the reason why the sentence is presented in a large font size):
“We suffer from extravagant expectations.”
A discussion of what this means and why it is key is found [forthcoming].
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch.
This ties in well with Turchin’s work, in terms of the “overproduction of elites.” One thing that is important is that this was written in the mid 1990s – a harbinger.
Mortal Republic by
Resources focused on media and narrative
The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord
“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.”
This quote is the first sentence of the work and describes a central trait of modern society, namely, increasing portions of our lives are mediated. And increasingly by digital technologies, with significant amounts of time being spent on social media and scrolling through our “smart” phones.
Btw, I find this book much more useful than the work of Baudrillard (such as Simulacra and Simulation), who is given to at times to over-the-top rhetorical excess. What I term The Mirage is basically the same thing (Spectacle as content of much of our experience), but with some updates. One of them would include hyperreality – things, situations, people, etc that appear to have a basis in the real world but have no basis in the real world. The explosion of digital media has made the situation worse. Especially as we know about the addictive effects of so-called interactive tech as we find in “smart phones.”
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen.
Noting delusion of all kinds that have taken hold throughout the entire history of America. Starting with its “discovery” by Europeans, most notably by the English, who, contrary about the narrative of folks who wanted to plant their religious ideals in a new land, at first primarily wanted to get in on the deal that at first was the province of the Spanish (namely, tons of loot such as gold).
The Shallows
Analysis of the decline of the (Western) Roman Empire
Other works that delve into the effects of digital media … such as The Shallows