Post by johnbc on Sept 30, 2020 1:05:53 GMT
The history of the entire West is marked by the idea of an Empire and successive attempts to create it. It can be, without error, easily summarized as the history of the struggles for the right of succession of the Roman Empire. Century after century, we see successive attempts to renew Rome’s greatest achievement: to unify, under the same legislation and the same government, a multiplicity of peoples, coexisting in the harmony of their differences and all contributing to the wealth and greatness of the Empire. The limits of this Empire are indefinite, and therefore it could expand without limit, until it ideally became a global Empire, being that what is understood by global in each time is evidently the reach of the visible world. For example, the Roman Empire came to cover almost the entire known world.
Around this dominant theme, kingdoms and dynasties that arise and fade, political and cultural revolutions that succeed, leaders who see their star shine for an instant and then disappear forever, religious conflicts, travel and discoveries, wars and crises, are nothing but echoes, reflections, the agitation on the surface of the waters, which conceals and reveals, at the same time, the profound movement: the struggle for the formation of the Empire.
From the dissolution of the Roman Empire there is an interval, which is, let’s call it, the feudal balance, a situation in which there was no central government and in which the power structure was fragmented. When the Empire falls, the senators, the owners, the ruling class, flee to their farms outside Rome and create independent pockets of power. Next, they need to negotiate with each other, and although there were conflicts, no power was able to overcome the others. With the restoration of the idea of Empire with Charlemagne, the situation begins to change. Charlemagne’s empire dies with him, as his heirs come into conflict, make disastrous mistakes and power falls apart; but the idea of Empire remains.
The imperialist experience after the Fall of the Roman Empire was, in fact, of a different nature, mainly in the context of the colonization of other peoples. With some exceptions, the great empires until then were characterized by a tolerance to foreign customs, since the main concern was to guarantee economic and military domination. On the other hand, the most recent forms of imperialism rely heavily on epistemicide, the appropriation of relevant contributions, the destruction of history and the very definition of the subjectivity of the other. In this construction, the individual is not alienated by Leviathan only from his real, material and concrete power, but from his ideas, culture and subjectivity.
The Empire cultivates a profound moral ambiguity, since it is devoid of theoretical convictions, with the exception of its unifying mission. This is reflected in its multicultural tendency, capable of uniting the most antagonistic groups in favor of common causes. This ambiguity is important, since the Empire cannot stabilize itself with a definitive ideal that can be realized in society and, thus, be evaluated objectively by its results. So it lives on self-contradiction.
When, later on, the Empire is fragmented thanks to the emergence of national states, each of them, as soon as it is formed, already asserts itself as an Empire. As the geographical frontiers extend, with the great navigations, the perspectives of the Empire also expand. But is important to note that this permanence of the idea of Empire seemed natural and inherent to political power, which is expansive by its very nature. As soon as power is centralized, organized and structured, the tendency is to expand. The expansion is primarily motivated by an instinct for self-defense and aims to eliminate external enemies. While an Empire has external enemies, it is not entirely sure of itself, and ends up imitating the Roman Empire, which gradually subdued its potential enemies until it reached a point where there were only internal enemies.
With the great Iberian empires as protagonists, the european powers start not only to conquer surrounding territories, but distant territories. We are talking about the era of colonialism, when national states invade regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. At that time, several competing Empire projects begin to emerge: the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, etc. The great achievement of the British Empire, which is the colonization of America, ends disastrously, with the US war of independence fragmenting the Empire. And the nation that emerges from this process is already asserting itself in the same act as a new Empire, for the simple need to expand and occupy the territory. The Empire sometimes advanced by violent means, as it did in Texas, with the war against the Spanish, and sometimes by peaceful means, as in Louisiana and Alaska, which were bought.
It does not seem to me an exaggeration to say that the idea of Empire has guided the political life of the West since the fall of the Roman Empire. Naturally, each of these attempts to form the Empire is inspired by the Roman Empire. So what we have is a series of successors from Rome. Even Russia clearly asserts itself as the Third Rome. But the Third Rome that worked was the USA. Washington’s architecture is clearly Roman-inspired, and all Founding Fathers were inspired by Roman examples, all of them read the Lives of Illustrious Men, from Plutarch, and tried to be, clearly, what was called “Plutarch’s Men” — that is, they had a very clear ideal of a ruler. For this success, two factors coincided: on the one hand, a set of material circumstances that drove expansion, and on the other hand, the residual strength of these Roman symbols that gave their successive imitators the idea of what could be done.
