As a general rule, civilisations and societies in decline have two choices:
- Either reaffirm and reinvent themselves, thus reasserting themselves on the global stage and ensuring survival and possibly a newfound prosperity;
- Or continue down the path of decline towards their inevitable doom, either by internal collapse or by takeover by outside forces with a higher level of civilisational commitment and solidarity.
The rise and fall of civilisations is, of course, analysed very clearly in the writings of Oswald Spengler. However, the internal dynamic of civilisations or ethnic groups was also very well described by such writers as Abu Zayd Ibn Khaldun and Lev Gumilev.
Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century Tunisian historian, called this force “asabiyya”, often translated as tribal solidarity. Internal cohesion and solidarity are essential for the survival and prosperity of a tribe, culture, ethnos and realm. And, in what Spengler would later describe as basically an inevitable force of law, the asabiyya of a civilisation tends to steadily decline over time, as those in power get bogged down in seeking comfort and luxury rather than justice and glory. Corruption, decadence and degeneracy set in, and if no immediate and decisive action is taken, the asabiyya will weaken to such an extent that the civilisation collapses entirely. Its place is then taken by a new, fresh and morally purer tribe whose inner cohesion and solidarity are stronger.
The Soviet historian and ethnologist Lev Gumilev described this process with the term “passionarnost” or passionarity: the energy and drive within an ethnos to set out and achieve common goals, even at great personal cost. Civilisations undergo processes of birth, growth, climax, inertia and either decline or transformation, as the level of passionarity in their societies waxes or wanes. Gumilev strongly believed in the influence of geographic and biospheric elements in the development of societies and cultures, which infuse certain leading figures and groups of people with a passionate energy to effect change. This passionarity, much like the asabiyya of Ibn Khaldun, has a natural tendency to diminish and can even disappear altogether.
It can be argued, however, that the Soviet historian’s concept of this ongoing cycle is less deterministic than that of Spengler. Gumilev saw the nomadic cultures of the Eurasian steppe as examples of an ethnos with a unique adaptability and resilience throughout history, owing for example to their far-reaching complementarity to the geographic and natural space they occupy. In this regard, he is once again very much similar to Ibn Khaldun (although there is no indication that Gumilev based any of his work on the medieval Arab scholar), as the latter sang the praise of the desert Bedouin tribes of North Africa on multiple occasions, in contrast to the urban world of the Mediterranean.
Gumilev’s major influence on contemporary Russian politics and on military and foreign policy cannot be overstated. He was one of the driving forces behind the rise of Neo-Eurasianism that has found significant popular support in the Russian Federation since the turn of the century, although Lev Gumilev himself would not live to see this result.
The ancient Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven expressed a similar concept, which has reverberated throughout Chinese history since its inception by the Zhou revolutionaries that overthrew the Shang dynasty in 1046 BC: the mandate to rule and govern was given by divine decree, but could be rescinded and transferred to another if the rulers proved to be unworthy. One of the clearest ways to recognise that the divine mandate had been terminated, according to such influential Confucian thinkers as Mencius, was when popular support for the dynasty and the government waned due to ongoing abuse of power. The cyclical nature of realms, empires and ruling families in the All-Under-the-Heavens throughout history was seen as an inevitable law.
The Mongols established the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen, starting from practically nothing. They ended entire imperial superpowers in Persia, China and Mesopotamia and even brought the Abbasid Caliphate to heel. This was caused by their passionarity, their drive and devotion to their cause; as well as by the revolutionary changes they brought to a petrified, atrophied world of corrupt rulers and sycophants. Genghis Khan himself warned his sons and countrymen not to be seduced by the wiles of comfort and luxury of “civilised life” in the realms they just conquered, and his warning would prove correct time and again.
In China, the decadent remnants of the Yuan dynasty, precisely those Mongol rulers who gave in to the seductions of luxury, were swept away by the popular revolutionaries who founded the Ming Empire in the 14th century; and much later the last imperial dynasty, the notoriously inept Qing emperors, were cast into the dustbin of history by the Republican Revolution of 1911. On the contrary, passionary leaders of Mongol stock, such as Timur Lenk and Babur of Kabul, would go on to found dazzling realms, such as the Mughal Empire, forever changing the historical course of much of Asia.
Back to the Occident, the Roman Empire in the West withered away and died due to its long-lasting inertia and corruption, to be replaced by “barbarians” from the East with a stronger social cohesion and vivid political system to replace the atrophied slave empire. While Roman history enthusiasts and “embrace tradition” rightists may lament about it, the fact is that the Huns, the Goths, the Franks and the Vandals all represented the much-needed impetus of civilisational renewal that Europe needed at that point, even though they probably never realised it. The rotten structures of the bloated Western Roman Empire had to collapse to make way for the, at that point quite revolutionary, feudal system.
The Eastern Roman Empire on the other hand, now renewed in culture and a major centre of vigorous Christianity, managed to reassert its raison d’être and lasted for another thousand years. When Constantinople in its turn became inert and atrophied, it was the asabiyya of the Ottomans from the eastern grasslands that replaced them. And this Ottoman Empire burst onto the historical scene in its full glory for centuries, but eventually petrified into the “sick man of Europe” dominated by eunuchs and slave soldiers abducted from Christian families, when its asabiyya fizzled out.
Civilisational collapse and replacement is a form of creative destruction, something that is not necessarily “good” or “bad” as much as it is necessary and inevitable.
The civilisation right now at the very end of its passionarity, in fact already far beyond exhausting whatever asabiyya it ever had, is the Western liberal-capitalist world.
The West is a bloated corpse, already clinically dead but kept somewhat alive by desperate medical intervention (such as the fiat currency system with the dollar as its backbone, and control over the world economy through the IMF and World Bank). But this system cannot, and will not, last.
This Frankenstein monster of a society, which has begun turning against its own past and original cultures while at the same time claiming inherent superiority to all others, is doomed to fail. The only question remaining is on whose terms it will end.
Yet I do not want to be a doomsayer when it comes to the possibility of Europe and its future. The Spenglerian thesis sometimes seems too fatalistic, although Spengler himself also reserved space for the possibility of a civilisation to save itself. It is possible for Europe to reassert itself as a civilisational pole, far removed from the deadly influence of Anglo-American corruption. It will be difficult, but it is not impossible. Europe can achieve a rebirth through rediscovery of its own, pre-modern and fundamental values and identity. Much like the Eastern Roman Empire reaffirmed itself, and how China reinvented itself in the Xinhai Revolution.
Or, it can continue on the path of self-destruction it is on now, follow the Pentagon and Wall Street down to an early grave and choose to end it all on the battlefield. In which case this society shall be swept away by “hordes from the East”, just like the Huns, the Seljuks, the Mongols and the Ottoman Turks did before. The passionarity of, at the very least the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians will overshadow the petrified remains of the Atlanticist world. The globalist, US-dominated project will then fall much like the Western Roman Empire fell to the “barbarians”, like Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great, and like the Reich was brought down by the zealous forces of the USSR.
The choice is Europe’s to make. The outcome will be the same, the process is up to us. Creative reaffirmation or creative destruction — ours to choose.
