APPENDIX

The Six Ages of a Civilization’s Growth and Collapse

as described by Sir John Glubb

“The life-expectation of a great nation, it appears, commences with a violent, and usually unforeseen, outburst of energy, and ends in a lowering of moral standards, cynicism, pessimism and frivolity.”¹

Glubb studied thirteen empires in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe (where he had served as a military commander), from Assyria in 859 BCE to modern Britain in 1950. The pattern of the decline and fall of these superpowers was startlingly clear. It didn’t matter where they were or what technology they had or how they exercised power. They all declined in the same stages, and it always took ten generations, about 250 years. The logic of this is very clear: Each generation matures in better socioeconomic circumstances that have been created for them by the preceding generation. Thus, there is always a march to increasing materialism. In every generation, youth will have higher expectations for comfort than their parents. Improved material conditions create attitudinal changes that insist on still more material changes and, predictably, because of this wealth and erosion of morality, the civilization declines into decadence.

1. Age of Pioneers. New pioneers or conquerors are usually poor, hardy, enterprising, and aggressive. They seem to appear from nowhere, surprising the dominant civilization. They possess fearless initiative, energy, and courage. The decaying empire that they overthrow is wealthy but defensive-minded. Pioneers are practical and experimental; action is their solution to every problem. They have strong virtues: optimism, confidence, devotion to duty, a sense of honor, shared purpose, and a strict moral code.

2. Age of Conquest. Conquerors adopt the military ways of the empire they have conquered. They are more organized, disciplined, and professional in their military campaigns. They have strong codes of glory and honor, often with a religious basis that calls for heroic self-sacrifice; for example, the terrorizing Genghis Kahn (thirteenth century) said that God had delegated him to exterminate the decadent races of the civilized world.

3. Age of Commerce. There is enough pride to support a great military that guards the borders, but gradually the desire to make money gains hold of the public. The first half is “peculiarly splendid. The nation is proud, united and full of self-confidence.” There is still some sense of personal honor as men search for new forms of wealth in profitable enterprises in the far corners of the Earth. But then, wealth pours in; values of glory and honor dissipate as core values become the bottom line and the size of your bank account. The wealthy business community spends some of its money on splendid buildings, palaces, communications, roads, hotels, railways—according to the varied needs of the ages.

4. Age of Affluence. Change is from service to selfishness. Gradually “the Age of Affluence silences the voice of duty. The object of the young and the ambitious is no longer fame, honor or service, but cash.” Education changes from learning to qualifications for high salaried jobs. At the end of the eleventh century, as Arab power was declining, the moralist Ghazali complained, “Students no longer attend college to acquire learning and virtue, but to obtain those qualifications which will enable them to grow rich.” There is still enough patriotism to have military defending its frontiers, but greed replaces duty and public service.

Wealth dazzles outsiders. Defensiveness spreads. Great walls are built. “Money being in better supply than courage, subsidies instead of weapons are employed to buy off enemies.” Economics is used to control and pacify. “History seems to indicate that great nations do not normally disarm from motives of conscience, but owing to the weakening of a sense of duty in the citizens, and the increase of selfishness and the desire for wealth and ease.”

5. The Age of Intellect

a. The arts and knowledge expand in every period of decline, in every empire. Merchant princes endow the arts and also start colleges. For example, in eleventh-century Arabia, the Sultan Malik Shah built a university in every town. Classical Chinese political thought emerged during the worst of the breakdown. The Warring States period (~421–222 BCE) produced some of China’s major philosophical, literary, and scientific achievements, including Confucius and Sun Tzu.²

b. Natural sciences advance. In the ninth century, Arabs measured the circumference of the Earth with remarkable accuracy, 700 years before the West discovered the Earth was not flat. Yet the Arab empire collapsed less than 50 years later.

c. Intellectuals flourish and often serve illiterate rulers. Intellectualism leads to endless and incessant talking. “Thus public affairs drift from bad to worse, amid an unceasing cacophony of argument. . . . Amid a Babel of talk, the ship drifts on to the rocks.”

d. The human intellect can solve all problems. It is assumed that any situation can be saved by mental cleverness, with no need for altruism or dedication to a cause. “The brilliant but cynical intellectual appears at the opposite end of the spectrum from the emotional self-sacrifice of the hero or the martyr. Yet there are times when the perhaps unsophisticated self-dedication of the hero is more essential than the sarcasms of the clever.”

e. Civil dissensions intensify. In times of national decline, internal political hatreds increase, even as the survival of the nation becomes precarious. Political factions don’t stop their rivalries, even to save their country. The weakening empire of Byzantium in the fourteenth century was threatened, and indeed dominated, by the Ottoman Turks. Yet instead of pulling together, the Byzantines spent the last fifty years of their history fighting one another in repeated civil wars, until the Ottomans moved in and administered the final blow.

Another source of civil division is created by the influx of foreigners drawn irresistibly to the imperial wealth and glory, creating a polyglot population that no longer shares the same values. Intellectual discourse has led to a society that is increasingly “value-free,” no longer believing in much of anything or taking anything seriously. The original spirit, the moral core, the founding ideals of the civilization are no longer present in its diverse population.

