someone once told me that every civilization has about 300 good years

[greenbriar]

before it eats its own


what do you think?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear greenbriar!

I think that's one person's view, and unless s/he is a historian of some note, I consider that statement to be hogwash!

:shrug:

:hi:

[greenbriar]

4. he was a history teacher that retired

I figure it is a good thing he retired

[liberal N proud]

2. This one started it after 200

[Lerkfish]

3. well, its inaccurate. There were many civilizations that are still existing that began

more than 300 years ago, and there were dynasties in the Mongol region that lasted many more years than 300, as well as the Egyptians.

including, for example, the Jews have existed as a culture and society for more than 3000 years.

[theoldman]

5. I think they meant empires.

Although the Roman empire lasted much longer, they only had about 200 good years, the British had even less.

[apocalypsehow]

6. For Rome, from the victory at Zama to the accession of Commodus to sole reign.

So pretty close to that.

[greenbriar]

7. maybe he did

I don't know.

I just kind of blew him off as we were busy and passing period was almost over

[Solomon]

8. Our three hundred hasn't started yet.

:smoke:

[pbrower2a]

9. Arnold Toynbee?

It may be an oversimplification of Toynbee, who speaks of civilizations. The last stage of decline of a civilization is his Universal State, the political order that encompasses an entire civilization and by enforcing rigid conformity within an Order intended to protect the civilization, stifles innovation and enterprise. The time from Caesar's conquest of the Hellenic world until the appearance of Commodus was indeed about 200 years, and from his accession to the end of the Roman Empire were 300 years of social and economic rot and a nearly complete absence of innovation.

The Russian Empire encompassed most of Eastern Orthodox Civilization at the end of the Third partition of Poland in 1795 when it annexed much of what is now Belarus and Ukraine and although the Bolsheviks kept it intact after 1917, their "Socialist State" was an Empire by Toynbee's standards, and it fell apart in 1989. 200 years, roughly.

The Spanish Empire in the New World lasted about 300 years; it's hard to distinguish from Brazil, so the Ibero-American synthesis of Hispanic, Native American, and African cultures might as well be considered a monolith and a Universal State. Cortez' conquest of Teotihuacan to the Mexican Declaration of Independence is a fair average.

The United States went through nearly 225 years between the Declaration of Independence and the accession of someone that I have compared to Commodus (George Worthless Bush). From its inception in the Treaty of Paris (1783) the United States has been imperial in scale. A Universal State? It has not ever encompassed the whole of Western Christian civilization, and it has yet to show the enticing but ultimately-destructive regimentation of a Universal State.

[DireStrike]

10. Read Spengler's temporal analogizer!

http://www.johnreilly.info/cont.htm

I think this piece gives civilizations a good 800 years. Sure doesn't feel like this one will last that long. Or maybe he has the wrong starting point for "western civilization".

Toynbee, as mentioned above, talks about similar ideas. Macrohistory is the word for it.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Game over man! GAME OVER!!!!

So much fun.