Every Great Empire Must Fall
Last summer I had taken a [great] poli sci course called Contemporary Global Politics. What I liked about this course was that it contextualized the current global politcal state into the wider historical picture of all documented political eras. From this grandiose spectrum, we can see long term patterns of power and decline emerge. A common thread throughout history was that each great power - the empires - lasted in the vicinity of 100 years [give or take a decade or two]
With this in mind, we approached the [then] current state of global political power of the United States. It is commonly agreed among politica scientists that the US hit their prime global power in the '50's. This was exemplified by the fact that the global markets had stopped calculating currency on the gold bar, and began faring it against the strong, almighty US dollar. A sign of the US' decline was the return to the gold bar as the marker. (among many other political situations, reactions and retaliations over the last 2 decades)
I recently had this conversation with Sashay, and she discussed other elements that historically were symbolic of a move towards decay and decline of empire powers. Socially and culturally, movement towards narcissitic and decadent behavior, global arrogance along with many more signs that could - put into a 'from the beginning of time' historical context, could be seen as witnessing of the decline of yet another great power.
Reading my sidebar Yahoo! news (not necessarily my 'news source' of choice' but its there when i log into my email - and i'm easily distracted) this story caught my eye. During the span of my lifetime, I have witnessed a growing ... disgust (for the lack of a better word) and impatience by the canadian people and government with the US and their 'shenanigans' that i never thought i would see. For most of my teen/20's Canada has always been the docile neighbor that smile and nodded when the US acted up. To see the increased occurence of Canada standing up for themselves to the US (and other countries have as well) - it makes me wonder if this is yet another piece of the 'decline of an empire' puzzle.
Last summer I had taken a [great] poli sci course called Contemporary Global Politics. What I liked about this course was that it contextualized the current global politcal state into the wider historical picture of all documented political eras. From this grandiose spectrum, we can see long term patterns of power and decline emerge. A common thread throughout history was that each great power - the empires - lasted in the vicinity of 100 years [give or take a decade or two]
With this in mind, we approached the [then] current state of global political power of the United States. It is commonly agreed among politica scientists that the US hit their prime global power in the '50's. This was exemplified by the fact that the global markets had stopped calculating currency on the gold bar, and began faring it against the strong, almighty US dollar. A sign of the US' decline was the return to the gold bar as the marker. (among many other political situations, reactions and retaliations over the last 2 decades)
I recently had this conversation with Sashay, and she discussed other elements that historically were symbolic of a move towards decay and decline of empire powers. Socially and culturally, movement towards narcissitic and decadent behavior, global arrogance along with many more signs that could - put into a 'from the beginning of time' historical context, could be seen as witnessing of the decline of yet another great power.
Reading my sidebar Yahoo! news (not necessarily my 'news source' of choice' but its there when i log into my email - and i'm easily distracted) this story caught my eye. During the span of my lifetime, I have witnessed a growing ... disgust (for the lack of a better word) and impatience by the canadian people and government with the US and their 'shenanigans' that i never thought i would see. For most of my teen/20's Canada has always been the docile neighbor that smile and nodded when the US acted up. To see the increased occurence of Canada standing up for themselves to the US (and other countries have as well) - it makes me wonder if this is yet another piece of the 'decline of an empire' puzzle.
posted by Kelly at
17:17
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