6. The Age of Decadence

After too long a period of wealth and power, empires decline in identical ways. “Frivolity, aestheticism, hedonism, cynicism, pessimism, narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fatalism, fanaticism and other negative behaviors and attitudes suffuse the population. Politics is increasingly corrupt, life increasingly unjust. A cabal of insiders accrues wealth and power at the expense of the citizenry, fostering a fatal opposition of interests between haves and have nots. The majority lives for bread and circuses; worships celebrities instead of divinities . . . throws off social and moral restraints, especially on sexuality; shirks duties but insists on entitlements.”³

The Roman mob demanded free meals and public games, passionate about gladiatorial shows, chariot races, and athletic events. In the Byzantine Empire, the rivalries of the Greens and the Blues in the Hippodrome attained the importance of a major crisis.

Declining nations have celebrity cultures: athletes, singers, actors.

Belief in one’s eternal greatness emerges. The wealthy leaders believe they will always be leaders of mankind, so they relax their energies, and spend an increasing part of their time in leisure, amusement or sport. The illusion of superiority causes them to employ cheap foreign labor or slaves to engage in menial tasks. These poorer peoples are only too happy to migrate to the wealthy cities of the empire, and thus dilute the homogeneous character and original shared values of the conquering peoples.

The beneficent or welfare state appears. As long as it retains its status of leadership, the imperial people are glad to be generous, even if slightly condescending.

The rights of citizenship are generously bestowed on every race, even those formerly subjugated, and the equality of mankind is proclaimed. The Roman Empire passed through this phase, when equal citizenship was thrown open to all peoples, as did the Arab Empire of Baghdad. State assistance to the young and the poor was equally generous. University students received government grants to cover their expenses while they were receiving higher education. The state likewise offered free medical treatment to the poor. Free public hospitals sprang up all over the Arab world from Spain to what is now Pakistan in the ninth century. “The impression that it will always be automatically rich causes the declining empire to spend lavishly on its own benevolence, until such time as the economy collapses, the universities are closed and the hospitals fall into ruin.”

7. Religion

After the empire has fallen, when money no longer rules everything, religion regains its sway and a new era begins. But only after the fall.

As the Arab Empire Was Collapsing: Baghdad in 861 CE

Sir John Glubb

In the first half of the ninth century, Baghdad enjoyed its High Noon as the greatest and the richest city in the world. In 861, however, the reigning Khalif (caliph), Mutawakkil, was murdered by his Turkish mercenaries, who set up a military dictatorship, which lasted for some thirty years. During this period the empire fell apart.

The works of the contemporary historians of Baghdad in the early tenth century are still available. They deeply deplored the degeneracy of the times in which they lived, emphasizing particularly the indifference to religion, the increasing materialism and the laxity of sexual morals. They lamented also the corruption of the officials of the government and the fact that politicians always seemed to amass large fortunes while they were in office. The historians commented bitterly on the extraordinary influence acquired by popular singers over young people, resulting in a decline in sexual morality. The ‘pop’ singers of Baghdad accompanied their erotic songs on the lute, an instrument resembling the modern guitar. In the second half of the tenth century, as a result, much obscene sexual language came increasingly into use, such as would not have been tolerated in an earlier age. Several khalifs issued orders banning ‘pop’ singers from the capital, but within a few years they always returned.

An increase in the influence of women in public life has often been associated with national decline. The later Romans complained that, although Rome ruled the world, women ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar tendency was observable in the Arab Empire, the women demanding admission to the professions hitherto monopolized by men. “What,” wrote the contemporary historian, Ibn Bessam, “have the professions of clerk, tax-collector or preacher to do with women? These occupations have always been limited to men alone.” Many women practiced law, while others obtained posts as university professors. There was an agitation for the appointment of female judges, which, however, does not appear to have succeeded. Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed.

Author: John Bagot Glubb was born in 1897. He served throughout World War I in France and Belgium, being wounded three times and awarded the Military Cross. In 1920 he volunteered for service in Iraq, as a regular officer, but in 1926 resigned his commission and accepted an administrative post under the Iraq government. In 1930, however, he signed a contract to serve the Transjordan government (now Jordan). From 1939 to 1956 he commanded the famous Jordan Arab Legion, which was in reality the Jordan Army. He published seventeen books, chiefly on the Middle East, and lectured widely in Britain, the United States, and Europe.

Source: http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf.

Primary Descriptors of the Collapse of Complex Societies

from Joseph Tainter

Joseph Tainter defines collapse as primarily a political phenomenon with consequences in all other spheres such as economics, art, and culture. “A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity.”

The complexity has developed over many generations; eventually it becomes so cumbersome and expensive that the society can no longer maintain what it has created. Collapse happens quickly, within a few decades, marked by a significant loss of sociopolitical structures.

Collapse is manifest in such things as⁴

  A lower degree of stratification and social differentiation;

  Less economic and occupational specialization, of individuals, groups, and territories;

  Less centralized control; that is, less regulation and integration of diverse economic and political groups by elites;

  Less behavioral control and regimentation;

  Less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity, those elements that define the concept of “civilization”: monumental architecture, artistic and literary achievements, and the like;

  Less flow of information between individuals, between political and economic groups, and between a center and its periphery;

  Less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources;

  Less overall coordination and organization of individuals and groups;

  A smaller territory integrated within a single political entity.

APPENDIX: NOTES

¹ Except where otherwise noted, quoted passages are from Sir John Glubb, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (1976), http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf.

² Tainter, Kindle Locations 187–189.

³ Ophuls, Immoderate Greatness, p. 49.

⁴ Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology), Kindle Location 147.