For me the worst thing of the last 20 years has been the "ahistorical turn" where people aren't even interested in looking at the 1990s or the 1970s never mind the heroic age of Communism or the Ancien Reigme solar economy.
Personally I think ancient Japan is more interesting than ancient Rome because Kyoto didn't fall so far and the Tokugawa age made the transition to the Meiji age at a running pace. But really, looking at distant times and places gives some insight into the possibility that things could be different and we're not stuck in a postmodern end of history.
Japan was "just" another example that the contest between republicanism and monarchism (/imperialism) cannot be resolved internally?
What would be a historical counterexample? (I don't think the British commonwealth counts either, Suez was the final nail, but the hammer wasn't British)
Looking forward, if the Vatican becomes even more democratic even as it becomes less relevant...
Which is not to declare a win for historical pessimism. My personal ideology is that it's a simpler problem to scale Switzerland (monarchism never took hold there, albeit with an assist from the V but scaling S would also involve removing the necessity of natural borders-- a straightforward task for Catholicism-infused Daoists*?)
One might also already argue that that's the rde of EU
(*Pareidoliacally, the role of the feminine [yin] counter is nascent not just in siblings Zuckerberg & Altman, but also AMD ;)
PaulHoule•7mo ago
Personally I think ancient Japan is more interesting than ancient Rome because Kyoto didn't fall so far and the Tokugawa age made the transition to the Meiji age at a running pace. But really, looking at distant times and places gives some insight into the possibility that things could be different and we're not stuck in a postmodern end of history.
gsf_emergency_2•7mo ago
https://archive.ph/EyV7r
Japan was "just" another example that the contest between republicanism and monarchism (/imperialism) cannot be resolved internally?
What would be a historical counterexample? (I don't think the British commonwealth counts either, Suez was the final nail, but the hammer wasn't British)
Looking forward, if the Vatican becomes even more democratic even as it becomes less relevant...
Which is not to declare a win for historical pessimism. My personal ideology is that it's a simpler problem to scale Switzerland (monarchism never took hold there, albeit with an assist from the V but scaling S would also involve removing the necessity of natural borders-- a straightforward task for Catholicism-infused Daoists*?)
One might also already argue that that's the rde of EU
(*Pareidoliacally, the role of the feminine [yin] counter is nascent not just in siblings Zuckerberg & Altman, but also AMD ;)