The imperial dynamics of the United States do not come from economic, but intellectual, cultural and political causes: the United States is an imperial power because its very foundation constituted a reinvigoration of the imperial idea; because the lay empire project that incorporates the Enlightenment conceptions of the State represented, at the moment of the founding of the American Republic, the synthesis and the result of the contradictions between priesthood and aristocracy, which for two millennia were the engine of European History; the foundation of the USA represents the fourth and probably the last translatio imperii; the emergence of the modern lay state incorporated in the American Empire is, in essence, an expansive, revolutionary, modernizing project, destined to reform the world; because the American Revolution is, finally, the first step of the world revolution that, giving a “final solution” to the conflict between spiritual authority and temporal power, will absorb in the State, in alliance with intelligentzia, all spiritual authority, neutralizing all the religions of the world and establishing the religion of Caesar.
This is the first effective incarnation of the secular state, as the French secular state has been declining from crisis to crisis more and more. The French secular state project was a failure, while the American was really a success.
The history of the West is marked by successive reincarnations of the idea of the Roman Empire, culminating in the American Empire
It can be summarized then in three points:
1. The restoration of the Roman Empire, in varied forms and adapted to the conditions of the time, is the goal that guides, in a semi-conscious way, the political history of the West, marked by four great enterprises: the Empire of Charlemagne; the Holy Roman Empire by Otto I; the emergence of colonial empires; the lay empire (failed in the Napoleonic version, but successful in America).
2. The rise of colonial empires shatters Christian unity; what remains of Christianity will be destroyed by the lay empire. Along with Christianity, other religions will be downgraded to “permitted cults”, functioning as popular sects in the new framework of the lay Empire.
3. The American Revolution that embodies the ideal of the lay empire tends to go global, dragging in its torrent all the intellectual and political forces that, in one way or another, end up involuntarily putting themselves at its service. It intervenes decisively and deeply in the soul structure of all human beings placed within their reach, establishing in them new reflexes, new feelings, new beliefs that will, in essence, constitute the post-Christian culture, or more clearly: anti-Christian.
Around this dominant theme, kingdoms and dynasties that arise and fade, political and cultural revolutions that succeed, leaders who see their star shine for an instant and then disappear forever, religious conflicts, travel and discoveries, wars and crises, are nothing but echoes, reflections, the agitation on the surface of the waters, which conceals and reveals, at the same time, the profound movement: the struggle for the formation of the Empire.
From the dissolution of the Roman Empire there is an interval, which is, let’s call it, the feudal balance, a situation in which there was no central government and in which the power structure was fragmented. When the Empire falls, the senators, the owners, the ruling class, flee to their farms outside Rome and create independent pockets of power. Next, they need to negotiate with each other, and although there were conflicts, no power was able to overcome the others. With the restoration of the idea of Empire with Charlemagne, the situation begins to change. Charlemagne’s empire dies with him, as his heirs come into conflict, make disastrous mistakes and power falls apart; but the idea of Empire remains.
The imperialist experience after the Fall of the Roman Empire was, in fact, of a different nature, mainly in the context of the colonization of other peoples. With some exceptions, the great empires until then were characterized by a tolerance to foreign customs, since the main concern was to guarantee economic and military domination. On the other hand, the most recent forms of imperialism rely heavily on epistemicide, the appropriation of relevant contributions, the destruction of history and the very definition of the subjectivity of the other. In this construction, the individual is not alienated by Leviathan only from his real, material and concrete power, but from his ideas, culture and subjectivity.
The Empire cultivates a profound moral ambiguity, since it is devoid of theoretical convictions, with the exception of its unifying mission. This is reflected in its multicultural tendency, capable of uniting the most antagonistic groups in favor of common causes. This ambiguity is important, since the Empire cannot stabilize itself with a definitive ideal that can be realized in society and, thus, be evaluated objectively by its results. So it lives on self-contradiction.
