Asabiyyah all up in this joint.

[LMNO]

I was reading me some Krugman, and wouldn't you know I ran into this:

Ibn Khaldun uses the term Asabiyyah to describe the bond of cohesion among humans in a group forming community. The bond, Asabiyyah, exists at any level of civilization, from nomadic society to states and empires. Asabiyyah is most strong in the nomadic phase, and decreases as civilization advances. As this Asabiyyah declines, another more compelling Asabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these cycles of Asabiyyah as they play out.

Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty (or civilization) has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the much stronger `asabiyya present in those areas to their advantage, in order to bring about a change in leadership. This implies that the new rulers are at first considered "barbarians" by comparison to the old ones. As they establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax, less coordinated, disciplined and watchful, and more concerned with maintaining their new power and lifestyle at the centre of the empire—i.e, their internal cohesion and ties to the original peripheral group, the `asabiyya, dissolves into factionalism and individualism, diminishing their capacity as a political unit. Thus, conditions are created wherein a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control, grow strong, and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.

We've been doing some talk about tribalism, nations, decoherence, and the collapse of political parties.  It's interesting to see it from this angle.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Hmmm.... Will have to look into this some more.

[Cain]

-

[LMNO]

spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war

Who the what, now?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war

Who the what, now?

Humans.

The troll has the right idea, here.

[tarod]

spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war

Who the what, now?

Humans.

The troll has the right idea, here.

Great another crusades... no fuck that shit. Not disagreeing that it could happen, but you'll pry my science and tech from my cold dead hands before I put up with another dark ages. Bureaucratic systems always have holes at least.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war

Who the what, now?

Humans.

The troll has the right idea, here.

Great another crusades... no fuck that shit. Not disagreeing that it could happen, but you'll pry my science and tech from my cold dead hands before I put up with another dark ages. Bureaucratic systems always have holes at least.

No painless dentistry for YOU.

[Ixxie]

Very cool stuff. I added this guy to my reading list.

I am reading Gould now, and his idea of punctuated equilibrium is a nice parallel in evolutionary theory. Species and Ecologies reach stasis with very little change - and then *something* perturbs it and it collapses - with a lot of adaptive change following. Similarly - Boom and Bust cycles in economics and paradigm shifts in scholarship. There is imo a deeper underlying parallel in the dynamics - these all involve network structures which evolve into scale-free / small-world structures with major hubs. The hubs by definition exert a lot of influence - but conversely they are also heavily exposed to influx of information, resources and manipulation, and thus have high exposure to potential Black Swans. I agree with Taleb when he argues big things are more fragile. I also have to think of Laotzu in this context - especially the second half of the Dao De Jing.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

An interesting perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations. Isn't it this sort of the cycle that modern "democracy" is designed to regulate, though, by providing a frequent opportunity for new rulers to come to power within the context of persistent States and institutions? It was always my understanding that the idea was to relieve the pressure of incompetent rulers and popular discontent in a way that allows revolutions to occur without shaking the foundations of a society. Which of course doesn't really contradict Krugman here, or fix the problem, since we have a tendency even when designing a system like the one we have now, to make sure that "the Others" don't eventually end up ruling the place. So in effect even that context of a resilient State is more or less just one policy of a particular ruling class that is, ultimately, as susceptible to overthrow as any other.

This is some pretty good analysis by Krugman. Ibn Khaldun was a genius; he's mostly popular with right wingers, because his concept of Asabiyyah fits well with a tribal or vitalist vision of civilization. It's fairly apparent to me that we live in one of those fin de siècle periods where a decadent political class no longer has strong asabiyyah behind it, and new groups of barbarians with more cohesive ideologies are challenging their power. This is true not only with the Tea Party crowd in America, but in the Arab world with the Muslim Brotherhood and more radical groups.

I'm not entirely convinced of this. There are always Barbarians outside the gates. That's the nature of civilization, especially now as we are all conditioned to believe that "The End is Nigh." Not that we're not dangling by a thread over a chasm of ruin -- we are, but we always have been.

Personally I think liberal civilization is probably on its way out, and we are looking at the onset of a new dark age. It's either that or some kind of Orwellian technocratic New World Order. I'm undecided about which one I prefer -- on the one hand, the NWO will probably be more comfortable and orderly; on the other hand, spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war has a certain appeal....

If we do go one of those ways, my money's on Dark Age. We just don't have the motivation to construct giant futuristic cities with no sunlight and flying cars.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

spiritual renewal through tribalism, religion and war

Who the what, now?

Humans.

The troll has the right idea, here.

Great another crusades... no fuck that shit. Not disagreeing that it could happen, but you'll pry my science and tech from my cold dead hands before I put up with another dark ages. Bureaucratic systems always have holes at least.

No painless dentistry for YOU.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Personally, I think we'll just continue to stumble along incompetently as a species. Occasionally something will break through and everyone will believe its a turning point for a bit, then right back into them drunken shambling. Even with the 'Dark Ages', it wasn't like we had a planet full of enlightened people that suddenly went to pot. It was just humans falling over themselves while trying to figure out how to get as much power as possible.

Sometimes, I think we know so little actual facts about our history that we're constantly comparing our present and future to a myth. Were people truly horribly ignorant during the Dark Ages? Probably not. The people that planted and cared for crops were likely quite intelligent on the topics they needed to survive, same for the hunters and the herbalists. Did they know the world was round, or did they believe it was flat? Who the hell cared? If they weren't getting ready to sail off into the sunrise, then such knowledge had no impact on their life. The more we learn about our ancestors, the more we realize that maybe they weren't as stupid as the Victorian Era Historians made them out to be.

I doubt we'll go into another 'Dark Age', I doubt we'll all become dystopian serfs just like I doubt Atlas will Shrug or we'll all somehow find that Brave New World. Maybe we'll get bits and pieces from such fiction, a bit of authoritarian dystopia here, a bit of a utopian glimmer of hope there, a few Randites running off to the woods, while some crazy religious nuts persecutes some other people over imaginary stone age deities.

That's why I think its best just to find and enjoy the things that gets you off and some awesome people to share them with.