When, later on, the Empire is fragmented thanks to the emergence of national states, each of them, as soon as it is formed, already asserts itself as an Empire. As the geographical frontiers extend, with the great navigations, the perspectives of the Empire also expand. But is important to note that this permanence of the idea of Empire seemed natural and inherent to political power, which is expansive by its very nature. As soon as power is centralized, organized and structured, the tendency is to expand. The expansion is primarily motivated by an instinct for self-defense and aims to eliminate external enemies. While an Empire has external enemies, it is not entirely sure of itself, and ends up imitating the Roman Empire, which gradually subdued its potential enemies until it reached a point where there were only internal enemies.
With the great Iberian empires as protagonists, the european powers start not only to conquer surrounding territories, but distant territories. We are talking about the era of colonialism, when national states invade regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. At that time, several competing Empire projects begin to emerge: the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, etc. The great achievement of the British Empire, which is the colonization of America, ends disastrously, with the US war of independence fragmenting the Empire. And the nation that emerges from this process is already asserting itself in the same act as a new Empire, for the simple need to expand and occupy the territory. The Empire sometimes advanced by violent means, as it did in Texas, with the war against the Spanish, and sometimes by peaceful means, as in Louisiana and Alaska, which were bought.
It does not seem to me an exaggeration to say that the idea of Empire has guided the political life of the West since the fall of the Roman Empire. Naturally, each of these attempts to form the Empire is inspired by the Roman Empire. So what we have is a series of successors from Rome. Even Russia clearly asserts itself as the Third Rome. But the Third Rome that worked was the USA. Washington’s architecture is clearly Roman-inspired, and all Founding Fathers were inspired by Roman examples, all of them read the Lives of Illustrious Men, from Plutarch, and tried to be, clearly, what was called “Plutarch’s Men” — that is, they had a very clear ideal of a ruler. For this success, two factors coincided: on the one hand, a set of material circumstances that drove expansion, and on the other hand, the residual strength of these Roman symbols that gave their successive imitators the idea of what could be done.
The imperial dynamics of the United States do not come from economic, but intellectual, cultural and political causes: the United States is an imperial power because its very foundation constituted a reinvigoration of the imperial idea; because the lay empire project that incorporates the Enlightenment conceptions of the State represented, at the moment of the founding of the American Republic, the synthesis and the result of the contradictions between priesthood and aristocracy, which for two millennia were the engine of European History; the foundation of the USA represents the fourth and probably the last translatio imperii; the emergence of the modern lay state incorporated in the American Empire is, in essence, an expansive, revolutionary, modernizing project, destined to reform the world; because the American Revolution is, finally, the first step of the world revolution that, giving a “final solution” to the conflict between spiritual authority and temporal power, will absorb in the State, in alliance with intelligentzia, all spiritual authority, neutralizing all the religions of the world and establishing the religion of Caesar.
This is the first effective incarnation of the secular state, as the French secular state has been declining from crisis to crisis more and more. The French secular state project was a failure, while the American was really a success.
The history of the West is marked by successive reincarnations of the idea of the Roman Empire, culminating in the American Empire
It can be summarized then in three points:
1. The restoration of the Roman Empire, in varied forms and adapted to the conditions of the time, is the goal that guides, in a semi-conscious way, the political history of the West, marked by four great enterprises: the Empire of Charlemagne; the Holy Roman Empire by Otto I; the emergence of colonial empires; the lay empire (failed in the Napoleonic version, but successful in America).
2. The rise of colonial empires shatters Christian unity; what remains of Christianity will be destroyed by the lay empire. Along with Christianity, other religions will be downgraded to “permitted cults”, functioning as popular sects in the new framework of the lay Empire.
3. The American Revolution that embodies the ideal of the lay empire tends to go global, dragging in its torrent all the intellectual and political forces that, in one way or another, end up involuntarily putting themselves at its service. It intervenes decisively and deeply in the soul structure of all human beings placed within their reach, establishing in them new reflexes, new feelings, new beliefs that will, in essence, constitute the post-Christian culture, or more clearly: anti-Christian.